ScienceDaily: Top Environment News

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• Mayfly with springtail hitchhiker: Amber specimen -- 16 million years old -- reveals unknown animal behaviors
• Crows don't digest prions, may transport them to other locations
• Dolphins can remain alert for up to 15 days at a time with no sign of fatigue
• Elevated indoor carbon dioxide impairs decision-making performance
• Why are U.S. Eastern seaboard salt marshes falling apart?
• Mathematics and the ocean: Movement, mixing and climate modeling
• Barley genome could hold key to better beer
• Evolutionary origins of our pretty smile
• Moon was created in giant smashup; Vaporization of impactor left signature in tiny excess of heavier form of zinc
• Doing nothing might be best management decision for forests destroyed by wind or ice
• Searching for a silver bullet: Measuring biodiversity to inform species conservation
• Corals and food security: Study shows nations at risk
• Too late to stop global warming by cutting emissions? Scientists argue for adaption policies
• Extreme 'housework' cuts the life span of female Komodo dragons
• Overpasses to provide safe passage for thousands of deer and antelope
• Extinction from global warming: Changing interactions between species may be more dangerous than high temperatures alone

Mayfly with springtail hitchhiker: Amber specimen -- 16 million years old -- reveals unknown animal behaviors Posted: 17 Oct 2012 03:13 PM PDT Stunning images from a CT scan of amber have revealed the first evidence of any creature using an adult mayfly for transport. Researchers say this 16-million-year-old hitchhiker most likely demonstrates activity that is taking place today but has never previously been recorded.

Crows don't digest prions, may transport them to other locations Posted: 17 Oct 2012 03:12 PM PDT Crows fed on prion-infected brains from mice can transmit these infectious agents in their feces and may play a role in the geographic spread of diseases caused by prions, such as chronic wasting disease or scrapie.

Dolphins can remain alert for up to 15 days at a time with no sign of fatigue Posted: 17 Oct 2012 03:12 PM PDT Dolphins sleep with only one half of their brains at a time, and according to new research, this trait allows them to stay constantly alert for at least 15 days in a row.

Elevated indoor carbon dioxide impairs decision-making performance Posted: 17 Oct 2012 01:24 PM PDT Overturning decades of conventional wisdom, researchers have found that moderately high indoor concentrations of carbon dioxide can significantly impair people's decision-making performance. The results were unexpected and may have particular implications for schools and other spaces with high occupant density.

Why are U.S. Eastern seaboard salt marshes falling apart? Posted: 17 Oct 2012 11:18 AM PDT Salt marshes have been disintegrating and dying over the past two decades along the U.S. Eastern seaboard and other highly developed coastlines, without anyone fully understanding why. Scientists now report that nutrients -- such as nitrogen and phosphorus from septic and sewer systems and lawn fertilizers -- can cause salt-marsh loss.

Mathematics and the ocean: Movement, mixing and climate modeling Posted: 17 Oct 2012 11:18 AM PDT Mathematicians have described mathematical ideas from dynamical systems along with numerical modeling and experimental observations to analyze mixing in the ocean.

Barley genome could hold key to better beer Posted: 17 Oct 2012 10:18 AM PDT Scientists have published a high resolution draft of the barley genome. The research will help to produce new and better barley varieties that are vital for the beer and whisky industries.

Evolutionary origins of our pretty smile Posted: 17 Oct 2012 10:18 AM PDT It takes both teeth and jaws to make a pretty smile, but the evolutionary origins of these parts of our anatomy have only just been discovered, thanks to a particle accelerator and a long dead fish.

Moon was created in giant smashup; Vaporization of impactor left signature in tiny excess of heavier form of zinc Posted: 17 Oct 2012 10:18 AM PDT It's a big claim, but scientists say they have discovered evidence that the Moon was born in a flaming blaze of glory when a body the size of Mars collided with the early Earth. The evidence might not seem all that impressive to a nonscientist: a tiny excess of a heavier variant of the element zinc in Moon rocks. But the enrichment probably arose because heavier zinc atoms condensed out of the roiling cloud of vaporized rock created by a catastrophic collision faster than lighter zinc atoms, and the remaining vapor escaped before it could condense.

Doing nothing might be best management decision for forests destroyed by wind or ice Posted: 17 Oct 2012 09:41 AM PDT In newscasts after intense wind and ice storms, damaged trees stand out: snapped limbs, uprooted trunks, entire forests blown nearly flat. In a storm's wake, landowners, municipalities and state agencies are faced with important financial and environmental decisions. New research yields a surprising result: when it comes to the health of forests, native plants and wildlife, the best management decision may be to do nothing.

Searching for a silver bullet: Measuring biodiversity to inform species conservation Posted: 17 Oct 2012 09:39 AM PDT Ecologists have found that evolutionary diversity can be an effective method for identifying hotspots of mammal biodiversity. They report that evolutionary diversity can be an effective proxy for both the sheer number of species as well as their characteristics and ecological roles. Their findings could help conservation organizations better protect threatened species across the globe.

Corals and food security: Study shows nations at risk Posted: 17 Oct 2012 09:28 AM PDT A new study identifies countries most vulnerable to declining coral reef fisheries from a food-security perspective while providing a framework to plan for alternative protein sources needed to replace declining fisheries.

Too late to stop global warming by cutting emissions? Scientists argue for adaption policies Posted: 17 Oct 2012 07:29 AM PDT Governments and institutions should focus on developing adaption policies to address and mitigate against the negative impact of global warming, rather than putting the emphasis on carbon trading and capping greenhouse-gas emissions, argue two geoscientists in a new article.

Extreme 'housework' cuts the life span of female Komodo dragons Posted: 17 Oct 2012 07:29 AM PDT Researchers have found that female Komodo dragons live half as long as males on average, seemingly due to their physically demanding "housework" such as building huge nests and guarding eggs for up to six months.

Overpasses to provide safe passage for thousands of deer and antelope Posted: 17 Oct 2012 06:13 AM PDT Scientists have announced the successful use of newly constructed overpasses that provide safe passage for thousands of migrating pronghorn over U.S. Highway 191 in Trapper's Point, Wyoming, and surrounding areas. The event marks a new era of reduced risk of wildlife/vehicular collisions in the area, and the culmination of years of cooperation among conservationists, government officials, land and transportation planners, and others.

Extinction from global warming: Changing interactions between species may be more dangerous than high temperatures alone Posted: 16 Oct 2012 05:33 PM PDT A new study reviewed 136 case studies to determine the underlying causes of why many populations have gone extinct due to changing climate. According to the authors, extinctions of plant and animal populations from human-related climate change are already widespread, but the causes of these extinctions are very poorly understood. Contrary to expectations given global warming, the results of the study show that very few populations have gone extinct simply because temperatures got too hot for the plants and animals to survive.

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