Environmental Science News - SciTechDaily

Toxic Legacies: The Lasting Threat of Historic DDT Dumping off Los Angeles Coast

University of California – San Diego — Tue, 18 Jun 2024 23:50:48 +0000

New research shows that deep-sea fish near Catalina Island are contaminated with DDT-related chemicals, revealing ongoing risks from decades-old pollution. During the mid-20th century, the country’s largest DDT manufacturer used the ocean off the Los Angeles coast as a dumping site. This chemical, harmful to both human health and wildlife, still lingers in the coastal [...]

Global Warming Is Changing Plants’ Pollination Patterns – and It Could Have Disastrous Consequences for Food Stability

Katherine Egan Bennett, University of Texas at Arlington — Fri, 07 Jun 2024 08:52:55 +0000

A new study by researchers at The University of Texas at Arlington, the University of Nevada, Reno, and Virginia Tech reveals that climate change has led to reduced pollen production in plants and less pollen diversity, potentially threatening food production. Behnaz Balmaki, the study’s lead author and an assistant professor of research in biology at [...]

Climate Change Oddity: Rivers in Alaska Are Turning Orange

Emily C. Dooley, University of California – Davis — Sat, 25 May 2024 13:26:08 +0000

Thawing permafrost in Alaska is staining rivers orange, impacting water quality and ecosystems. In Alaska, numerous remote streams and rivers are shifting from their natural crystal-clear blue to an unsettling cloudy orange. According to a recent publication in the Nature journal Communications: Earth and Environment, this could be caused by minerals exposed by thawing permafrost. [...]

The Downfall of “Umbrella Science”: Researchers Need To Step Out Into the Rain

American Institute of Biological Sciences — Tue, 29 Aug 2023 15:24:17 +0000

To be outstanding in one’s field, one may need to be out standing in one’s field. An interdisciplinary research team led by John T. Van Stan from Cleveland State University argues that scientists should venture beyond the laboratory to directly observe weather phenomena like rain, snow, or occult deposition. In a paper published in the [...]

Concerning – New Detection Method Uncovers Massive Amount of Methane

University of California - Riverside — Wed, 19 Apr 2023 19:29:53 +0000

Advancement in pollution detection methods raises questions about current environmental policies. UC Riverside scientists have discovered a massive amount of methane, a highly potent greenhouse gas, being released from wildfires using a novel detection method. This raises concerns as this source of methane emission is not being monitored by state air quality authorities. According to [...]

Plastic Containers Can Contain Toxic “Forever Chemicals” – And They Are Getting Into Food

University of Notre Dame — Sat, 01 Apr 2023 20:51:51 +0000

Scientists at the University of Notre Dame are expanding their list of consumer products that contain PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances), a harmful group of fluorine-based compounds known as “forever chemicals.” A new study published in Environmental Science and Technology Letters has revealed that fluorinated high-density polyethylene (HDPE) plastic containers, which are commonly used for [...]

The “Wrong Kind of Fire” Is Burning – Unprecedented Levels of High-Severity Fire Burn in Sierra Nevada

University of California - Davis — Sun, 26 Feb 2023 00:36:42 +0000

Compared to historical patterns, the “wrong kind of fire” is burning. According to a study conducted by the Safford Lab at the University of California, Davis and its partners, there has been a significant rise in high-severity wildfires in the Sierra Nevada and Southern Cascade forests. These fires have been burning at rates that surpass [...]

Scientists Discover an Unexpected Danger Lurking in Ancient Mayan Cities

Frontiers — Wed, 14 Dec 2022 18:11:08 +0000

Mercury exposure may have been a health risk for the ancient Maya. Mesoamerica’s ancient Maya cities never cease to amaze visitors. However, an unexpected danger lurks under the soil’s surface: mercury pollution. Researchers have found in a review article published in the journal Frontiers in Environmental Science that this pollution is not modern: it is [...]

Scientists Finally Discover What Caused the Collapse of This Ancient Kingdom

University of Basel — Sat, 23 Jul 2022 19:30:03 +0000

Droughts in the sixth century helped Islam gain ground Extreme dryness aided the collapse of the ancient South Arabian kingdom of Himyar. The journal Science has recently published these discoveries by researchers from the University of Basel. The droughts left an area in disarray and, when coupled with political unrest and war, helped to create [...]

Scientists Create Cement Entirely Out of Waste Material

Nanyang Technological University — Sun, 12 Jun 2022 04:38:55 +0000

Creating renewable biocement entirely out of waste material Cement is a binder, a substance used in construction that hardens, sets, and adheres to other materials to bind them together. When sand and gravel are combined with cement, concrete is produced. Cement is classified as hydraulic or non-hydraulic, with non-hydraulic cement not setting when water is [...]

Making Electricity Cheaper: A Cellphone-Sized Device Automatically Adjusts a Home’s Power Use to Save Money

Kimberly Hickok, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory — Fri, 29 Apr 2022 11:47:00 +0000

A cellphone-sized device automatically adjusts a home’s power use up or down to save the consumer money and increase the resiliency of the electric grid. The effects of climate change are pushing electrical grids around the world to their limits. Last year, unprecedented cold weather caused people in Texas to turn up their thermostats, which [...]

Crucial Tool for Managing Global Warming Allows Scientists To Measure Carbon Without Disturbing Plants

Adam Becker, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory — Thu, 14 Apr 2022 12:31:58 +0000

Scientists develop a new way to take a census of carbon in the ground under our feet – a crucial tool for managing climate change Physicists and soil scientists at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have teamed up to develop a new method for finding carbon stored in the soil [...]

