Month: October 2017

  • How Aquaculture Is Threatening the Native Fish Species of Africa

    In 1995, Adrian Piers, a veteran aquaculture consultant, imported a batch of Australian red claw crayfish to the tiny southern African monarchy of Swaziland. He began raising the attractive blue-green crustaceans — the males of which have red stripes on their claws and can weigh a little more than a pound — in ponds rented…

  • Tropical Forest Reserves Slow Down Global Warming

    National parks and nature reserves in South America, Africa and Asia, created to protect wildlife, heritage sites and the territory of indigenous people, are reducing carbon emissions from tropical deforestation by a third, and so are slowing the rate of global warming, a new study shows.

  • Peatland Plants Adapting Well to Climate Change, Suggests Study

    They account for just three per cent of the Earth’s surface but play a major role in offsetting carbon dioxide emissions – and now a team of scientists led by the universities of Southampton and Utrecht has discovered that the plants that make up peat bogs adapt exceptionally well to climate change.

  • NASA Finds Winds Shear Still Affecting Tropical Storm Saola

    NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP satellite and NASA's Aqua satellite imagery showed wind shear was still affecting Tropical Storm Saola.as it moved through the Philippine Sea.

  • NASA Finds New Tropical Storm Selma Has Heavy Rain-making Potential

    Tropical Storm Selma formed in the Eastern Pacific Ocean off the coast of El Salvador and NASA infrared satellite imagery revealed the storm has very cold cloud top temperatures indicating the potential for heavy rain.

  • September 2017's Intense Solar Activity Viewed From Space

    September 2017 saw a spate of solar activity, with the Sun emitting 27 M-class and four X-class flares and releasing several powerful coronal mass ejections, or CMEs, between Sept. 6-10. Solar flares are powerful bursts of radiation, while coronal mass ejections are massive clouds of solar material and magnetic fields that erupt from the Sun…

  • Swarms of Monarch Butterflies Stuck Up North

    Tens of thousands of monarch butterflies that should be in Texas by now, en route to their wintering grounds in Mexico, are still in the northern U.S. and Canada, their migrations delayed due to above-average temperatures and strong winds this fall.

  • How cities can fight climate change most effectively

    What are the best ways for U.S. cities to combat climate change? A new study co-authored by an MIT professor indicates it will be easier for cities to reduce emissions coming from residential energy use rather than from local transportation — and this reduction will happen mostly thanks to better building practices, not greater housing…

  • Urban heat and cool island effects controlled by agriculture and irrigation

    As Earth’s climate continues to warm, the urban heat island effect raises concerns that city-dwellers will suffer more heat stress than their rural counterparts. However, new research suggests that some cities actually experience a cooling effect. More than 60 percent of urban areas in India experience a day-time cooling effect, according to the study, which was published…

  • Deadly lead: How lead poisoning affected the Roman Empire

    McMaster researchers are investigating how lead poisoning affected human health in the Roman Empire.The research, jointly led by Tracy Prowse, an associate professor in McMaster's Department of Anthropology and Professor Maureen Carroll from the University of Sheffield’s Department of Archaeology, is the first study to investigate lead production and use in the Roman Empire, using…