NASA satellite finds unreported sources of toxic air pollution
Greenbelt MD (SPX) Jun 07, 2016 -
Using a new satellite-based method, scientists at NASA, Environment and Climate Change Canada, and two universities have located 39 unreported and major human-made sources of toxic sulfur dioxide emissions.
A known health hazard and contributor to acid rain, sulfur dioxide (SO2) is one of six air pollutants regulated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Current, sulfur dioxide moni ...
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Tropical Storm Colin: Florida declares state of emergency
Miami (AFP) June 6, 2016 -
Tropical Storm Colin strengthened Monday as it approached the west coast of Florida, where officials declared a state of emergency under threat from high winds, heavy rain and possible tornadoes.
Colin, which formed Sunday in the Gulf of Mexico, is expected to cross the southern state with maximum sustained winds reaching 50 miles (85 kilometers) per hour, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) ...
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Cleaning up decades of phosphorus pollution in lakes
Oxford, UK (SPX) Jun 07, 2016 -
Phosphorus is the biggest cause of water quality degradation worldwide, causing 'dead zones', toxic algal blooms, a loss of biodiversity and increased health risks for the plants, animals and humans that come in contact with polluted waters. This threatens the loss of economic and social benefits from freshwaters upon which society relies. In a series of studies published in a special issue of W ...
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Mapping that sinking feeling
Paris (ESA) Jun 07, 2016 -
For a low-lying, densely populated country like the Netherlands, monitoring subsidence is critical. Until recently, tiny displacements in the ground beneath our feet couldn't be mapped nationally but, thanks to the Sentinel-1 mission, this is now possible.
Focusing on the Netherlands and Denmark, scientists have been using radar images from the Sentinel-1A satellite to pinpoint where the g ...
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A protective shield against the heavy metal uranium
Dresden, Germany (SPX) Jun 07, 2016 -
Microorganisms can better withstand the heavy metal uranium when glutathione is present, a molecule composed of three amino acids. Scientists from the German based Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) and the University of Bern in Switzerland have now proven this resilience by closely examining cell heat balance. They discovered that glutathione is an effective decontamination agent. The ...
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Lucy had neighbors: A review of African fossils
Cleveland OH (SPX) Jun 07, 2016 -
If "Lucy" wasn't alone, who else was in her neighborhood? Key fossil discoveries over the last few decades in Africa indicate that multiple early human ancestor species lived at the same time more than 3 million years ago. A new review of fossil evidence from the last few decades examines four identified hominin species that co-existed between 3.8 and 3.3 million years ago during the middle Plio ...
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New support for human evolution in grasslands
New York NY (SPX) Jun 07, 2016 -
Buried deep in seabed sediments off east Africa, scientists have uncovered a 24-million-year record of vegetation trends in the region where humans evolved. The authors say the record lends weight to the idea that we developed key traits - flexible diets, large brains, complex social structures and the ability to walk and run on two legs - while adapting to the spread of open grasslands. The stu ...
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Early farmers from across Europe were direct descendants of Aegeans
Mainz, Germany (SPX) Jun 07, 2016 -
For most of the last 45,000 years Europe was inhabited solely by hunter-gatherers. About 8,500 years ago a new form of subsistence - farming - started to spread across the continent from modern-day Turkey, reaching central Europe by 7,500 years ago and Britain by 6,100 years ago.
This new subsistence strategy led to profound changes in society, including greater population density, new dis ...
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NASA studies details of a greening Arctic
Greenbelt MD (SPX) Jun 07, 2016 -
The northern reaches of North America are getting greener, according to a NASA study that provides the most detailed look yet at plant life across Alaska and Canada. In a changing climate, almost a third of the land cover - much of it Arctic tundra - is looking more like landscapes found in warmer ecosystems.
With 87,000 images taken from Landsat satellites, converted into data that reflec ...
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Research proves Aboriginal Australians were first inhabitants
Nathan, Australia (SPX) Jun 07, 2016 -
Griffith University researchers have found evidence that demonstrates Aboriginal people were the first to inhabit Australia, as reported in the prestigious Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal this week. The work refutes an earlier landmark study that claimed to recover DNA sequences from the oldest known Australian, Mungo Man.
This earlier study was interpreted as evide ...
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Inbred Neanderthals left humans a genetic burden
Washington DC (SPX) Jun 07, 2016 -
The Neanderthal genome included harmful mutations that made the hominids around 40% less reproductively fit than modern humans, according to estimates published in the latest issue of the journal GENETICS. Non-African humans inherited some of this genetic burden when they interbred with Neanderthals, though much of it has been lost over time.
The results suggest that these harmful gene var ...
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This desert moss has developed the ultimate water collection toolkit
Logan UT (SPX) Jun 07, 2016 -
Finding water in the desert is a relatively easy task for a species of moss that seems to flourish in even the most arid regions. That's according to a new study by a team of scientists and engineers who wanted to understand how Syntrichia caninervis succeeds despite its limited and inconsistent water supplies. The findings show for the first time how the highly evolved bryophyte survives in ext ...
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What Satellites Show About Arctic Climate Change
Greenbelt MD (SPX) Jun 07, 2016 -
It is not news that Earth has been warming rapidly over the last 100 years as greenhouse gases accumulate in the atmosphere. But not all warming has been happening equally rapidly everywhere. Temperatures in the Arctic, for example, are rising much faster than the rest of the planet.
Patrick Taylor, an atmospheric scientist at NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, says that ...
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Pristine landscapes haven't existed for thousands of years due to humans
Oxford UK (SPX) Jun 07, 2016 -
'Pristine' landscapes simply do not exist anywhere in the world today and, in most cases, have not existed for at least several thousand years, says a new study in the journal, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). An exhaustive review of archaeological data from the last 30 years provides details of how the world's landscapes have been shaped by repeated human activity over ma ...
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