Biology
Breach
May 29, 2013, from Time Magazine
Who doesn't want a pristine lawn free of annoying weeds and bugs? But some of those pest-fighting strategies may come with a price -- to your health.
A new study published in the journal Neurology found that pesticides, which have already been linked to a range of health complications from allergies to lower IQ levels, may also play a role in the development of Parkinson's.
May 29, 2013, from State Impact
More than two years ago the Marcellus Shale Coalition, a gas industry trade group, began building an electronic database to house information about the water quality in thousands of private wells across Pennsylvania. It's made up of "pre-drill" or baseline data critical information that helps establish whether drilling operations may have caused water contamination issues.
The project is already up and running, but there are no plans to make it public.
May 29, 2013, from BBC
Scientists from Canada have found that transgenic Atlantic salmon can cross-breed with a closely related species - the brown trout.
The fish, which have been engineered with extra genes to make them grow more quickly, pass on this trait to the hybrid offspring.
The research is published the Proceedings of the Royal Society B..
However, the biotech company AquaBounty, which created the salmon, said any risks were negligible as the fish they were producing were all female, sterile and would be kept in tanks on land.
The transgenic salmon are currently being assessed by the US authorities, and could be the first GM animals to be approved for human consumption.
May 29, 2013, from Kansas City Star
Retailer Wal-Mart resolved years of hazardous-waste complaints Tuesday with criminal guilty pleas in Missouri and California and the settlement of a civil lawsuit filed by federal environmental authorities. The day's admissions cost the company about $81.6 million in fines and penalties, an amount that the company said would "not be material to its financial position."
May 29, 2012, from New York Times
Did offshore oil exploration play a role in the recent deaths of nearly 900 dolphins off the northern Peruvian coast? Peru's fisheries minister said last week that government scientists had ruled that out as a possibility and that the dolphins probably died of natural causes. But a marine veterinarian and conservationist who examined many of the corpses contends they were probably harmed by sound waves from seismic tests used to locate oil deposits.
May 29, 2012, from Associated Press
On a clear day, the view from Beetle Rock in Sequoia National Park extends west for 105 miles across the patchwork of crops in California's agricultural heartland to the Coast Mountains and the Pacific Ocean beyond.
The problem is there are few clear days, even at 6,200 feet.
The Sierra Nevada forest that is home to the biggest living things on earth - the giant Sequoia redwoods - also suffers a dubious distinction. It has the worst air pollution of any national park in the country.
Mountaintops that should offer awe-inspiring views of California's geologic grandeur often are muddled by a disorienting gray soup of smog.
May 29, 2009, from New York Times
...Nationally, cigarette butts account for one-quarter or more of the items tossed onto streets and other roadways, San Francisco and other cities report.... smokers see butts as a more natural kind of trash than, say, a plastic bottle. But they are not biodegradable: they contain plastic filters that enter sewers and storm drains, and get swept into rivers and then out to sea, where they can release toxic chemicals including nicotine, benzene and cadmium. For years, campaigns for heavy per-pack taxes and smoking bans in office buildings, restaurants and bars were driven mainly by health concerns about secondhand smoke, which can lead to lung cancer, emphysema and other diseases. In moving on to butt litter, municipalities are reckoning with the broader environmental consequences of the country's most vilified personal habit.
May 29, 2009, from The Brisbane Courier-Mail
CHEMICAL contamination that caused gross deformities to millions of fish larvae may be more widespread in Noosa waterways than first thought.
Data from the Department of Primary Industries showing chemical contamination in Cooloothin Creek was released two weeks ago but the State Government has been playing down the find, saying the levels are so low as to be insignificant.
However, the scientist who alerted authorities to problems said yesterday that it was likely Kin Kin Creek also was contaminated.
The agricultural chemicals carbendazim, atrazine and metolachlor were found near the Sunland Fish Hatchery by the DPI's Noosa Fish Health Taskforce scientists.
May 29, 2009, from The Spokesman-Review
The trend toward restrictions on lead bullets for hunting gained velocity recently:
•The Department of Interior in March announcement a plan to ban lead ammunition and fishing gear throughout the National Park System by 2011. (Hunting is allowed in some national parks, preserves and monuments to manage wildlife populations.)
•A study published in April provided new evidence that humans and wildlife can be exposed to lead ingestion when eating the meat of game killed with lead bullets.
Some shooting and hunting groups are taking stand against the trend.
May 29, 2009, from London Financial Times
Argentina's government is coming under pressure to ban the chemical used in the world's best-selling herbicide, which has helped turn the country into an important world food exporter in the past decade, after new research found that it might be harmful to human health.
A group of environmental lawyers has petitioned the Supreme Court to impose a six-month ban on the sale and use of glyphosate, which is the basis for many herbicides, including the US agribusiness giant Monsanto's Roundup product.... Research by other Argentine scientists and evidence from local campaigners has indicated a high incidence of birth defects and cancers in people living near crop-spraying areas. One study conducted by a doctor, Rodolfo Páramo, in the northern farming province of Santa Fé reported 12 malformations per 250 births, well above the normal rate.
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Climate
Chaos
May 29, 2012, from EnvironmentalResearchWeb
Comparing detailed measurements taken during the Australian Antarctic program's 2012 Southern Ocean marine science voyage to historical data dating back to 1970, scientists estimate there has been as much as a 60 per cent reduction in the volume of Antarctic Bottom Water, the cold dense water that drives global ocean currents....
"It's a clear signal to us that the oceans are responding rapidly to variations in climate in polar regions. The sinking of dense water around Antarctica is part of a global pattern of ocean currents that has a strong influence on climate, so evidence that these waters are changing is important," Dr Rintoul said....
"When we speak of global warming, we really mean ocean warming: more than 90 per cent of the extra heat energy stored by the earth over the last 50 years has gone into warming up the ocean...."
May 29, 2009, from The Daily Climate
Climate change is disproportionately affecting the poor and minorities in the United States – a "climate gap" that will grow in coming decades unless policymakers intervene, according to a University of California study.
Everyone, the researchers say, is already starting to feel the effects of a warming planet, via heat waves, increased air pollution, drought, or more intense storms. But the impacts – on health, economics, and overall quality of life – are far more acute on society's disadvantaged, the researchers found.
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Resource
Depletion
May 29, 2012, from Los Angeles Times
The Brazilian government is pressing forward with controversial legislation that critics say will lead to widespread destruction of the Amazon rain forest.
After months of heated discussion, President Dilma Rousseff on Monday presented a final version of the bill that was heavily influenced by the country's powerful agricultural lobby.
The update to the country's 1965 Forestry Code would reduce both the amount of vegetation landowners must preserve and the future penalties paid for those who currently flout environmental laws. After valuable wood is sold, much of the land in deforested areas ends up being cleared for grazing cattle and agriculture.
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Recovery
May 29, 2013, from PNAS, via RedOrbit
A new technique to remove and store atmospheric carbon dioxide has been demonstrated by scientists at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). The new technique also generates carbon-negative hydrogen and produces alkalinity, which can be used to offset ocean acidification.
At laboratory scale, the team demonstrated a system that uses the acidity normally produced in saline water electrolysis to accelerate silicate mineral dissolution. The system simultaneously produces hydrogen fuel and other gases. The electrolyte solution that results shows a significant elevation in hydroxide concentration that in turn proved strongly absorptive and retentive of atmospheric CO2. The findings of this study were published in a recent issue of PNAS.
The carbonate and bicarbonate produced in the process could be used to mitigate ongoing ocean acidification, the researchers suggest, much like how an Alka Seltzer neutralizes excess acid in the stomach.
May 29, 2011, from NatureClimate, via EurekAlert
The research team studied three natural volcanic CO2 seeps in Papua New Guinea to better understand how ocean acidification will impact coral reefs ecosystem diversity. The study details the effects of long-term exposure to high levels of carbon dioxide and low pH on Indo-Pacific coral reefs, a condition that is projected to occur by the end of the century as increased man-made CO2 emissions alter the current pH level of seawater, turning the oceans acidic.
"These 'champagne reefs' are natural analogs of how coral reefs may look in 100 years if ocean acidification conditions continue to get worse," said Langdon, UM Rosenstiel School professor and co-principal investigator of the study....
The study shows shifts in the composition of coral species and reductions in biodiversity and recruitment on the reef as pH declined from 8.1 to 7.8. The team also reports that reef development would cease at a pH below 7.7. The IPCC 4th Assessment Report estimates that by the end of the century, ocean pH will decline from the current level of 8.1 to 7.8, due to rising atmospheric CO2 concentrations.
"The seeps are probably the closest we can come to simulating the effect of man-made CO2 emissions on a coral reef," said Langdon. "They allow us to see the end result of the complex interactions between species under acidic ocean conditions."
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