Horvath, G. et al. 2009. Polarized light pollution: a new kind of ecological photopollution. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment DOI:10.1890/080129.
Light pollution can happen in the daytime, too—which could be disastrous for some species, according to a study in Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment. At issue are glass buildings, asphalt roads, and […] Read More »
Kilpatrick, A.M. et al. 2009. Wildlife-livestock conflict: the risk of pathogen transmission from bison to cattle outside Yellowstone National Park. Journal of Applied Ecology. DOI:10.1111/j.1365-2664.2008.01602.x.
So much for “home on the range.” When heavy snow forces Yellowstone bison to move down to nearby ranchlands, wildlife managers try to herd the animals back into the […] Read More »
Barnes, D.K.A. et al. 2008. Marine, intertidal, freshwater, and terrestrial biodiversity of an isolated polar archipelago. Journal of Biogeography. DOI:10.1111/j.1365-2699.2008.02030.x.
At first glance, the South Orkney Islands could hardly seem less hospitable: they sit just 600 kilometers north of Antarctica, 85 percent of their land mass is covered by glaciers, and temperatures rarely climb […] Read More »
Cement production is responsible for more CO2 output than the entire aviation industry, and with demand for concrete expected to grow 50 percent by 2020, the problem won’t go away anytime soon. But engineers at the London-based company Novacem have come up with a novel solution: a new type of carbon-absorbing cement that could […] Read More »
You’d think one womb would be enough. Not for female gray nurse sharks, which house dozens of embryos in two wombs and then sit idly by as the baby sharks eat each other in utero. The two strongest (or at least hungriest) sharks, one from each uterus, are born alone into the sea.
This […] Read More »
Oczkowski, J.A. et al. 2009. Anthropogenic enhancement of Egypt’s Mediterranean fishery. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences DOI:10.1073/pnas.0812568106.
Researchers have uncovered a strange twist in the otherwise sad story of agricultural runoff. Overloaded with nutrients from fertilizer, animal waste, and sewage, parts of the sea have become oxygen-deprived dead zones. But the same […] Read More »
Each spring and fall, a grisly spectacle plays out above the North Sea. As millions of migrating birds fly overhead, the lights of offshore oil and gas installations throw the birds off course. Some birds die in collisions with the installations, while others spend hours circling until exhaustion forces them to fall from the […] Read More »
Ridgwell, A. et al. 2009. Tackling regional climate change by leaf albedo bio-geoengineering. Current Biology. DOI:10.1016/j.cub.2008.12.025.
Farm fields with bling may be the next big thing in agriculture, if scientists from the University of Bristol have their say. In Current Biology, they propose that farmers fight climate change by planting crops that reflect more […] Read More »
Hanson, T. et al. 2009. Warfare in biodiversity hotspots. Conservation Biology DOI: 10.1111/j.1523-1739.2009.01166.x
Not even conservation areas are safe from war. Eighty percent of the 146 armed conflicts occurring between 1950 and 2000 took place within the world’s biodiversity hotspots, according to a study in Conservation Biology.
To reach this conclusion, researchers cross-referenced the […] Read More »
Johnston, M. et al. 2008. Resetting global expectations from agricultural biofuels. Environmental Research Letters DOI:10.1088/1748-9326/4/1/014004
From corn and castor to sorghum and sweet potato, it seems like almost any crop is capable of running our cars these days. But as biofuel boosters talk up production potential of these various feedstocks, new data suggest that […] Read More »
