ScienceDaily: Top Environment News

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• Evolution is written all over your face
• World's smallest vertebrate: Tiny frogs discovered in New Guinea
• First physical evidence of tobacco in Mayan container
• Greenhouses and solar power: Crop testing with a special photovoltaic panel for greenhouses
• Predators hunt for a balanced diet
• Engineers make 'building blocks of chemical industry' from wood while boosting production 40 percent
• World's most extreme deep-sea vents revealed: Deeper than any seen before, and teeming with new creatures

Evolution is written all over your face Posted: 11 Jan 2012 07:37 PM PST Why are the faces of primates so dramatically different from one another? Biologists serving as "evolutionary detectives" studied the faces of 129 adult male primates from Central and South America, and offer answers. These faces evolved over at least 24 million years.

World's smallest vertebrate: Tiny frogs discovered in New Guinea Posted: 11 Jan 2012 07:33 PM PST Biologists just discovered two new species of frogs in New Guinea, one of which is now the world's tiniest known vertebrate, averaging only 7.7 millimeters in size -- less than one-third of an inch. It ousts Paedocypris progenetica, an Indonesian fish averaging more than 8 millimeters, from the record.

First physical evidence of tobacco in Mayan container Posted: 11 Jan 2012 08:37 AM PST Anthropologists and other scientists have used ultra-modern chemical analysis technology to analyze ancient Mayan pottery for proof of tobacco use in the ancient culture. They discovered the first physical evidence of tobacco in a Mayan container. Their discovery represents new evidence on the ancient use of tobacco in the Mayan culture and a new method to understand the ancient roots of tobacco use in the Americas.

Greenhouses and solar power: Crop testing with a special photovoltaic panel for greenhouses Posted: 11 Jan 2012 07:38 AM PST A new photovoltaic module allows electricity to be generated without greenhouse crops being affected by over-shading.

Predators hunt for a balanced diet Posted: 10 Jan 2012 04:29 PM PST Predators select their prey in order to eat a nutritionally balanced diet and give themselves the best chance of producing healthy offspring. A new study shows for the first time that predatory animals choose their food on the basis of its nutritional value, rather than just overall calorie content.

Engineers make 'building blocks of chemical industry' from wood while boosting production 40 percent Posted: 10 Jan 2012 04:27 PM PST Chemical engineers using a catalytic fast pyrolysis process that transforms renewable non-food biomass into petrochemicals, have developed a new catalyst that boosts the yield for five key "building blocks of the chemical industry" by 40 percent compared to previous methods.

World's most extreme deep-sea vents revealed: Deeper than any seen before, and teeming with new creatures Posted: 10 Jan 2012 08:44 AM PST Scientists have revealed details of the world's most extreme deep-sea volcanic vents, five kilometers down in a rift in the Caribbean seafloor. The undersea hot springs, which lie 0.8 kilometers deeper than any seen before, may be hotter than 450 °C and are shooting a jet of mineral-laden water more than a kilometer into the ocean above.

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