Environment

During the presidential campaign, Barack Obama suggested his economic plan would create 5 million jobs in environmental industries - easy enough to do when taxpayers are subsidizing even more federal workers but will these so-called "green collar" jobs present the next frontier for U.S. manufacturing?   A new report led by a sociologist from Duke University is backing up Obama's claim.  Their report, "Manufacturing Climate Solutions," provides a detailed look at the manufacturing jobs that already exist and would be created when the U.S. takes action to limit global-warming…

In a study to be published next week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, scientists show that forests may influence the Earth's climate in important ways that have not previously been recognized. When sunlight reaches the Earth's surface it can either be absorbed and converted to heat or reflected back to outer space, where it doesn't influence the Earth's temperature. Scott Ollinger, a professor at the University of New Hampshire Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans, and Space and the department of Natural Resources and the Environment and colleagues have discovered…

You wouldn't ordinarily think of soil as a non-renewable resource, but it is.    Healing damage to soil takes geologic time, not human time.    And increasing levels of nitrogen deposition that are associated with industry and agriculture are driving soils toward a toxic level of acidification, reducing plant growth and polluting surface waters, according to a new study published online in Nature Geoscience.  The study, conducted in the Tatra Mountains of Slovakia by the University of Colorado, University of Montana, Slovak Academy of Sciences, and the U.S. Geological…

A new Dutch invention makes it possible to reforest large desert and rocky areas in the coming years, they say. Experiments in the Sahara desert have shown that the WaterBoxx allows trees to grow under harsh conditions and can provide them with sufficient water. The invention of the Dutch businessman and inventor Pieter Hoff has won the prestigious Beta Dragons Award during the annual Flying Dutchman 2008, Science Technology Summit in Amsterdam. A board of scientists and captains of industry proclaimed his design to be the most promising and innovative project. Philips CEO Gerard Kleisterlee…

A new class of exceptionally effective catalysts that promote the powerful olefin metathesis reaction has been discovered by a team of Boston College and MIT scientists, opening up a vast new scientific platform to researchers in medicine, biology and materials. The new catalysts can be easily prepared and possess unique features never before utilized by chemists, according to findings from a team led by Boston College Prof. Amir H. Hoveyda and MIT Prof. and Nobel laureate Richard Schrock, who shared the 2005 prize in Chemistry for early discoveries of catalytic olefin metathesis. The team's…

An unusual microorganism discovered in the open ocean may force scientists to rethink their understanding of how carbon and nitrogen cycle through ocean ecosystems. A research team led by Jonathan Zehr, a marine scientist at the University of California, Santa Cruz, characterized the new microbe by analyzing its genetic material, even though researchers have not been able to grow it in the laboratory.  Zehr said the newly described organism seems to be an atypical member of the cyanobacteria, a group of photosynthetic bacteria formerly known as blue-green algae. "This research has…

Scientists may have overcome a major hurdle to calculating how much carbon dioxide (CO2) is absorbed and released by plants, vital information for understanding how the biosphere responds to stress and for determining the amount of carbon that can be safely emitted by human activities. The problem is that ecosystems simultaneously take up and release CO2. The key finding is that the compound carbonyl sulfide, which plants consume in tandem with CO2, can be used to quantify gas flow into the plants during photosynthesis. The research is published in the November 14, issue of Science.  "In…

There may be less than 20,000 rhinoceros in the world, with one species perhaps already extinct and another with possibly only four animals remaining in the wild. As the populations of these animals age and become infirm, successful breeding becomes increasingly difficult. In an article scheduled for publication in Theriogenology, researchers from the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research, Berlin, Zoo Budapest and the University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna, report on the first live birth of a rhinoceros resulting from artificial insemination (AI) with frozen and thawed semen.…

Researchers at MIT's Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research have produced a report concerning key design issues of proposed "cap-and-trade" programs that are under consideration in the United States as a way of curbing greenhouse gas emissions. The first contribution of the three-part study found that, based on an examination of the European Union's system and of similar U.S. programs for other emissions, such a program can indeed be effective in reducing emissions without having a significant economic impact. "The European experience confirms much of what has been learned from…

Evidence that global warming is causing the worldwide declines of amphibians may not be as conclusive as previously thought, according to biologists whose findings contradict two widely held views and could help reveal what is killing the frogs and toads - and aid in their conservation. Studies suggest that more than 32 percent of amphibian species are threatened and more than 43 percent face a steep decline in numbers. "We are currently in the midst of a sixth mass extinction event," said Peter Hudson, the Willaman professor of biology at Penn State and co-author of the research study. "And…