EarthScape

When studying the effect of climate change on biodiversity, it is important to consider the climate near the ground (microclimate) which a plant or an animal actually experiences. Deep shady depressions, dense old forests or places close to water for example are always considerably cooler than their surroundings.

This summer, the Norwegian energy company, Statoil, will send a vessel to survey a triangular slice of federal waters about 15 miles south of Long Island, where the company is planning to construct a wind farm that could generate up to 1.5 gigawatts of electricity for New York City and Long Island — enough to power roughly 1…

Imagine driving down a busy highway in winter: The weather is clear and you are going the speed limit.Suddenly, traffic is enveloped by white-out conditions with little to no visibility and strong, gusty winds. As you slow down, you see a chain-reaction of vehicles swerving, colliding into each other in the distance like amusement park…

Paulette McIlvena went to bed, at home, and woke up three weeks later, in hospital. She became severely ill due to complications from pancreatitis. While she was in a coma McIlvena underwent surgery and was put on dialysis as a temporary measure. Following those events in 2004, the pancreatitis cleared up, McIlvena’s kidneys started working…

When Josh Daskin traveled to Mozambique’s Gorongosa National Park in 2012, its iconic large animals were returning from the brink of extinction. Gorongosa, among Africa’s most spectacular wildlife preserves until the 1970s, had been devastated by an anti-colonial war of liberation followed by a ghastly 15-year civil war — a one-two punch that exterminated more…

Torrential rainfall during a tropical cyclone could be responsible for reshaping the shallow layer of Earth’s crust in the days following the storm, according to new research.

When it comes to marine plankton, the smaller you are the farther you travel. A new international study found that the size of plankton, and the strength and direction of currents, are key to how they are dispersed in the ocean – much more so than physical conditions including differences in temperature, salinity and nutrient availability.

It’s simple math, says a University of Alberta conservation biologist. More roads equals fewer grizzly bears.In a recent study examining a non-invasive DNA (hair collection) dataset of grizzly bear activity in British Columbia, Clayton Lamb and his colleagues determined what scientists have long suspected: higher road density leads to lower grizzly bear density—a critical problem…

The Great Lakes will have a network of well-equipped guardians thanks to a plan hatched by a UWindsor researcher with funding from the Canada Foundation for Innovation and Ontario’s Ministry of Research, Innovation and Science and Ministry of Economic Development and Growth.Aaron Fisk and his nine collaborators will receive $15.9 million for the Real-time Aquatic…

A team of scientists at the Keck School of Medicine of USC is looking to some deep sea dwellers to create a better way to develop cancer-fighting therapies. Harnessing the power of the enzymes that give these marine animals the ability to glow, the team created a test that makes it easy for researchers to see whether…