gear Push settings
Cod fisheries around the US, and especially in the Gulf of Maine have reached catastrophic levels - only 3% of sustainable levels.
Ahh, the phallus. In most sexually-reproductive species, half of the individuals lack one, while the other half is constantly trying to share theirs as much as possible with the first group, with varying degrees of success -- bragging, fighting or impressing their way to the continuation of the species. Marvelous!
It seems bees may suffer from the same drowsy morning moods and weary fatigued afternoons as their human cousins. And it may be similarly cured with a jolt of joe.
Of all the major conservative parties in the democratic world, the Republican Party stands alone in its denial of the legitimacy of climate science.
When we talk about extinction, we tend to think of it in the past-tense, or as something that just kind of happens, far removed from the activities of humankind. So let’s put things in perspective, just so we fully understand the scope of extinction.
Manure has been used as a plant and crop fertilizer since the dawn of agriculture, but since poop is naturally occurring it's been essential to the ecosystem far before humans evolved on this planet. But as the planet's megafauna has steadily dwindled, so has the megapoop significantly impacting the nutrient-recycling system. According to Joe Roman, a biologist at the University of Vermont, in some cases nutrient transport via pooping today is only 5% of what it used to be during the Ice Age.
Morocco is poised to become a solar superpower, as they revealed plans for the largest concentrated solar power plant, powered by the Saharan sun.
When the Scottish government introduced a 5 pence tax for plastic bags, they were expecting a significant reduction, but even they weren't expecting such a big success.
A sinkhole popped up in St. Albans, England, and engineers fear this is not an isolated event.
Cristiano Menezes of the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation has discovered farming behaviors in bees, adding them to the list of social insects that practice agriculture.
Couple of weeks ago, Volkswagen admitted it had cheated US tests to make its diesel cars seem more green than they actually were. Later, ZME Science reported companies like Renault, Nissan, Hyundai, Citroen, Fiat or Volvo were also cheating. Then, independent lab tests showed some Samsung TVs were rigged to use less energy during official testing conditions than they do during real-world use. Now, famous British inventor James Dyson is accusing German companies Bosch and Siemens of doing the same thing, gaming energy ratings for their vacuum cleaners.
A recent study published Wednesday in the journal Nature shows that there is a strong functional relationship between a region's average recorded temperature and economic productivity -- further warning of the damage climate warming would inflict on our economy.
Marijuana use has doubled among American adults from 2001 to 2013. About 10% of the population or 22 million are believed to be recreational users, a steep rise driven by both cultural shifts and more permissive laws. About 1 in 3 users abuse the drug (continued use despite knowing it may be damaging health or causing depression or anxiety), though it's worth mentioning that this ratio was the same before the exponential rise in marijuana users.
The European Union, generally considered the world's 3rd biggest emitter after China and the US, reported that its emissions fell by 4 percent last year.
Covering your body up with sunscreen may protect you against the Sun, but it’s also threatening the world’s coral reefs, a new study found. University of Central Florida professor and diving enthusiast John Fauth and his team found that oxybenzone, a common UV-filtering compound, is in high concentrations in the waters around Hawaii and the Caribbean, two […]
In 2006, the US court found the tobacco industry guilty of a decades-long racketeering enterprise in which it conspired to deceive the public about the dangers of smoking. The tobacco companies were ordered to buy newspaper ads detailing smoking's health effects and to stop using such descriptions as "low tar," "light," ultra light," "mild" or "natural" that might imply that they are less dangerous than other cigarettes. They were also ordered to pay $10 billion in fines. Speaking for ThinkProgress, Sharon Y. Eubanks - the leader of the Justice Department team that prosecuted the landmark lawsuit against big tobacco - says the Department of Justice should investigate Exxon and possibly other fossil fuel industry players (Koch *cough) for a similar claim, only much worse. The conspiracy isn't only against smokers' health, it's against all life on Earth.
A recent U.S. study shows how the upward trend in economic damage from hurricanes correlates very closely to the influence global warming has on the number and intensity of hurricanes. Published in Nature Geoscience, it concludes that the commonly cited reasons for growing hurricane damage -- increases in vulnerability, value, and exposure of property -- don't stand up very well to scrutiny.
In the fight with cancer, we need any piece of help we can get. With this in mind, a group of researchers set out to investigate the animals that don't get cancer (or rarely do) - especially elephants and naked mole rats.
The District of Columbia Water and Sewer Authority recently unveiled a $470 million waste-to-energy system that converts solid sludge (we generally call that human poop) to clean energy.
