ScienceDaily (July 28, 2011) — In a study published in this week’s issue of Nature, Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) senior scientist Gauis Shaver and his colleagues, including lead author Michelle Mack of the University of Florida, describe the dramatic impacts of a massive Arctic wildfire on carbon releases to the atmosphere. The 2007 blaze on…

In the first of a two-part sport and environment special, Isabella Kaminski reports on how habitat damage, waste, nanotechnology and persistent organic pollutants are increasingly linked to our favourite outdoor pursuits.

Being eaten by lions is probably something we’d all like to avoid. Deadly 60 presenter Steve Backshall shares his top tips to help us steer clear of the killer jaws of big cats. 1. Stay in the car. “Lions don’t see a car as prey, so you’re safer inside’, our director Giles insists, if you’re…

As much of Texas suffers through one of its worst droughts, many rain-starved Texans are doing something they thought they would never do — looking forward to the arrival of a tropical storm. “Someone’s going to get it. We hope that it’s us,” is how Danielle Hale sums up the situation. She is the Emergency…

The biomedical research community is elated by today’s federal court decision to throw out a lawsuit that threatened to shut down federally funded research on human embryonic stem cells (hESCs). U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia Chief Judge Royce Lamberth, who earlier had ruled against the National Institutes of Health, this time came…

Enacted in 1993, before climate change was so prominent in the public media eye, the US Northwest Forest Plan’s primary goal was the conservation of old growth forests on public land, and thereby also protecting threatened and endangered species, such as the northern spotted owl. Forest harvests in those public forests dropped precipitously, by 82%,…

Once again the United States is experiencing record hot temperatures this summer, which means that electric grids are working harder than ever to provide the energy needed to keep commercial buildings and their employees cool. And, as businesses try to keep costs down the increased use of air conditioners continues to be a drain on…

There are always oddities and strange patterns. For the first time, Tufts University biologists have reported that bioelectrical signals are necessary for normal head and facial formation in an organism and have captured that process in a time-lapse video that reveals never-before-seen patterns of visible bioelectrical signals outlining where eyes, nose, mouth, and other features…

Researchers have found evidence to add hearing loss to secondhand smoke’s growing list of negative health effects. Unusual as it sounds, a recent analysis shows secondhand smoke may harm areas other than the respiratory system in teens.

A historic drought in the southern Plains intensified in the last week and contributed to dry conditions emerging in the heart of the Midwest crop belt, a weekly climatologists’ report said Thursday. The weekly U.S. Drought Monitor, produced by a consortium of national climate experts, showed abnormally dry conditions affecting a significant area of the…