Category: Environment

Suspected family of contaminants are used in nonstick coatings and as additives in a wide variety of goods including cookware, furniture fabrics, carpets, food packaging, fire-fighting foams and cosmetics.

The same chemicals that keep food from sticking to our frying pans and stains from setting in our carpets are damaging the livers and impairing the immune systems of loggerhead turtles—an environmental health impact that also may signal a danger for humans.

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NIST research biologist Jennifer M. Keller taking a blood sample from a loggerhead turtle as part of her study looking at the health impacts of perfluorinated compounds (PFCs) on the endangered marine reptile.

As vast and far-reaching as the world’s oceans are, every square kilometer is affected by human activities, according to a study in the journal Science by researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and others.

An international team of scientists has integrated global data from 17 aspects of global change – from overfishing to global warming – that threaten 20 different marine ecosystems, such as coral reefs and continental shelves, to create a global threat map of the oceans. Similar to an online satellite map that lets you add layers of highways, retail stores, schools, parks, etc., to find the most congested areas or the highest concentration of fast food restaurants, the global threat map highlights areas in the ocean where threats overlap.

It seems that the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem has gone hareless. No jack rabbit sightings can be confirmed in Yellowstone since 1991, and only three in Grand Teton since 1978.

A new study by the Bronx Zoo-based Wildlife Conservation Society found that jack rabbits living in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem have apparently hopped into oblivion. The study, which appears in the latest issue of the journal Oryx, also speculates that the disappearance of jack rabbits may be having region-wide impacts on a variety of other prey species and their predators.

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Jack rabbits like this one have mysteriously vanished from Yellowstone National Park a Wildlife Conservation Society study says.

Maybe, just maybe, there's a iota of good news on the global warming front. Some scientists think there may be a natural thermostat the keep already warm ocean waters from getting even warmer. Unfortunately, this is only a maybe. Even the scientists aren't sure.

Natural processes may prevent oceans from warming beyond a certain point, helping protect some coral reefs from the impacts of climate change, new research finds. The study, by scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS), finds evidence that an ocean "thermostat" appears to be helping to regulate sea-surface temperatures in a biologically diverse region of the western Pacific.

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The Western Pacific Warm Pool, which lies northeast of Australia, contains some of the warmest ocean waters in the world. Water temperatures in the warm pool have risen less than elsewhere in the tropics, which may explain why reefs there have experienced less coral bleaching.

Climate mechanism could explain 1940s crash that led to demise of Cannery Row on the Monterey Peninsula.

The mid-20th century crash of the sardine fishery off California for decades has vexed marine ecologists searching for the root causes of large fluctuations in the sardine population. Before its collapse, the fishery was one of the world’s most productive and formed the setting of John Steinbeck’s Cannery Row in Monterey, Calif.

At least in the U.S., people are spending more time surfing the web or playing video games and less time enjoying nature.

From backyard gardening to mountain climbing, outdoor activities are on the wane as people around the world spend more leisure time online or in front of the tube, according to findings published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Climate change's risks to health include heat waves, floods and wildfires, changes in disease patterns and the effect of worsening food yields.

Climate change will have a huge impact on human health and bold environmental policy decisions are needed now to protect the world’s population, according to the author of an article published in the BMJ on Saturday.

Aging dams, abandoned roads, even unused offshore oil platforms, may hold keys to improving our environment.

Thousands of obsolete dams and thousands of miles of abandoned roads in America’s aging and crumbling infrastructure could still be valuable – to the environment, according to a policy forum paper in this week’s Science by Martin Doyle of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and colleagues.

While it's true that drastic changes are needed if we're to stop global warming and save the planet, there are some simple things you can do to help out now.

Want to begin to be more environmentally friendly in 2008 but can't afford a hybrid car? Don't worry — there are plenty of ways to lessen your impact on the environment that don't come with such a daunting price tag, says Matt Malten, assistant vice chancellor for campus sustainability at Washington University in St. Louis. And they likely will even save you some money without cramping your carbon-creating lifestyle — much.

When someone mentions a mobile home or "house trailer," the image usually doesn't make others green with envy. But "green" is exactly what the future mobile home might be.

Mobile homes haven't earned recognition for long-term quality, environmental friendliness or return on value. But Michael Berk, F.L. Crane Endowed Professor of Architecture at Mississippi State, wants to toss traditional thinking about the structures into the recycling bin, salvaging the traditional "mobile home" perception one national award at a time.

Working in the Carl Small Town Center--a part of MSU's College of Architecture, Art and Design--Berk created an award-winning, next-generation factory-built unit he calls the GreenMobile. Unlike other lower-end housing, Berk's applies sound construction methods, as well as energy-saving concepts for lower utility costs.