Leeds seems set to become one of the green poles of the world as architects have unveiled plans to build a bioenergy plant that will generate energy from 214,000 tons of waste collected each year from black bins in Leeds. The building, designed by Jean-Robert Mazaud of S’pace Architects, is expected to open in six months. […]
By now, it's almost a statistical certainty: in January 2016, we will say that 2015 was the warmest year on record; for the moment, we can clearly say that this September was the hottest on record.
This Friday, the CEOs of the some of the biggest oil & gas companies in the world, including BP, Shell and Total, held a press conference asking for immediate action against climate change and urging world readers to reach an agreement in Paris, this December. The companies account for a fifth of the world's oil and gas production, the leading fossil fuels that are flooding the atmosphere with excess carbon and warming the planet, causing irreversible climate change. As such, if you find the statement dubious - not to mention hilarious - you're not alone.
Solar energy could be turned up a notch not by some exotic material or chip, but surprisingly by viruses. A team at MIT published a paper demonstrating how a genetically modified virus was used in a quantum system to transfer energy at double the speed and over a greater distance than even the best solar cells.
The greenest cars of the year... but why are there no Teslas?
Besides chirps and squeaks, you'll also find bear roars, primate calls, and blue whale songs. In total: 150,000 recordings of 9,000 species.
It's easy to assume that with economic gain comes happiness -- we live in capitalism, after all. But science comes to prove us all wrong yet again, and shows that the link between economics and happiness is much more complicated that we thought. Money can't buy happiness, it seems.
Chinese researchers discovered a chemical compound that works just as well as morphine -- without any of the negative side effects. The substance is derived from the venom of a centipede native to China. The discovery has huge medical applications, and could potentially reduce the country's military reliance on morphine for battlefield use.
Bill Gates, the wealthiest man in the world in 2014, has for the past decade concentrated his efforts and resources into philanthropic projects aimed to transform the world. He's invested billions in the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation which concentrates on improving health and helping the world's poor access technology and basic services. Some of Gates' funded projects were covered by ZME Science, like the Omniprocessor that turns sludge into electricity and pure, clean water or the solar power toilets. As you can see, energy is key to meeting any humanitarian goal. It also matters how you get this energy. If we continue to burn fossil fuel at this rate, the planet might irreversibly warm by a couple degrees Celsius, with cataclysmic shifts. That's why Gates has pledged $2 billion strictly into energy R&D.
"Spring is coming," said no Stark ever. You've already noticed that the traditional starting dates for each season have become misaligned, and in some instances patterns have changed with shorter winters and longer springs. This trend is set only to exacerbate in the future. By 2100, spring could come three weeks early on average across continental United States. In some parts, like the Pacific Northwest and the mountainous regions of the Western U.S., spring will be a month early. This might sound like good news if you live in Wisconsin, but in the long-run this spells disaster as ecosystems get disrupted by abrupt seasonal changes.
Bad news for us -- and fish.
A study assessed how sea level rise at the hand of global warming will affect coastal populations in the United States. The analysis made by Climate Central, a nonprofit news organization that analyzes and reports on climate science, found 20 million Americans’ homes might be flooded, and more than 1,500 U.S. cities and municipalities could have at least half of their residential area under water if the world emits under a 'business-as-usual' scenario. Unfortunately, there's a lot of damage that's already been done. Carbon emitted today will continue to warm the planet for hundreds of years and its effects on the climate are already locked in. Cities like Miami and New Orleans are 'already lost in the long run,' said Ben Strauss, vice president for sea level and climate impacts at Climate Central.
In 1975, artist and social activist Adam Purple, known among others for always wearing something purple, was looking out his window at some children playing in the rubble. His memories struck him as he remembered that as a child, he used to play on the ground, next to trees and bushes – something that just […]
With the Paris summit being just around the corner, it's time to step back and look at who the big actors are.
For the past two weeks the scientific community was stirred by news that a biologist captured a male moustached kingfisher, took the first ever picture of a male from the species, then killed the bird shortly after.
Tourism is affecting wildlife in more than one way.
Less than two months away, 200 governments will join the U.N. Paris talks where an international agreement might be reached seeking to limit the amount of greenhouse gas emissions for each country. The goal is to eventually level emissions significantly relative to 1990 levels for developed countries and cap emissions as soon as possible for developing countries like India and China. Each country, however, wants to get the best deal and many critics are weary that we're simply heading for another Copenhagen bust like six years ago, or worst even - another Kyoto which failed miserably.
