ScienceDaily: Top Environment News

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• Mother chimps crucial for offspring's social skills
• Debris flows on Arctic sand dunes are similar to dark dune spot-seepage flows on Mars
• Indiana Jones meets George Jetson
• New opportunites found for waste heat
• New connection between stacked solar cells can handle energy of 70,000 suns
• Rare fossil ape cranium discovered in China
• Neuroscientists show that monkeys can decide to call out or keep silent
• Lost Tudor sculptures reassembled with help from 3-D scanning
• Using digital cameras to measure the height of Northern Lights
• Certification of aquaculture: one of the strategies to sustainable seafood production
• China's clean-water program benefits people and the environment
• Climate change: Procrastination over mitigation measures could prove costly
• Evidence of Solomon's mines: Archaeologists dates mines in south of Israel to days of King Solomon

Mother chimps crucial for offspring's social skills Posted: 06 Sep 2013 08:43 AM PDT Orphaned chimpanzees are less socially competent than chimpanzees who were reared by their mother. Researchers observed that orphaned chimpanzees frequently engaged in social play, but their play bouts were much shorter and resulted in aggression more often. Apparently, chimpanzee mothers endow their offspring with important social skills.

Debris flows on Arctic sand dunes are similar to dark dune spot-seepage flows on Mars Posted: 06 Sep 2013 08:42 AM PDT Scientists have demonstrated that frozen water in the form of snow or frost can melt to form debris flows on sunward-facing slopes of sand dunes in the Alaskan arctic at air temperatures significantly below the melting point of water. The debris flows consist of sand mixed with liquid water that cascade down steep slopes.

Indiana Jones meets George Jetson Posted: 06 Sep 2013 08:42 AM PDT A team of researchers has designed a microplasma source capable of exciting matter in a controlled, efficient way. This miniature device may find use in a wide range of applications in harsh environments, but can also help revolutionize archaeology.

New opportunites found for waste heat Posted: 06 Sep 2013 07:30 AM PDT Physicists are working on an innovation that could boost vehicle mileage by 5 percent and power plant and industrial processing performance as much as 10 percent, by capturing waste heat and converting it to electrical power.

New connection between stacked solar cells can handle energy of 70,000 suns Posted: 06 Sep 2013 07:26 AM PDT Researchers have come up with a new technique for improving the connections between stacked solar cells, which should improve the overall efficiency of solar energy devices and reduce the cost of solar energy production. The new connections can allow these cells to operate at solar concentrations of 70,000 suns' worth of energy without losing much voltage as 'wasted energy' or heat.

Rare fossil ape cranium discovered in China Posted: 06 Sep 2013 07:26 AM PDT A team of researchers has discovered the cranium of a fossil ape from Shuitangba, a Miocene site in Yunnan Province, China. The juvenile cranium of the fossil ape Lufengpithecus is significant, according to researchers.

Neuroscientists show that monkeys can decide to call out or keep silent Posted: 06 Sep 2013 07:21 AM PDT "Should I say something or not?" Human beings are not alone in pondering this dilemma -- animals also face decisions when they communicate by voice. Neurobiologists have now demonstrated that nerve cells in the brain signal the targeted initiation of calls -- forming the basis of voluntary vocal expression.

Lost Tudor sculptures reassembled with help from 3-D scanning Posted: 06 Sep 2013 07:13 AM PDT Experts have tried to recreate two Tudor monuments using a mixture of humanities research and scientific technology.

Using digital cameras to measure the height of Northern Lights Posted: 06 Sep 2013 07:13 AM PDT Scientists came up with an idea for a new method to measure the height of aurora borealis after working on a 3-D movie for a planetarium.They used two digital single-lens reflex (SLR) cameras set 8 km apart to capture 3D images of Northern Lights and determine the altitude where electrons in the atmosphere emit the light that produces aurora.

Certification of aquaculture: one of the strategies to sustainable seafood production Posted: 05 Sep 2013 11:27 AM PDT Certification of products from aquatic farming - aquaculture – is contributing to sustainable production, but it also has serious limits. Therefore it should be seen as one approach among many for steering aquaculture toward sustainability, experts say.

China's clean-water program benefits people and the environment Posted: 05 Sep 2013 05:59 AM PDT Rice farming near Beijing has contaminated and tapped the city's drinking water supply. For the past four years, China has been paying farmers to grow corn instead of rice, an effort that research shows is paying off for people and the environment.

Climate change: Procrastination over mitigation measures could prove costly Posted: 04 Sep 2013 06:33 AM PDT Forecasts about global warming and its consequences are shrouded in uncertainty. Research scientists maintain that the risks associated with climate change are high, but are unable to estimate accurately how easily temperature reacts to changes in the levels of carbon dioxide.

Evidence of Solomon's mines: Archaeologists dates mines in south of Israel to days of King Solomon Posted: 03 Sep 2013 11:13 AM PDT New findings from an archaeological excavation provide evidence that copper mines in Israel thought to have been built by the ancient Egyptians in the 13th century BCE actually originated three centuries later, during the reign of the legendary King Solomon.

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