ScienceDaily: Top Environment News

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• Evolution too slow to keep up with climate change
• Wildfires may contribute more to global warming than previously predicted
• Parasites in cat feces: Potential public health problem?
• Tiny new catfish species found in Rio Paraíba do Sul basin, Brazil
• Neandertals shared speech and language with modern humans, study suggests
• Ancient Egyptian leader makes surprise appearance at archaeological dig in Israel
• Scientists image vast subglacial water system underpinning West Antarctica's Thwaites Glacier
• Clues from an ancient Viking trading centre: A tantalizing hint of an ancient trading town
• The origin of the turtle shell: Mystery solved
• How nature maintains diversity: Temporal niches are important, study finds
• Improved interpretation of volcanic traces in ice

Evolution too slow to keep up with climate change Posted: 09 Jul 2013 02:57 PM PDT Many vertebrate species would have to evolve about 10,000 times faster than they have in the past to adapt to the rapid climate change expected in the next 100 years, a new study has found.

Wildfires may contribute more to global warming than previously predicted Posted: 09 Jul 2013 09:41 AM PDT Wildfires produce a witch's brew of carbon-containing particles, as anyone downwind of a forest fire can attest. But measurements taken during the 2011 Las Conchas fire near Los Alamos National Laboratory show that the actual carbon-containing particles emitted by fires are very different than those used in current computer models, providing the potential for inaccuracy in current climate-modeling results.

Parasites in cat feces: Potential public health problem? Posted: 09 Jul 2013 09:41 AM PDT Each year in the United States, cats deposit about 1.2 million metric tons of feces into the environment, and that poop is carrying with it what may be a vast and underappreciated public health problem, say scientists.

Tiny new catfish species found in Rio Paraíba do Sul basin, Brazil Posted: 09 Jul 2013 08:58 AM PDT A new diminutive species of catfish was found in Rio Paraíba do Sul basin in Brazil. The genus to which the new Pareiorhina hyptiorhachis belongs represents a group of species endemic to Brazil. Although the new species is only around 3 cm in length it is still larger than the smallest catfish that is only 1 cm when sexually mature.

Neandertals shared speech and language with modern humans, study suggests Posted: 09 Jul 2013 08:52 AM PDT Fast-accumulating data seem to indicate that our close cousins, the Neandertals, were much more similar to us than imagined even a decade ago. But did they have anything like modern speech and language? And if so, what are the implications for understanding present-day linguistic diversity? Modern language and speech can be traced back to the last common ancestor we shared with the Neandertals roughly half a million years ago, according to new research.

Ancient Egyptian leader makes surprise appearance at archaeological dig in Israel Posted: 09 Jul 2013 08:52 AM PDT As modern Egypt searches for a new leader, Israeli archaeologists have found evidence of an ancient Egyptian leader in northern Israel. At a site in Tel Hazor National Park, north of the Sea of Galilee, archeologists have unearthed part of a unique Sphinx belonging to one of the ancient pyramid-building pharaohs.

Scientists image vast subglacial water system underpinning West Antarctica's Thwaites Glacier Posted: 09 Jul 2013 06:48 AM PDT In a development that will help predict sea level rise, scientists have used an innovation in radar analysis to accurately image the vast subglacial water system under West Antarctica's Thwaites Glacier, detecting a swamp-like canal system several times as large as Florida's Everglades. The new observations suggest dynamics of the subglacial water system may be as important as ocean influences in predicting the fate of Thwaites, which holds substantial potential for triggering sea-level rise.

Clues from an ancient Viking trading centre: A tantalizing hint of an ancient trading town Posted: 09 Jul 2013 06:44 AM PDT It was a routine archaeological dig, necessitated by the expansion of Norway's main north-south highway, the E6, just north of Trondheim, the country's third largest city. But the finds surprised archaeologists, who now believe they have solved a centuries-old puzzle posed in Norse sagas.

The origin of the turtle shell: Mystery solved Posted: 09 Jul 2013 06:44 AM PDT Biologists have finally solved the riddle of the origin of the turtle shell. By observing the development of different animal species and confirming their results with fossil analysis and genomic data, researchers show that the shell on the turtle's back derives only from its ancestors' ribcage and not from a combination of internal and external bone structures as is often thought.

How nature maintains diversity: Temporal niches are important, study finds Posted: 09 Jul 2013 06:14 AM PDT By studying rapidly evolving bacteria as they diversify and compete under varying environmental conditions, researchers have shown that temporal niches are important to maintaining biodiversity in natural systems.

Improved interpretation of volcanic traces in ice Posted: 08 Jul 2013 08:49 AM PDT How severely have volcanoes contaminated the atmosphere with sulfur particles in past millennia? To answer this question, scientists use ice cores, among others, as climate archives. Atmospheric scientists have now modeled the global distribution of sulfur particles following large eruptions. The study could significantly improve the interpretation of ice cores.

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