Environment

In the Cerrado region of Brazil, four dogs trained to detect animal feces by scent are helping researchers monitor rare and threatened wildlife such as jaguar, tapir, giant anteater and maned wolf in and around Emas National Park, a protected area with the largest concentration of threatened species in Brazil. The researchers analyze feces found by the dogs to learn about where and how the threatened mammals live. Data such as numbers, range, diet, hormonal stress, parasites and even genetic identity contribute to a study of how the mammals use environments inside and outside the park,…

Distiller’s grains are a by-product of ethanol processing that can be used for animal feed. There’s been some skepticism about using distiller’s grains in Texas but one scientist says the type of grain used makes all the difference. Dr. Jim MacDonald, AgriLife Research beef nutritionist at Amarillo, said, “I believe we can do it successfully, provided we have distiller’s grains that are equivalent in quality to those used in the North Plains states.” Two years ago, MacDonald began investigating the dramatically different animal performance responses observed in the Northern Plains and…

You wouldn't think that clean air would be bad for the Amazon rainforest but UK and Brazilian climate scientists writing in Nature say just that. Reduced sulphur dioxide emissions from less burning coal and increased sea surface temperatures in the tropical north Atlantic, are causing a heightened risk of drought in the Amazon rainforest. A team from the University of Exeter, Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, Met Office Hadley Centre and Brazilian National Institute for Space Studies used the Met Office Hadley Centre climate-carbon model to simulate the impacts of twenty-first century…

As marine pollution continues to rise, various interesting solutions have been proposed to remove toxic contaminants. Various species of seaweed are able to extract toxic compounds from seawater, says Shinichi Nagata of the Environmental Biochemistry Group, at Kobe University, Japan, and colleagues at Shimane University and Nankai University, China. They point to the brown seaweed, Undaria pinnatifida, known as wakame in Japan, and note that it has been the focus of research in this area for almost a decade. Good to eat too. Wakame turns a bright green when boiled. Wakame can thrive evening…

The residual herbicides commonly used in the production of corn and soybean are frequently detected in rivers, streams, and reservoirs at concentrations that exceed drinking water standards in areas where these crops are extensively grown. When these bodies of water are used as sources of drinking water this contamination can lead to increased treatment costs or a need to seek alternative sources of supply. Additionally, these herbicides can have negative effects on aquatic ecosystems at concentrations well below their drinking water standards. When genetically modified, herbicide-tolerant…

The government of Cameroon has created the Kagwene Gorilla Sanctuary, the world’s first sanctuary exclusively for the Cross River gorilla, the world’s rarest kind of great ape. “The creation of this sanctuary is the fruit of many years of work in helping to protect the world’s rarest gorilla subspecies,” said Dr. Roger Fotso, Director of the Wildlife Conservation Society’s Cameroon Program, which worked in tandem with the Cameroon Ministry of Forestry and Wildlife in laying the groundwork for the sanctuary. Classified as Critically Endangered by IUCN’s Red List, the Cross River gorilla is…

Increased carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere is causing microscopic ocean plants to produce greater amounts of calcium carbonate (chalk) - with potentially wide ranging implications for predicting the cycling of carbon in the oceans and climate modelling. That is the conclusion of an international team of scientists led by investigators based at the UK's National Oceanography Centre, Southampton and the University of Oxford, published in Science, on 18 April 2008. Co lead-author, Dr M Debora Iglesias-Rodriguez, of the University of Southampton's School of Ocean and Earth Science at the…

Carbon dioxide removed from smokestack emissions in order to slow global warming could be used as a valuable raw material for the production of DVDs, beverage bottles and other products made from polycarbonate plastics, chemists are reporting. In separate reports scheduled for presentation at the meeting of the American Chemical Society, Thomas E. Müller, Ph.D., and Toshiyasu Sakakura, Ph.D., described innovative ways of making polycarbonate plastics from CO2. Those processes offer consumers the potential for less expensive, safer and greener products compared to current production methods,…

Want ethical clothing? You have to go with bamboo, people say. There hasn't been this much enthusiasm for a renewable product since ethanol in the 1990s. If you follow the hype, bamboo fabric is soft, durable and elastic. It hangs as gracefully as silk, has an attractive, lustrous sheen and plants grow in 4 years. It is, in other words, perfect. Except it isn't. Ironically, unless it is treated with harmful chemicals, bamboo is not that great. Raw bamboo fabric lets almost all harmful UV radiation pass through and reach the skin and because cellulose fibers allow moisture to leak in and…

A new coating system to paint aircraft and other equipment is, ironically, safer to human health and the environment. The breakthrough comes after two years of research and testing on trivalent chromium-based primers and sealers. Chromium has long been used in paint to create dense, protective coatings. This is especially important to the Army which needs to cover its equipment with paint that can resist corrosive chemical agent. However, chromium, in its hexavalent form, is a known carcinogen. Although the Army has used chromium-6-based paint safely to protect and extend the life of its…