ScienceDaily: Top Environment News

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• Traffic jams lend insight into emperor penguin huddle
• Four new mammal species discovered in Democratic Republic of Congo
• How household dogs protect against asthma and infection
• Discovery of 1.4 million-year-old fossil human hand bone closes human evolution gap
• Cat domestication traced to Chinese farmers 5,300 years ago
• Recognizing the elephant in the room: Future climate impacts across sectors
• Global warming: Four degree rise will end vegetation 'carbon sink', research suggests
• Lost freshwater may double climate change effects on agriculture
• Neanderthals buried their dead, new research of remains concludes
• Piece-by-piece approach to emissions policies can be effective, study finds
• When will Earth lose its oceans?
• Pollination, land degradation: Top priorities for assessment by new UN intergovernmental body
• Climate change threatens genetic diversity, future of world's caribou
• Nitrogen deposition poses threat to diversity of Europe's forest vegetation
• Bonobos stay young longer
• World e-waste map reveals national volumes, international flows
• The colors of nature: Nine beautiful new wasp species from China
• Saving the Great Plains water supply
• Molecular toolkit for gene silencing
• Sterile salmon – reducing environmental impact of farm escapees

Traffic jams lend insight into emperor penguin huddle Posted: 16 Dec 2013 05:40 PM PST Emperor penguins maintain the tight huddle that protects them from the harsh conditions of an Antarctic winter with stop-and-go movements like cars in a traffic jam, a new study has shown.

Four new mammal species discovered in Democratic Republic of Congo Posted: 16 Dec 2013 03:38 PM PST Scientists have discovered four new species of small mammals in the eastern section of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

How household dogs protect against asthma and infection Posted: 16 Dec 2013 12:50 PM PST Children's risk for developing allergies and asthma is reduced when they are exposed in early infancy to a dog in the household, and now researchers have discovered a reason why.

Discovery of 1.4 million-year-old fossil human hand bone closes human evolution gap Posted: 16 Dec 2013 12:49 PM PST Scientists have found a new hand bone from a human ancestor who roamed the earth in East Africa approximately 1.42 million years ago. The discovery of this bone is the earliest evidence of a modern human-like hand, indicating that this anatomical feature existed more than half a million years earlier than previously known.

Cat domestication traced to Chinese farmers 5,300 years ago Posted: 16 Dec 2013 12:48 PM PST Five-thousand years before it was immortalized in a British nursery rhyme, the cat that caught the rat that ate the malt was doing just fine living alongside farmers in the ancient Chinese village of Quanhucun, new research has shown.

Recognizing the elephant in the room: Future climate impacts across sectors Posted: 16 Dec 2013 12:48 PM PST A pioneering collaboration within the international scientific community has provided comprehensive projections of climate change effects, ranging from water scarcity to risks to crop yields. This interdisciplinary effort, employing extensive model inter-comparisons, allows research gaps to be identified, whilst producing the most robust possible findings. The results provide crucial insights for decision-making regarding mitigation efforts in the face of potential impact cascades.

Global warming: Four degree rise will end vegetation 'carbon sink', research suggests Posted: 16 Dec 2013 12:48 PM PST New research suggests that a temperature increase of four degrees is likely to "saturate" areas of dense vegetation with carbon, preventing plants from helping to balance CO2 escalation -- and consequently accelerating climate change.

Lost freshwater may double climate change effects on agriculture Posted: 16 Dec 2013 12:43 PM PST A new analysis combining climate, agricultural, and hydrological models finds that shortages of freshwater used for irrigation could double the detrimental effects of climate change on agriculture.

Neanderthals buried their dead, new research of remains concludes Posted: 16 Dec 2013 12:43 PM PST Neanderthals buried their dead, an international team of archaeologists has concluded after a 13-year study of remains discovered in southwestern France.

Piece-by-piece approach to emissions policies can be effective, study finds Posted: 16 Dec 2013 11:24 AM PST New analysis shows that policies addressing energy consumption and technology choices individually can play an important part in reducing emissions.

