ScienceDaily: Top Environment News

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• Ants 'screen' for beneficial bacteria to assist them
• Half of the particulate pollution in North America comes from other continents
• Native landscaping in urban areas can help native birds
• Parasitic wasps remember better if reward is greater
• Traumatic mating may offer fitness benefits for female sea slugs
• Scientists reveal how river blindness worm thrives
• Transparent, thin and tough: Why don't insect wings break?
• Biorefinery makes use of every bit of a soybean
• Super-strong, high-tech material found to be toxic to aquatic animals
• Nematodes with pest-fighting potential identified
• New climate history adds to understanding of recent Antarctic Peninsula warming
• Sky-high methane mystery closer to being solved
• Ready. Get set. Repress! How genes are faithfully copied
• Ancient fossils reveal how the mollusc got its teeth
• Long-standing chemistry mystery cracked
• More sophisticated wiring, not just bigger brain, helped humans evolve beyond chimps, geneticists find
• In Fiji, marine protection gets local boost
• Losing stream in our battle to predict and prevent invasive species
• Glass offers improved means of storing nuclear waste, researchers say
• Good news for banana lovers: Help may be on the way to slow that rapid over-ripening
• Natural regeneration building urban forests, altering species composition
• Agulhas Current is said to attenuate the effect of melting ice
• Male mice exposed to chronic social stress have anxious female offspring
• Drastic desertification: Researchers study Dead Sea climate past, finding dramatic results

Ants 'screen' for beneficial bacteria to assist them Posted: 22 Aug 2012 07:25 PM PDT Having healthy gut bacteria could have as much to do with a strategy that insurance companies use to uncover risk as with eating the right foods - according to researchers.

Half of the particulate pollution in North America comes from other continents Posted: 22 Aug 2012 04:07 PM PDT Roughly half the aerosols that affect air quality and climate change in North America may be coming from other continents, including Asia, Africa and Europe, according to a new study.

Native landscaping in urban areas can help native birds Posted: 22 Aug 2012 03:41 PM PDT The study is one of the first to use quantitative measures and a systematic approach, with 24-hour video monitoring, to assess and compare foraging behavior of common backyard birds in yards in Phoenix, at the northern edge of the Sonoran Desert.

Parasitic wasps remember better if reward is greater Posted: 22 Aug 2012 03:13 PM PDT Two parasitic wasp species show similar memory consolidation patterns in response to rewards of different quality, providing evidence that the reward value affects the type of memory that is consolidated.

Traumatic mating may offer fitness benefits for female sea slugs Posted: 22 Aug 2012 03:13 PM PDT Female sea slugs mate more frequently than required to produce offspring, despite the highly traumatic and biologically costly nature of their copulation.

Scientists reveal how river blindness worm thrives Posted: 22 Aug 2012 03:13 PM PDT Scientists have found that the worm which causes River Blindness survives by using a bacterium to provide energy, as well as help 'trick' the body's immune system into thinking it is fighting a different kind of infection.

Transparent, thin and tough: Why don't insect wings break? Posted: 22 Aug 2012 03:12 PM PDT Researchers have shown that the wings of insects are not as fragile as they might look. The characteristic network of veins found in the wings of grasshoppers helps to capture cracks, similar to watertight compartments in a ship.

Biorefinery makes use of every bit of a soybean Posted: 22 Aug 2012 11:40 AM PDT Scientists have unveiled new technology intended to move soybeans, second only to corn as the top food crop in the U.S., along the same use-to-all path of corn and crude oil as a raw material for a wider portfolio of products.

Super-strong, high-tech material found to be toxic to aquatic animals Posted: 22 Aug 2012 10:12 AM PDT Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have potential uses in everything from medicine to electronics to construction. However, CNTs are not without risks. A new study found that they can be toxic to aquatic animals. The researchers urge that care be taken to prevent the release of CNTs into the environment as the materials enter mass production.

Nematodes with pest-fighting potential identified Posted: 22 Aug 2012 10:12 AM PDT Formosan subterranean termites could be in for a real headache. Scientists have identified species of roundworms, or "nematodes," that invade the termite brains and offer a potential bio-based approach to controlling them.

New climate history adds to understanding of recent Antarctic Peninsula warming Posted: 22 Aug 2012 10:12 AM PDT A recent study adds a new dimension to our understanding of Antarctic Peninsula climate change and the likely causes of the break-up of its ice shelves.

