EarthScape

A Zika virus outbreak in coastal Ecuador in 2016 was likely worsened by a strong El Niño and a magnitude 7.8 earthquake that struck the region in April, according to a new study.

The economically important big bluestem grass — a dominant prairie grass and a major forage grass for cattle — is predicted to reduce its growth and stature by up to 60 percent percent in the next 75 years because of climate change, according to a study involving Kansas State University researchers.

NASA scientists are once again on the hunt for greenhouse gases in the sky.

Infrared imagery from NASA’s Aqua satellite showed powerful thunderstorms around the center of Tropical Storm Ophelia with a band of thunderstorms stretching to the southwest, giving the storm the appearance of a comma.

Aside from inflicting devastating natural disasters on often vulnerable communities, climate change can also spur outbreaks of infectious diseases like Zika , malaria and dengue fever, according to a new study by researchers at the University of  Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus.

It’s a touchy subject — literally. Samuel Andrew Hires, assistant professor of biological sciences, wants to know how the brain learns to understand what we’re touching. Understanding how this works could one day be a boon for people who have suffered a stroke or spinal cord injury.

In freshwater lakes, microbes regulate the flow of carbon and determine if the bodies of water serve as carbon sinks or carbon sources. Algae and cyanobacteria in particular can trap and use carbon, but their capacity to do so may be impacted by viruses. Viruses exist amidst all bacteria, usually in a 10-fold excess, and…

From optimizing food production to feed a growing population to discovering the fundamental behaviors and processes of biopolymers, faculty in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) are leveraging the interdisciplinary nature of the department to establish two new, innovative projects.

While strong seasonal hurricanes have devastated many of the Caribbean and Bahamian islands this year, geologic studies on several of these islands illustrate that more extreme conditions existed in the past. A new analysis published in Marine Geology shows that the limestone islands of the Bahamas and Bermuda experienced climate changes that were even more extreme than historical events.…

“Ozone depletion is a well-known phenomenon and, thanks to the success of the Montreal Protocol, is widely perceived as a problem solved,” says University of East Anglia’s David Oram. But an international team of researchers, led by Oram, has now found an unexpected, growing danger to the ozone layer from substances not regulated by the…