ScienceDaily: Top Environment News

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• Current pledges to reduce greenhouse gas emissions put over 600 million people at risk of higher water scarcity
• Get touchy feely with plants: Gently rubbing them with your fingers can make them less susceptible to disease
• Underlying ocean melts ice shelf, speeds up glacier movement
• Viruses associated with coral epidemic of 'white plague'
• Movement of marine life follows speed and direction of climate change
• Functioning 'mechanical gears' seen in nature for first time
• Sewage treatment removes widely used home and garden insecticides from wastewater
• Decades on, bacterium's discovery feted as paragon of basic science
• Unprecedented rate and scale of ocean acidification found in the Arctic
• New info on an elusive green cicada
• Genetics of how and why fish swim in schools: Research sheds light on complex social behavior
• Darwin's dilemma resolved: Evolution's 'big bang' explained by five times faster rates of evolution
• Uros people of Peru and Bolivia found to have distinctive genetic ancestries
• Study explores complex physical oceanography in East China Sea
• Delaying climate policy would triple short-term mitigation costs
• Dogs' behavior could help design social robots
• A century of human impact on Arctic climate indicated by new models, historic aerosol data
• Ancient ancestor of tulip tree line identified
• Guppy fish proven to be cheap, effective tool in fight against Dengue fever

Current pledges to reduce greenhouse gas emissions put over 600 million people at risk of higher water scarcity Posted: 12 Sep 2013 05:32 PM PDT Our current pledges to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, which are projected to set the global mean temperature increase at around 3.5°C above pre-industrial levels, will expose 668 million people worldwide to new or aggravated water scarcity.

Get touchy feely with plants: Gently rubbing them with your fingers can make them less susceptible to disease Posted: 12 Sep 2013 05:30 PM PDT Forget talking to plants to help them grow, gently rubbing them with your fingers can make them less susceptible to disease, a new article reveals. Gently rubbing the leaves of thale cress plants (Arabidsopsis thaliana) between thumb and forefinger activates an innate defense mechanism, scientists report. Within minutes, biochemical changes occur, causing the plant to become more resistant to Botrytis cinerea, the fungus that causes grey mould.

Underlying ocean melts ice shelf, speeds up glacier movement Posted: 12 Sep 2013 11:39 AM PDT Warm ocean water, not warm air, is melting the Pine Island Glacier's floating ice shelf in Antarctica and may be the culprit for increased melting of other ice shelves, according to an international team of researchers.

Viruses associated with coral epidemic of 'white plague' Posted: 12 Sep 2013 11:39 AM PDT They call it the "white plague," and like its black counterpart from the Middle Ages, it conjures up visions of catastrophic death, with a cause that was at first uncertain even as it led to widespread destruction -- on marine corals in the Caribbean Sea. Now, at least, one of the causes of this plague has been found.

Movement of marine life follows speed and direction of climate change Posted: 12 Sep 2013 11:36 AM PDT New research shows that the trick to predicting when and where sea animals will relocate due to climate change is to follow the pace and direction of temperature changes, known as climate velocity.

Functioning 'mechanical gears' seen in nature for first time Posted: 12 Sep 2013 11:36 AM PDT Previously believed to be only human-made, a natural example of a functioning gear mechanism has been discovered in a common insect -- showing that evolution developed interlocking cogs long before we did. In Issus, the skeleton is used to solve a complex problem that the brain and nervous system can't, one of the researchers said.

Sewage treatment removes widely used home and garden insecticides from wastewater Posted: 12 Sep 2013 11:36 AM PDT Even though sewage treatment plants are not designed to remove tiny amounts of pesticides, they do an excellent job of dealing with the most widely used family of home and garden insecticides, scientists report. The study focused on pyrethroid insecticides.

Decades on, bacterium's discovery feted as paragon of basic science Posted: 12 Sep 2013 11:33 AM PDT Over time, the esoteric and sometimes downright strange quests of science have proven easy targets for politicians and others looking for perceived examples of waste in government — and a cheap headline.

