EarthScape

Researchers in Japan have engineered a membrane with advanced features capable of removing harmful greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. Their findings, published in the British journal Nature Communications, may one day contribute to lower greenhouse gas emissions and cleaner skies. Greenhouse gases, originating from industrial processes and the burning of fossil fuels, blanket the earth…

This September 1 is the 100th anniversary of a landmark event in the history of biodiversity. On that day in 1914, at about one o’clock in the afternoon, Martha – the last surviving passenger pigeon – died at the Cincinnati Zoo. It is extraordinary to know with virtual certainty the day and hour when a…

Wine only protects against cardiovascular disease (CVD) in people who exercise, according to results from the In Vino Veritas (IVV) study presented at ESC Congress today by Professor Milos Taborsky from the Czech Republic. Professor Taborsky said: “This is the first randomised trial comparing the effects of red and white wine on markers of atherosclerosis…

Until recently, little has been known about what genetic changes transform wild animals into domesticated ones. An international team of scientists, one of whom is a University of Montana assistant professor, has made a breakthrough by showing that genes controlling the development of the brain and the nervous system were particularly important for rabbit domestication.…

I can’t help but smile when I see a puffin, and I know I’m not alone. Thousands of people board tour boats each summer in Maine to get a glimpse of these charming seabirds with their tuxedo plumage and rainbow beaks. But what’s in those beaks is serious business. The forage fish that puffin parents…

Water scarcity is not a problem just for the developing world. In California, legislators are currently proposing a $7.5 billion emergency water plan to their voters; and U.S. federal officials last year warned residents of Arizona and Nevada that they could face cuts in Colorado River water deliveries in 2016. Irrigation techniques, industrial and residential…

Abandoned landfill sites throughout the UK routinely leach polluting chemicals into rivers, say scientists. At Port Meadow alone, on the outskirts of Oxford, they estimate 27.5 tonnes of ammonium a year find their way from landfill into the River Thames. The researchers say it could be happening at thousands of sites around the UK.

An independent report on fracking has recommended a temporary moratorium on the controversial process and says that communities should give permission before it can proceed. The interdisciplinary expert panel set up by the Nova Scotia regional government says the science of fracking is relatively unknown and therefore its introduction should be delayed in the Province…

After reporting the country’s first domestically acquired case of dengue fever in nearly 70 years yesterday, Japan’s health ministry today confirmed finding two more patients. The initial patient, a girl in her teens, had a sudden onset of high fever on 20 August and was hospitalized in Saitama City, near Tokyo. Hospital staff, suspecting dengue,…

Roads make it possible to bring goods to market, to get to the office, to log a forest, to hunt its wildlife. Without roads, human society as we know it could not exist. However, to build roads, trees must be cleared and swamps drained, shrinking valuable wildlife habitat and fragmenting populations in the process. A…