Sky-high methane mystery closer to being solved Posted: 22 Aug 2012 10:12 AM PDT Increased capture of natural gas from oil fields probably accounts for up to 70 percent of the dramatic leveling off seen in atmospheric methane at the end of the 20th century, according to new research.

Ready. Get set. Repress! How genes are faithfully copied Posted: 22 Aug 2012 10:08 AM PDT Scientists have manipulated the Set2 pathway to show how genes are faithfully copied.

Ancient fossils reveal how the mollusc got its teeth Posted: 22 Aug 2012 09:52 AM PDT The radula sounds like something from a horror movie -- a conveyor belt lined with hundreds of rows of interlocking teeth. In fact, radulas are found in the mouths of most molluscs, from the giant squid to the garden snail. Now, a "prototype" radula found in 500-million-year-old fossils shows that the earliest radula was not a flesh-rasping terror, but a tool for humbly scooping food from the muddy sea floor.

Long-standing chemistry mystery cracked Posted: 22 Aug 2012 09:50 AM PDT Chemists have answered a key question concerning the widely-used Fenton reaction – important in wastewater treatment to destroy hazardous organic chemicals and decontaminate bacterial pathogens and in industrial chemical production.

More sophisticated wiring, not just bigger brain, helped humans evolve beyond chimps, geneticists find Posted: 22 Aug 2012 09:47 AM PDT Human and chimp brains look anatomically similar because both evolved from the same ancestor millions of years ago. But where does the chimp brain end and the human brain begin? A new study pinpoints uniquely human patterns of gene activity in the brain that could shed light on how we evolved differently than our closest relative. These genes' identification could improve understanding of human brain diseases like autism and schizophrenia, as well as learning disorders and addictions.

In Fiji, marine protection gets local boost Posted: 22 Aug 2012 08:19 AM PDT A new study has found that locally managed marine protected areas within Fiji are playing an increasingly important role in the nation's strategy to protect inshore habitats.

Losing stream in our battle to predict and prevent invasive species Posted: 22 Aug 2012 07:11 AM PDT The predictive power of invasive species hypotheses has declined over time, presenting a challenge to policy makers and resource managers who rely on accurate risk assessment – so reports a team of international scientists. The study was published in the open-access journal NeoBiota.

Glass offers improved means of storing nuclear waste, researchers say Posted: 22 Aug 2012 07:11 AM PDT Researchers have shown, for the first time, that a method of storing nuclear waste normally used only for high level waste, could provide a safer, more efficient, and potentially cheaper, solution for the storage and ultimate disposal of intermediate level waste.

Good news for banana lovers: Help may be on the way to slow that rapid over-ripening Posted: 22 Aug 2012 07:08 AM PDT A solution finally may be at hand for the number one consumer gripe about bananas: their tendency to ripen, soften and rot into an unappetizing mush, seemingly in the blink of an eye. Scientists have described efforts to develop a spray-on coating that would delay the ripening of bananas.

Natural regeneration building urban forests, altering species composition Posted: 22 Aug 2012 06:22 AM PDT Scientists have shown that on average, one in three trees in sampled cities were planted while two-thirds resulted from natural regeneration.

Agulhas Current is said to attenuate the effect of melting ice Posted: 22 Aug 2012 06:17 AM PDT Some good news in the world of climate research: the Agulhas Current off the coast of South Africa is said to stimulate North-South ocean circulation in the Atlantic. This 'conveyor belt', which redistributes and controls heat around the globe, is threatening to slow down due to melting ice. As has been shown in a recent study, however, based on satellite altimeter measurements, this famous current is accelerating.

Male mice exposed to chronic social stress have anxious female offspring Posted: 22 Aug 2012 06:16 AM PDT A study in mice suggests that a woman's risk of anxiety and dysfunctional social behavior may depend on the experiences of her parents, particularly fathers, when they were young.

Drastic desertification: Researchers study Dead Sea climate past, finding dramatic results Posted: 21 Aug 2012 06:40 AM PDT The Dead Sea, a salt sea without an outlet, lies over 400 meters below sea level. Tourists like its high salt content because it increases their buoyancy.  "For scientists, however, the Dead Sea is a popular archive that provides a diachronic view of its climate past," says Prof. Dr. Thomas Litt from the Steinmann-Institute for Geology, Mineralogy and Paleontology at the University of Bonn.

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