When will Earth lose its oceans? Posted: 16 Dec 2013 11:23 AM PST The natural increase in solar luminosity -- a very slow process unrelated to current climate warming -- will cause the Earth's temperatures to rise over the next few hundred million years. This will result in the complete evaporation of the oceans. The first three-dimensional climate model able to simulate the phenomenon predicts that liquid water will disappear on Earth in approximately one billion years, extending previous estimates by several hundred million years.

Pollination, land degradation: Top priorities for assessment by new UN intergovernmental body Posted: 16 Dec 2013 07:30 AM PST Meeting in Antalya, Turkey, nations from around the world agreed Saturday to fast-track science assessments of two priority environmental issues, to include recommendations for government policy changes. The fast-track assessments of land degradation and of the impact on food production of changes in the populations of bees and other insect pollinators around the world form part of the first work program agreed upon for the new UN Intergovernmental science-policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services.

Climate change threatens genetic diversity, future of world's caribou Posted: 16 Dec 2013 06:55 AM PST Caribou in southern and eastern Canada may disappear from most of their current range in 60 years if climate change takes the toll on their habitat that scientists predict. Scientists looked at reservoirs of genetic diversity in caribou and whether that diversity was linked to stable habitats.

Nitrogen deposition poses threat to diversity of Europe's forest vegetation Posted: 16 Dec 2013 05:04 AM PST Unless nitrogen emissions are curbed, the diversity of plant communities in Europe's forests will decrease. Atmospheric nitrogen deposition has already changed the number and richness of forest floor vegetation species in European forests over the last 20-30 years. In particular, the coverage of plant species adapted to nutrient-poor conditions has reduced. However, levels of nitrogen deposition in Finnish forests remain small compared to Southern and Central Europe.

Bonobos stay young longer Posted: 16 Dec 2013 05:04 AM PST Contrary to humans and chimpanzees, bonobos retain elevated thyroid hormones well into adulthood.

World e-waste map reveals national volumes, international flows Posted: 15 Dec 2013 06:37 AM PST The first 'E-Waste World Map' has been created by UN organizations, industry, governments, non-government and science organizations through their 'Solving the E-Waste Problem (StEP)' initiative. By 2017, world volumes of end-of-life e-products is expected to be 33 percent higher than 2012 and weigh the equivalent of eight Great Egyptian Pyramids. A complementary new EPA-funded StEP report by MIT and NCER characterizes US domestic and transboundary flows of used electronics.

The colors of nature: Nine beautiful new wasp species from China Posted: 13 Dec 2013 10:54 AM PST The first revision of the cuckoo wasp genus Cleptes from China has brought to light nine new gorgeously colored species from the genus. The genus is part of the engaging Chrysididae wasp family, known for their bright metallic body colors and their peculiar parasitizing and defensive mechanisms.

Saving the Great Plains water supply Posted: 13 Dec 2013 10:54 AM PST Significant portions of the Ogalalla Aquifer, one of the largest bodies of water in the United States, are at risk of drying up if it continues to be drained at its current rate.

Molecular toolkit for gene silencing Posted: 13 Dec 2013 06:33 AM PST Researchers have managed to overcome remaining key limitations of RNA interference (RNAi) - a unique method to specifically shut off genes. By using an optimized design, the scientists were able to inhibit genes with greatly enhanced efficiency and accuracy. The new method facilitates the search for drug targets and improves the interpretation of experimental results.

Sterile salmon – reducing environmental impact of farm escapees Posted: 12 Dec 2013 06:58 AM PST A PhD project has investigated the use of sterile salmon in aquaculture as a means to prevent escaped farmed salmon interbreeding with wild salmon. The study used a method known as triploidy to induce sterility in Atlantic salmon. The results suggest that in order to successfully integrate triploid salmon into the industry, some modifications are required to the current protocols used today to prevent heart and skeletal deformities.

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