Amazing Image Reveals Distribution of Aerosols in Earth’s Atmosphere

NASA Earth Observatory — Mon, 03 Sep 2018 14:48:23 +0000

On August 23, 2018 the identification and distribution of aerosols in the Earth’s atmosphere is shown in this dramatic, planet-wide visualization. Produced in real time, the Goddard Earth Observing System Forward Processing (GEOS FP) model relies on a combination of Earth-observing satellite and ground-based data to calculate the presence of types of aerosols, tiny solid [...]

Satellite Imagery Reveals the Above Anvil Cirrus Plume of a Storm

Joe Atkinson, NASA's Langley Research Center — Thu, 16 Aug 2018 12:33:02 +0000

It’s not quite a smoking gun, but one could be forgiven for thinking of it that way: a distinctive cloud formation that often signals damaging storms below. Easily identifiable in satellite imagery, the Above Anvil Cirrus Plume, or AACP, looks like a plume of smoke emanating out from the top of what, in all likelihood, [...]

NASA Tracks Carbon Monoxide from California Wildfires As It Drifts East

Esprit Smith, Jet Propulsion Laboratory — Wed, 15 Aug 2018 03:08:02 +0000

California is being plagued by massive wildfires, and the effects on air quality from those fires can extend far beyond the state’s borders. In addition to ash and smoke, fires release carbon monoxide into the atmosphere. Carbon monoxide is a pollutant that can persist in the atmosphere for about a month and can be transported [...]

NASA Views One of the Most Rapidly Changing Glaciers in the World

Yvette Smith, NASA — Wed, 08 Aug 2018 13:00:16 +0000

The Columbia Glacier descends from an ice field 10,000 feet (3,050 meters) above sea level, down the flanks of the Chugach Mountains, and into a narrow inlet that leads into Prince William Sound in southeastern Alaska. It is one of the most rapidly changing glaciers in the world. Changes to the Columbia Glacier were tracked over more than [...]

Scientists Examine the Microbes That Thrive in Air Conditioning

Bill Hathaway, Yale University — Mon, 23 Jul 2018 15:10:47 +0000

Typically, we don’t think too much about the inner workings of our air-conditioning units, even as we enjoy the relief they bring on sweltering days. But Yale researchers have found that microbes are in abundance on the coils within A/C units – some more than others, depending on conditions. The study, from the lab of [...]

Link Between Individual Variation in Risk-Taking Behavior and Survival Revealed

Peter Reuell, Harvard Staff Writer — Tue, 10 Jul 2018 13:26:40 +0000

For more than a century, scientists have understood that natural selection has profound effects on how an animal looks. Anole lizards that spend more time on the ground, for example, need longer legs for running, while species that remain in the trees usually have shorter legs better suited for climbing. But can different behaviors be [...]

Evolution of Earth’s First Animals Caused Global Warming

Alex Morrison, University Of Exeter — Mon, 02 Jul 2018 13:15:39 +0000

The evolution of Earth’s first animals more than 500 million years ago caused global warming, new research shows. Some 520-540 million years ago, animal life evolved in the ocean and began breaking down organic material on the seafloor, leading to more carbon dioxide and less oxygen in the atmosphere. In the 100 million years that [...]

Air Pollution Significantly Increases Mortality in Low-Income Countries

Dr. Susanne Benner, Max Planck Institute — Sun, 01 Jul 2018 13:45:56 +0000

In 2015, around 4.5 million people died prematurely from diseases attributed to ambient air pollution, including 237,000 children under the age of five from respiratory infections. This is the result of a study published by the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. According to the [...]

Scientists Reveal How And Why Antarctica’s Glaciers Are Changing

Matthew Wright, University of Maryland — Wed, 13 Jun 2018 18:22:20 +0000

New research review provides insights into the continent’s response to climate warming. Scientists from the University of Maryland, the University of Leeds, and the University of California, San Diego, have reviewed decades of satellite measurements to reveal how and why Antarctica’s glaciers, ice shelves, and sea ice are changing. Their report, published in a special [...]

ESF Scientists List Top 10 New Species for 2018

Claire B. Dunn, College of Environmental Science and Forestry — Wed, 23 May 2018 15:56:25 +0000

The large and small, beautiful and bizarre are among the newly discovered animals, plants and microbes announced by the College of Environmental Science and Forestry (ESF) as the Top 10 New Species for 2018. The large is a majestic tree that towers up to 130 feet (40 m); among the small is a tiny, single-celled [...]

Scientists Detail How Coyotes Conquered the Continent

Roland Kays, North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences — Wed, 23 May 2018 15:38:40 +0000

Coyotes now live across North America, from Alaska to Panama, California to Maine. But where they came from, and when, has been debated for decades. Using museum specimens and fossil records, researchers from the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences and North Carolina State University have produced a comprehensive (and unprecedented) range history of the [...]

MIT Engineers Reveal the Intricacies of a Splashing Droplet

Jennifer Chu, Massachusetts Institute of Technology — Mon, 21 May 2018 15:17:27 +0000

As a single raindrop falls to the ground, it can splash back up in a crown-like sheet, spraying smaller droplets from its rim before sinking back to the surface — all in the blink of an eye. Now researchers at MIT have found a way to track the thickness of a droplet’s rim as it [...]