ScienceDaily: Top Environment News

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• More accurate model of climate change's effect on soil
• Cool heads likely won't prevail in a hotter, wetter world: Climate change will likely exacerbate violence
• Climate change occurring ten times faster than at any time in past 65 million years
• New water splitting technique efficiently produces hydrogen fuel
• As climate, disease links become clearer, study highlights need to forecast future shifts
• Temperature alters population dynamics of common plant pests
• Arctic sea-ice loss has widespread effects on wildlife
• The when and where of the Y: Research on Y chromosomes uncovers new clues about human ancestry
• Existing cropland could feed four billion more by dropping biofuels and animal feed
• Bacteria hold the clues to trade-offs in financial investments and evolution
• Extreme wildfires in Western U.S. likely fueled by climate change
• Aerial pictures reveal climate change
• 'Evolution will punish you if you're selfish and mean'
• Fly study finds two new drivers of RNA editing
• Genome-wide profiling of microRNAs demonstrates how increasing CO2 and temperatures affect plant development

More accurate model of climate change's effect on soil Posted: 01 Aug 2013 11:24 AM PDT Scientists have developed a new computer model to measure global warming's effect on soil worldwide that accounts for how bacteria and fungi in soil control carbon.

Cool heads likely won't prevail in a hotter, wetter world: Climate change will likely exacerbate violence Posted: 01 Aug 2013 11:24 AM PDT Researchers report that even slight spikes in temperature and precipitation greatly increase the risk of personal and civil violence, and suggest that more human conflict is a likely outcome of climate change.

Climate change occurring ten times faster than at any time in past 65 million years Posted: 01 Aug 2013 11:24 AM PDT Not only is the planet undergoing one of the largest climate changes in the past 65 million years, scientists report that it's occurring at a rate 10 times faster than any change in that period. Without intervention, this extreme pace could lead to a 5-6 degree Celsius spike in annual temperatures by the end of the century.

New water splitting technique efficiently produces hydrogen fuel Posted: 01 Aug 2013 11:23 AM PDT Radically new technique uses the power of sunlight to efficiently split water into its components of hydrogen and oxygen, paving the way for the broad use of hydrogen as a clean, green fuel.

As climate, disease links become clearer, study highlights need to forecast future shifts Posted: 01 Aug 2013 11:23 AM PDT Climate change is affecting the spread of infectious diseases worldwide, according to an international team of leading disease ecologists, with serious impacts to human health and biodiversity conservation.

Temperature alters population dynamics of common plant pests Posted: 01 Aug 2013 11:23 AM PDT Temperature-driven changes alter outbreak patterns of tea tortrix -- an insect pest -- and may shed light on how temperature influences whether insects emerge as cohesive cohorts or continuously, according to an international team of researchers. These findings have implications for both pest control and how climate change may alter infestations.

Arctic sea-ice loss has widespread effects on wildlife Posted: 01 Aug 2013 11:23 AM PDT How the Arctic wildlife and humans will be affected by the continued melting of Arctic sea ice is explored in a review article in the journal Science, by an international team of scientists. The article examines relationships among algae, plankton, whales, and terrestrial animals such as caribou, arctic foxes, and walrus; as well as the effects of human exploration of previously inaccessible parts of the region.

The when and where of the Y: Research on Y chromosomes uncovers new clues about human ancestry Posted: 01 Aug 2013 11:21 AM PDT Using advanced analysis of DNA from Y chromosomes from men all over the world, scientists have shed new light on the mystery of when and how a few early human ancestors started to give rise to the incredible diversity of today's population.

Existing cropland could feed four billion more by dropping biofuels and animal feed Posted: 01 Aug 2013 09:57 AM PDT The world's croplands could feed 4 billion more people than they do now just by shifting from producing animal feed and biofuels to producing exclusively food for human consumption, according to new research.

Bacteria hold the clues to trade-offs in financial investments and evolution Posted: 01 Aug 2013 09:52 AM PDT Scientists have found that bacteria have the potential to teach valuable investment lessons. The research takes advantage of the fact that bacteria, like humans, have limited resources and are constantly faced with investment decisions.

Extreme wildfires in Western U.S. likely fueled by climate change Posted: 01 Aug 2013 08:31 AM PDT Climate change is likely fueling the larger and more destructive wildfires that are scorching vast areas of the American West, according to new research.

Aerial pictures reveal climate change Posted: 01 Aug 2013 06:55 AM PDT As a result of climate change, certain undesirable aquatic plants are starting to invade German water bodies. Even popular recreation areas like Lake Starnberg have been affected, leading to a growing need to monitor the spread of these plants. Up to now, regular monitoring has proven to be a costly process. But in a new approach, researchers have developed a quicker and less expensive method.

'Evolution will punish you if you're selfish and mean' Posted: 01 Aug 2013 06:55 AM PDT Evolutionary biologists offer new evidence that evolution doesn't favor the selfish, disproving a theory popularized in 2012.

Fly study finds two new drivers of RNA editing Posted: 01 Aug 2013 06:54 AM PDT A new study finds that RNA editing is not only regulated by sequences and structures near the editing sites but also by ones found much farther away. One newly discovered structure gives an editing enzyme an alternate docking site. The other appears to throttle competing splicing activity.

Genome-wide profiling of microRNAs demonstrates how increasing CO2 and temperatures affect plant development Posted: 31 Jul 2013 07:59 PM PDT A study on the mechanisms of how plants respond and adapt to elevated levels of carbon dioxide and higher temperatures has opened a new perspective in climate research. Researchers found that elevated carbon dioxide and higher temperatures affect the aspect of gene expression in plants that control flowering time and cell proliferation.

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