EarthScape

Pollination can occur in several different ways, but usually plants rely on animals or wind to help pollinate them and help distribute their pollen and seeds. However, a new study shows that apple trees produce bigger, rounder, and more desirable fruit when pollinated by insects in particular. Researchers studied Cox and Gala apples, two popular…

Wildlife in Switzerland is seeking relief from warming temperatures by moving higher up the mountains, reports Tim Radford. Animals and plants are already today adapting to the rising temperatures at a surprising pace. Alpine ecosystems are on the rise. Between 2003 and 2010, plants have managed to scramble up another eight metres of mountain slope.…

Whether or not you have a green thumb, if a plant is not completely happy with the right about of water, sunlight, or even the right make-up of soil, plants will slow their growth or even stop growing altogether in order to save energy. But according to new research led by scientists at Durham University,…

Falling levels of nitrogen in the atmosphere across Europe may be much more economically beneficial than previously believed, according to a recent study. Indeed, scientists think the UK alone benefits by around £65 million a year. Levels of atmospheric nitrogen have fallen by around a quarter in Europe since 1990, mostly because of tighter rules…

Walden Pond isn’t just the site of Henry David Thoreau’s two-year stint in which he documented a more simple, natural life, it is now the subject of a climate change study that shows how leaf-out times of trees and shrubs have changed since the 1850s. As a result of Thoreau’s observations, researchers at Boston University…

Good news for those living at the intersection of manufacturing and environmentalism. Here in the U.S., sales of plug-in electric and hybrid vehicles almost doubled between 2012 and 2013 with an 84 percent jump to 96,600 of the vehicles sold. That’s 49,000 plug-in hybrids (like the Volt) and 47,600 pure battery powered plug-in vehicles sold.

Think of it as another practice run for local and federal crisis management. The chemical spill into the Elk River that breached the containment walls of one of Charleston, W.Va’s largest industries last week has closed schools, stopped commercial flights and converted the state capitol’s downtown core to a “ghost town.” It’s also painted an…

Pine Island Glacier, the largest single contributor to sea-level rise in Antarctica, has started shrinking, say scientists. The work, published in Nature Climate Change, shows the glacier’s retreat may have begun an irreversible process that could see the amount of water it is adding to the ocean increase five-fold. ‘At the Pine Island Glacier we…

Swiss plants, butterflies and birds have moved 8 to 42 meters uphill between 2003 and 2010, as scientists from the University of Basel write in the online journal PLoS One. Climate warming is changing the distribution of plants and animals worldwide. Recently it was shown that in the past two decades, European bird and butterfly…

The situation looks grim for Rhode Island and the rest of the East Coast when it come to climate change. In fact, the outlook is getting worse, according to state officials. Grover Fugate, head of the Rhode Island Coastal Resources Management Council (CRMC) and the face of the state’s climate research and planning, recently said…