ScienceDaily: Top Environment News

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• Rise in temperatures and CO₂ follow each other closely in climate change
• Existence of vitamin 'deserts' in the ocean confirmed
• Climate change and deforestation: Pre-human effect on biodiversity in northern Madagascar
• Polar bear evolution tracked climate change
• New compounds inhibit prion infection
• New species of ancient rodents hint at what could be world's oldest grasslands
• 'Red tide' species is deadlier than first thought
• Herding sheep really are selfish
• Caught in the act: Bats use the sound of copulating flies as a cue for foraging
• Public sightings suggest increase in basking sharks in British waters
• Fools' gold found to regulate oxygen
• Traveling through a volcano: How pre-eruption collisions affect what exits a volcano

Rise in temperatures and CO<sub>2</sub> follow each other closely in climate change Posted: 23 Jul 2012 01:27 PM PDT The greatest climate change the world has seen in the last 100,000 years was the transition from the ice age to the warm interglacial period. New research indicates that, contrary to previous opinion, the rise in temperature and the rise in the atmospheric carbon dioxide follow each other closely in terms of time.

Existence of vitamin 'deserts' in the ocean confirmed Posted: 23 Jul 2012 01:26 PM PDT Using a newly developed analytical technique was used to identify long-hypothesized vitamin B deficient zones in the ocean.

Climate change and deforestation: Pre-human effect on biodiversity in northern Madagascar Posted: 23 Jul 2012 01:24 PM PDT A recent study questions the prevailing account that degradation of tropical ecosystems is essentially a product of human activity. Their findings call for reassessment of the impact of local communities on their environment.

Polar bear evolution tracked climate change Posted: 23 Jul 2012 12:10 PM PDT A whole-genome analysis suggests that polar bear numbers waxed and waned with climate change, and that the animals may have interbred with brown bears since becoming a distinct species millions of years ago.

New compounds inhibit prion infection Posted: 23 Jul 2012 10:48 AM PDT Researchers have identified a new class of compounds that inhibit the spread of prions, misfolded proteins in the brain that trigger lethal neurodegenerative diseases in humans and animals. Scientists have now developed compounds that clear prions from infected cells derived from the brain.

New species of ancient rodents hint at what could be world's oldest grasslands Posted: 23 Jul 2012 10:47 AM PDT Researchers have described two ancient species of South American rodents, including the oldest chinchilla, a discovery that substantiates what might be the earliest grasslands in the world. The two new species lived about 32.5 million years ago in what are now the Chilean Andes. Studies of the teeth of the ancient chinchilla support evidence indicating that the animals inhabited an open and dry environment 15 million years before grasslands emerged elsewhere in the world.

'Red tide' species is deadlier than first thought Posted: 23 Jul 2012 10:47 AM PDT Researchers have discovered that the plankton species Alexandrium tamarense -- prominent in harmful algal blooms -- contains not one, but two deadly toxins, with potential consequences for marine food chains.

Herding sheep really are selfish Posted: 23 Jul 2012 10:46 AM PDT Many animals spend time together in large groups not because they enjoy each other's company, but rather because it lowers their own chances of being eaten should an uninvited guest arrive on the scene. Now, researchers who have strapped GPS-enabled backpacks to flocking sheep and a herding dog provide some of the first hard evidence that this "selfish herd theory" is true.

Caught in the act: Bats use the sound of copulating flies as a cue for foraging Posted: 23 Jul 2012 10:45 AM PDT Mating activities are a dangerous business because the attention to other important events in the surroundings is often reduced. Therefore the duration of copulation itself is usually very short. About 100 years ago researchers argued that copulating animals are at a higher risk of being discovered and, consequently, being eaten by a predator. Yet, surprisingly, there are only few observations that support this hypothesis. Now, researchers have found that when they play a recording of the copulation sounds of flies, bats try to attack the loudspeakers.

Public sightings suggest increase in basking sharks in British waters Posted: 23 Jul 2012 07:54 AM PDT The number of basking sharks recorded in Britain's seas could be increasing, decades after being protected from commercial hunting in the late 20th century. The most comprehensive analysis ever undertaken of basking shark sightings in UK waters shows a rise in the number of sightings from the 1980s through to the 2000s. It also suggests an increase in the proportion of medium and large-sized animals, suggesting an increase in the number of older sharks.

Fools' gold found to regulate oxygen Posted: 23 Jul 2012 07:54 AM PDT As sulfur cycles through Earth's atmosphere, oceans and land, it undergoes chemical changes that are often coupled to changes in other such elements as carbon and oxygen. Although this affects the concentration of free oxygen, sulfur has traditionally been portrayed as a secondary factor in regulating atmospheric oxygen, with most of the heavy lifting done by carbon. However, new findings suggest that sulfur's role may have been underestimated.

Traveling through a volcano: How pre-eruption collisions affect what exits a volcano Posted: 23 Jul 2012 06:48 AM PDT Scientists widely believe that volcanic particle size is determined by the initial fragmentation process, when bubbly magma deep in the volcano changes into gas-particle flows. But new research indicates a more dynamic process where the amount and size of volcanic ash actually depend on what happens afterward, as the particles race toward the surface.

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