RefBan

Referral Banners

Friday, August 30, 2013

ScienceDaily: Top Environment News

ScienceDaily: Top Environment News


Spider venom reveals new secret: Once injected into a bite wound, venom of brown recluse spider causes unexpected reaction

Posted: 29 Aug 2013 06:47 PM PDT

Venom of spiders of the genus Loxosceles, which includes the brown recluse, produces a different chemical product than scientists have long believed. The discovery could lead to better understanding of how these spider bites can cause necrotic lesions or systemic reactions in humans and to new treatments for spider bites.

Terror bird's beak was worse than its bite: 'Terror bird' was probably a herbivore

Posted: 29 Aug 2013 06:45 PM PDT

Analysis of fossilized remains of the two meter tall terror bird (Gastornis) indicate that was unlikely to have been a carnivore.

Bacteria supplemented their diet to clean up after Deep Water Horizon oil

Posted: 29 Aug 2013 06:43 PM PDT

Bacteria living in the Gulf of Mexico beaches were able to 'eat up' the contamination from the Deep Water Horizon oil spill by supplementing their diet with nitrogen.

Little difference between heavy metal pollutants in fish at oil platforms and natural sites

Posted: 29 Aug 2013 11:52 AM PDT

Scientists analyzed whole-body fish samples taken from oil-and-gas production platforms and natural sites for heavy metal pollutants. The results showed all but four elements were relatively consistent at both types of location.

Learning how to migrate: Young whoopers stay the course when they follow a wise old bird

Posted: 29 Aug 2013 11:51 AM PDT

How do birds find their way on migration? Is their route encoded in their genes, or learned? Working with records from a long-term effort to reintroduce critically endangered whooping cranes in the Eastern US, researchers found these long-lived birds learn the route from older cranes, and get better at it with age.

NASA data reveals mega-canyon under Greenland ice sheet

Posted: 29 Aug 2013 11:16 AM PDT

Data from a NASA airborne science mission reveals evidence of a large and previously unknown canyon hidden under a mile of Greenland ice. The canyon has the characteristics of a winding river channel and is at least 460 miles (750 kilometers) long, making it longer than the Grand Canyon. In some places, it is as deep as 2,600 feet (800 meters), on scale with segments of the Grand Canyon. This immense feature is thought to predate the ice sheet that has covered Greenland for the last few million years.

On warming Antarctic Peninsula, moss and microbes reveal unprecedented ecological change

Posted: 29 Aug 2013 09:40 AM PDT

By carefully analyzing a 150-year-old moss bank on the Antarctic Peninsula, researchers describe an unprecedented rate of ecological change since the 1960s driven by warming temperatures.

'Safe' levels of environmental pollution may have long-term health consequences

Posted: 29 Aug 2013 08:28 AM PDT

If you're eating better and exercising regularly, but still aren't seeing improvements in your health, there might be a reason: Pollution. According to a new research report what you are eating and doing may not be the problem, but what's in what you are eating could be the culprit.

Protect corridors to save tigers, leopards

Posted: 29 Aug 2013 08:04 AM PDT

Conservation geneticists makes the case that landscape-level tiger and leopard conservation that includes protecting the corridors the big cats use for travel between habitat patches is the most effective conservation strategy for their long-term survival.

Where can coral reefs relocate to escape the heat?

Posted: 29 Aug 2013 06:34 AM PDT

The best real estate for coral reefs over the coming decades will no longer be around the equator but in the sub-tropics, new research suggests.

Ozone depletion linked to extreme precipitation in austral summer

Posted: 29 Aug 2013 06:34 AM PDT

The new study showed that the ozone depletion over the South Pole has affected the extreme daily precipitation in the austral summer, for Dec., Jan., and Feb.

Human heart disease recently found in chimpanzees

Posted: 29 Aug 2013 06:33 AM PDT

While in the past century there have been several documented examples of young, healthy athletes who have died suddenly of heart disease during competitive sporting events, a new study finds that this problem also extends to chimpanzees. Arrhythmogenic Right Ventricular Cardiomyopathy, a human heart disease that causes sudden cardiac death in teenagers and young adults (particularly healthy athletes), has now been identified in chimpanzees.

Recipe for Britain's first chilled chocolate treats discovered

Posted: 29 Aug 2013 06:31 AM PDT

The first English recipes for iced chocolate desserts, nearly 350 years old, have been uncovered – just in time for the last of the summery weather.

No comments: