Energy and Environment
Natural grass fires are evidently more important for the ecology of savannahs than has previously been assumed. This is the finding of a study carried out in Etosha National Park in the north of Namibia.
Plants in a forest respond to stress by producing significant amounts of a chemical form of aspirin, scientists have discovered.
As climate change is credited as one of the main drivers behind soaring food prices, the Global Crop Diversity Trust is undertaking a major effort to search crop collections—from Azerbaijan to Nigeria—for the traits that could arm agriculture against the impact of future changes. Traits, such as drought resistance in wheat, or salinity tolerance in potato, will become essential as crops around the world have to adapt to new climate conditions.
Engineers and scientists at The University of Texas at Austin have achieved a breakthrough in the use of a one-atom thick structure called "graphene" as a new carbon-based material for storing electrical charge in ultracapacitor devices, perhaps paving the way for the massive installation of renewable energies such as wind and solar power.
An ethanol-fueled spike in grain prices will likely hold, yielding the first sustained increase for corn, wheat and soybean prices in more than three decades, according to new research by two University of Illinois farm economists.
LHC’s proton beams are still waiting to collide, but scientific community already talks about building new generation of particle accelerators.
Nanotechnology could be the answer to ensuring a safe supply of drinking water for regions of the world stricken by periodic drought or where water contamination is rife. Writing in the International Journal of Nuclear Desalination, researchers in India explain how carbon nanotubes could replace conventional materials in water-purification systems.
The continued expansion of oil palm plantations will worsen the dual environmental crises of climate change and biodiversity loss, unless rainforests are better protected, warn scientists in the most comprehensive review of the subject to date.
An ongoing rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide from burning of fossil fuels might be kept below harmful levels if emissions from coal are phased out within the next few decades, say researchers.
Technology under development at the University of New South Wales could offer new hope to farmers in drought-affected and marginal areas by enabling crops to grow using salty groundwater.
New "petascale" computer models depicting detailed climate dynamics, and building the foundation for the next generation of complex climate models, are in the offing.
Scientists who have determined how much carbon is stored annually in upper Midwest forests hope their findings will be used to accelerate global discussion about the strategy of managing forests to offset greenhouse gas emissions.
A scientific expedition this fall will map the unexplored Arctic seafloor where the U.S. and Canada may have sovereign rights over natural resources such as oil and gas and control over activities such as mining.
Northern waters swiftly lose ice, and now anyone can travel through the North Pole by water, press service of Greenpeace-Russia reports.
Scientists predict that in five years Arctic icy cap would disappear. Satellite images, made several days ago, show a through channel in the arctic ice, piercing the most northern point of our planet.
The International Balzan Foundation will announce the winners of this year’s prestigious Balzan prizes on 8 September 2008 in Milan. The foundation will be awarding the prizes in honour of exceptional research in Preventive Medicine, the Science of Climate Change, the Visual Arts Since 1700 and Moral Philosophy. The prizes, which are each worth one million Swiss Francs, are to be presented on 21 November in the presence of Italy’s President, Giorgio Napolitano, during an official ceremony at the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei in Rome.