It's estimated that humanity will have to produce around 50% more food than we currently do to keep up with growing global demand....by 2050. It's an enormous challenge, especially as more and more countries face the effects of climate change, such as drought or toxic salinity levels. One of our best hopes is to rely more on crops that can flourish despite the vicissitudes of the environment, and plant cell biologists at the University of Oxford hope that their new breakthrough in climate-resilient agriculture will allow us to do just that.
A walking fish, a jewel snake and a sneezing monkey: these are just some of the biological treasures recently discovered in the fragile Himalayan ecosystems.
If you've ever brushed past the tailpipe of a running car, then you know just how smoking hot it can be. And since tailpipes aren't exactly heating radiators, that's just wasted energy. Not much you can do, you might say. That's just the 2nd law of thermodynamics mocking us humans. But there are ways to turn otherwise wasted heat into something useful, like residential heating or electricity. Typically, engineers design systems that transfer the heat to water which then turns to steam and so on until you can get something useful out of it - eventually. There are other ways also which are more convenient in most situation - after all, you can't fit a steam turbine in your car. For instance, you could use thermoelectric materials that directly convert the heat into electricity.
While surveying the island of Sulawesi right in the center of Indonesia, a group of researchers came across a previously undocumented species of rodent. It was pretty easy too, considering the animal's uncanny appearance: what would otherwise look like a normal looking rat, but with the nostrils of a hog.
Scientists have developed devices that move us one step closer towards eliminating the need for animal testing. These working miniature artificial brains would be ideal for testing drugs research, neural tissue transplants, or experiments with stem cells.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature assessed the state of cactus populations around the world and found almost a third of all species are endangered. The report summarizes that human activity is threatening hundreds of species with extinction. This includes illegal trading, agriculture and aquaculture, but also land-use change.
In a monumental decision, British Petroleum (BP) was fined $20.8 billion for the 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico; this upgrades the initial deal from the $18.7 that were previously discussed and represents the largest corporate settlement in US history. This money is additional to the reported $28 billion spent on cleanup and compensation.
China has set up an ambitious goal of getting 5 million or more electric cars on the streets, and this is not just a pipe dream - the government is taking active measures to speed up the production by building more charging stations.
In the wake of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant explosion in 1987, hundreds of thousand had to move immediately without notice. Their lives changed forever. Many didn't have time to pack anything, as documented by the ghost towns around the fallout site still littered with toys, valuable items and other personal belongings. But while humans had much to suffer, the same can't be said about the wildlife. In the almost four decades since the dramatic disaster, wildlife and vegetation has simply sprung to life like never before. In some instances, there are more wildlife per square meter than in some of the busiest protected natural parks in neighboring Belarus. Turns out wildlife doesn't mind that much radiation - what they mind is humans.
An asteroid impact wiped out the dominant life forms on the planet, both on land and in the oceans, some 65 million years ago. Like in all matters of life, there are winners and losers, and incidentally those who had most to profit from the demise of the dinosaurs were also the weakest: mammals. Small, battered and restricted to only a couple of ecological niches, not only were the mammals more adapted to a post-apocalyptic Earth devoid of sunshine and with little food to spare, but once everything cleared they simply took over. Now, paleontologists have come across a totally new genus of ancient mammals that used to share the planet with the dinosaurs, but managed to survive the fallout and continued its lineage for millions of years after.
A group of NGOs has filled a lawsuit in federal court against a ridiculously controversial law which makes it illegal for any citizen to take samples or photograph open lands in public or private property. As such, a person who isn't acting under governmental approval - say a concerned citizen - can't take samples from a contaminated river, photograph it or collect any meaningful evidence in these lines for the purpose of alerting the authorities.
The third largest emitter of carbon emissions, India, pledged it would reduce its emissions relative to its GDP between 33 and 35% by 2030 relative to 2005. India, a rapidly developing country, will continue its industrial expansion which includes, of course, building more coal plants and releasing more carbon emissions than it does today, however what the government, in fact, pledges is decoupling emissions from economic growth. It's a sound victory for the planet, but to achieve its goals India will require help from developed nations. Hopefully, this might be possible under a common climate-protection framework on a global level which will be discussed in Paris during the UN talks scheduled in November.
After the recent Volkswagen fiasco which revealed that their cars emit much more than they should (and claimed), a new study revealed that diesel cars made by Renault, Nissan, Hyundai, Citroen, Fiat, Volvo and many others also emit more.
The Scandinavian nation has set its mind on ridding itself of fossils fuels. To this end, the government announced it will increase spending on climate-protection measures for the next year bringing it to $546 million. That might not sound like much but Sweden is a small country which already uses energy very efficiently. It also gets three quarters of its energy from non-fossil fuel sources, mainly nuclear and hydro.
