EU sees light at the end of the climate tunnel
Brussels (UPI) Nov 11, 2014 -
The ability to limit global warming and effectively combat climate change is within our reach, the European climate commissioner said Tuesday.
"We have a choice and we must have the political courage to act now, with ambition and collectively,"
Members of the European Union in October agreed to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent, increase the renewable energy footprint by ...
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Ebola spread boosts British 'Plague Inc' online game
London (AFP) Nov 11, 2014 -
The Ebola epidemic has led to a boom in downloads for the online game "Plague Inc", prompting its British developer to launch a charity initiative and offer it as a teaching tool.
"I didn't want to have my game associated with something as horrific as the current Ebola outbreak," James Vaughan, the 27-year-old behind the company Ndemic Creations, told AFP.
The game, where the aim is to d ...
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Bizarre mapping error puts newly discovered species in jeopardy
New York NY (SPX) Nov 12, 2014 -
WCS scientists in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have discovered a new species of plant living in a remote rift valley escarpment that's supposed to be inside of a protected area. But an administrative mapping error puts the reserve's borders some 50 kilometers west of the actual location. Now the new species, along with 900 other plant varieties and 1,400 chimpanzees, are in limbo with ...
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Biochemistry detective work: Algae at night
Stanford CA (SPX) Nov 12, 2014 -
Photosynthesis is probably the most well-known aspect of plant biochemistry. It enables plants, algae, and select bacteria to transform the energy from sunlight during the daytime into chemical energy in the form of sugars and starches (as well as oils and proteins), and it involves taking in carbon dioxide from the air and releasing oxygen derived from water molecules.
Photosynthetic orga ...
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Anti-organic: Why do some farmers resist profitable change?
Washington DC (SPX) Nov 12, 2014 -
Why do some chemical farmers resist a profitable conversion to organic methods? A new study in the Journal of Marketing suggests it may be because making that change feels like switching belief systems.
"The ideological map of American agriculture reveals an unfolding drama between chemical and organic farming," write authors Melea Press (University of Bath), Eric Arnould (Southern Denmark ...
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Mapping reveals targets for preserving tropical carbon stocks
Washington DC (SPX) Nov 12, 2014 -
A new high-resolution mapping strategy has revealed billions of tons of carbon in Peruvian forests that can be preserved as part of an effort to sequester carbon stocks in the fight against climate change. Tropical forests convert more carbon from the atmosphere into biomass than any other terrestrial ecosystem on Earth.
However, when land is used for agriculture, as a wood source, or for ...
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IU biologists collaborate to refine climate change modeling tools
Bloomington IN (SPX) Nov 12, 2014 -
A new climate change modeling tool developed by scientists at Indiana University, Princeton University and the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration finds that carbon dioxide removal from the atmosphere owing to greater plant growth from rising CO2 levels will be partially offset by changes in the activity of soil microbes that derive their energy from plant root growth.
So ...
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Weeds yet to reach their full potential as invaders
Sydney, Australia (SPX) Nov 12, 2014 -
Weeds in the UK are still evolving hundreds of years after their introduction and are unlikely to have yet reached their full potential as invaders, UNSW Australia scientists have discovered.
The study is the first to have tracked the physical evolution of introduced plant species from the beginning of their invasion to the present day, and was made possible by the centuries-old British tr ...
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We Are Not Alone
Santa Barbara CA (SPX) Nov 12, 2014 -
The adult human body is made up of about 37 trillion cells. Microbes, mainly bacteria, outnumber body cells by 10 to 1. Increasingly, scientists recognize that this huge community of microbes, called the microbiome, affects the health, development and evolution of all multicellular organisms, including humans.
Studies show symbiotic microbes can help prevent infection by disease-causing pa ...
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The oceans' sensitive skin
Kiel, Germany (SPX) Nov 12, 2014 -
Ocean acidification might alter climate-relevant functions of the oceans' uppermost layer, according to a study by a group of marine scientists published in the "Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans".
In an experiment led by GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel, the researchers observed a close coupling between biological processes in the seawater and the chemistry of the sea ...
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Farmers and scientists divided over climate change
West Lafayette IN (SPX) Nov 12, 2014 -
Crop producers and scientists hold deeply different views on climate change and its possible causes, a study by Purdue and Iowa State universities shows.
Associate professor of natural resource social science Linda Prokopy and fellow researchers surveyed 6,795 people in the agricultural sector in 2011-2012 to determine their beliefs about climate change and whether variation in the climate ...
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