Unprecedented rate and scale of ocean acidification found in the Arctic Posted: 12 Sep 2013 10:21 AM PDT Acidification of the Arctic Ocean is occurring faster than projected, according to new findings. The increase in rate is being blamed on rapidly melting sea ice, a process that may have important consequences for health of the Arctic ecosystem.

New info on an elusive green cicada Posted: 12 Sep 2013 10:20 AM PDT For nearly 80 years, the North American cicada Okanagana viridis has received little attention in scientific literature, but a new article provides the first notes on the song and ecology of this elusive species, and updates its known range.

Genetics of how and why fish swim in schools: Research sheds light on complex social behavior Posted: 12 Sep 2013 10:17 AM PDT How and why fish swim in schools has long fascinated biologists looking for clues to understand the complexities of social behavior. A new study may help provide some insight.

Darwin's dilemma resolved: Evolution's 'big bang' explained by five times faster rates of evolution Posted: 12 Sep 2013 10:17 AM PDT Biologists have estimated, for the first time, the rates of evolution during the "Cambrian explosion" when most modern animal groups appeared between 540 and 520 million years ago.

Uros people of Peru and Bolivia found to have distinctive genetic ancestries Posted: 12 Sep 2013 08:28 AM PDT New genetic research led by the Genographic Project consortium shows a distinctive ancestry for the Uros populations of Peru and Bolivia that predates the arrival of the Spanish conquistadores and may date back to the earliest settlement of the Altiplano, or high plain, of the central Andes some 3,700 years ago. Despite the fact that the Uros today share many lineages with the surrounding Andean populations, they have maintained their own divergent genetic ancestry.

Study explores complex physical oceanography in East China Sea Posted: 12 Sep 2013 08:28 AM PDT Just days before a team of researchers set out to conduct fieldwork in the East China Sea, Typhoon Morakot -- one of the most destructive storms ever to hit Taiwan -- made landfall on the island, causing widespread damage and drastically altering the flow of water along the nearby continental shelf. Their research may offer a new understanding of how chaotic and powerful currents form in the East China Sea, and could also reveal how large storms affect those currents.

Delaying climate policy would triple short-term mitigation costs Posted: 12 Sep 2013 08:18 AM PDT Further delay in the implementation of comprehensive international climate policies could substantially increase the short-term costs of climate change mitigation. Global economic growth would be cut back by up to 7 percent within the first decade after climate policy implementation if the current international stalemate is continued until 2030 -- compared to 2 percent if a climate agreement is reached by 2015 already, a new study shows.

Dogs' behavior could help design social robots Posted: 12 Sep 2013 07:48 AM PDT Designers of social robots, take note. Bring your dog to the lab next time you test a prototype, and watch how your pet interacts with it. You might just learn a thing or two that could help you fine-tune future designs. So says researchers who found that 'man's best friend' reacts sociably to robots that behave socially towards them, even if the devices look nothing like a human.

A century of human impact on Arctic climate indicated by new models, historic aerosol data Posted: 12 Sep 2013 06:37 AM PDT A new study suggests that both anthropogenic and natural factors -- specifically sulphate aerosols from industrial activity and volcanic emissions, in addition to greenhouse gas releases from fossil fuel burning -- account for Arctic surface temperature variations from 1900 to the present.

Ancient ancestor of tulip tree line identified Posted: 12 Sep 2013 06:37 AM PDT The modern-day tulip tree, state tree of Indiana as well as Kentucky and Tennessee, can trace its lineage back to the time of the dinosaurs, according to newly published research.

Guppy fish proven to be cheap, effective tool in fight against Dengue fever Posted: 12 Sep 2013 06:16 AM PDT Larvae-eating guppy fish can help combat the spread of dengue, a mosquito-borne illness giving rise to hundreds of thousands of severe cases including 20,000 deaths worldwide every year.

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