After collecting weathered crude oil from the Gulf of Mexico following the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, researchers at Texas Tech University have reported that only 8 to 9 percent coverage on the shells of fertilized mallard duck eggs resulted in a 50 percent mortality rate.
A new study reveals how enzymes in the honey bee gut detoxify pesticides commonly used to kill mites in the honey bee hive.
Ecotopia players proved social games can have a real-world impact, having planted 25,000 trees in-game in 25 days, in response to the Plant a Real Forest Challenge issued by independent games studio Talkie last month.
If regions were given hospitality rankings, the Arctic would fall somewhere between zero and below zero. Temperatures can plunge to −60 degrees Farenheit, and winds can exceed 75 mph. Half the year, skies are black, making icebergs dangerous obstacles.
Fires raging in central Africa are generating a high amount of pollution that is showing up in data from NASA's Aura Satellite, with the ominous shape of a dark red butterfly in the skies over southern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and northern Angola.
Camp Clearwater Enterprises Inc. will pay $38,000 for illegally filling wetlands on its property in White Lake, N.C., in violation of the federal Clean Water Act.
Large, marine-calving glaciers have the ability not only to shrink rapidly in response to global warming, but also to grow at a remarkable pace during periods of global cooling, according to University at Buffalo geologists working in Greenland.
A new study by two of the nation’s top consulting organizations that demonstrates Houston’s impressive record at creating environmentally responsible “green jobs” helps spotlight the contributions of Greenstar Recycling.
The findings were reported in a special issue of the Earth, Planets and Space (EPS) journal. The research was sponsored the National Science Foundation (NSF) and by the Southern California Earthquake Center (SCEC).
The Wildlife Conservation Society has discovered a surprisingly healthy population of rare snow leopards living in the mountainous reaches of northeastern Afghanistan's Wakhan Corridor, according to a new study.
The United States is lagging behind other countries when it comes down to overall recycling efforts. As the world’s largest trash producing country at 1,609 pounds of trash per person, per year, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, it raises questions why the land of opportunity isn’t taking advantage of its position to help reduce some of the Earth’s greenhouse gas emissions.
Researchers from Texas A&M University have returned from a trip to examine the scope and size of this year’s “dead zone” in the Gulf of Mexico and have measured it at about 3,300 square miles, or roughly the size of Delaware and Rhode Island combined. Some researchers anticipate it becoming much larger.
Trees absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to grow, so forests have long been proposed as a way to offset climate change.
As the process of recovering from the May 22 tornado in Joplin, Mo., nears the end of its eighth week, EPA Region 7 is urging residents and cleanup crews to keep residential storm debris segregated into six categories to speed curbside collection efforts.
In the Science journal, a review paper titled, “Trophic Downgrading of Planet Earth,” concludes that the decline of large predators and herbivores in all regions of the world is causing substantial changes to Earth’s terrestrial, freshwater and marine ecosystems.
Researchers at the University of Illinois have recorded an airglow signature in the upper atmosphere produced by a tsunami using a camera system based in Maui, Hawaii.
Winter cover crops are an important component of nutrient cycling, soil cover and organic matter content. Although its benefits are well documented, cover crop use in farming systems is relatively low.
Farmers and other astute observers of nature have long known that crops like corn and sorghum grow taller at night. But the biochemical mechanisms that control this nightly stem elongation, common to most plants, have been something of a mystery to biologists—until now.
At a pilot facility in Singapore, Siemens has cut the energy needed to desalinate seawater by more than 50 percent.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recently announced plans to improve its Integrated Risk Information System program as part of an ongoing effort initiated in 2009 to strengthen the program.