How do female whale sharks meet their perfect mates and go on to create offspring? While little is known about the reproductive behavior of those ocean-roaming giants, a newly published analysis led by University of Illinois at Chicago biologist Jennifer Schmidt reveals new information about the mating habits of this elusive, difficult-to-study fish.
The pregnant shark carried a amazingly many embryos — 304 — still in the uterus and representing a spectrum of age and development phases ranging from being still egg-encased to developed, near-term animals. Continue Reading »
In “The Sign of the Four” Sherlock Holmes tells Watson he has written a monograph on 140 forms of cigar-, cigarette-, and pipe-tobacco, “with colored plates illustrating the difference in the ash.” He finds the ash invaluable for the identification of miscreants who happen to smoke during the commission of a crime.
But Sherlock Holmes and his cigarette ash and pipe dottle don’t have a patch on geologists and the “redox proxies” from which they deduce chemical conditions early in Earth’s history.
Redox proxies, such as the ratio of chromium isotopes in banded iron formations or the number of isotopes in sulfide particles trapped in diamonds, tell geologists indirectly whether the Earth’ s atmosphere and oceans were reducing (inclined to give away electrons to other atoms) or oxidizing (inclined to glom onto them). Continue Reading »
Researchers have developed technology for large-scale solar power installations to self-clean.
Find dusting those tables and dressers a chore or a bore? Dread washing the windows? Imagine keeping dust and grime off objects spread out over an area of 25 to 50 football fields. That’s the problem facing companies that deploy large-scale solar power installations, and scientists have now presented the development of one solution — self-dusting solar panels ― based on technology developed for space missions to Mars.
In a report at the 240th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS) on August 22, they described how a self-cleaning coating at first glance of solar cells could increase the efficiency of producing electricity from sunlight and reduce maintenance costs for large-scale solar installations. Continue Reading »
NASA’s Terra and Aqua satellites are helping the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) keep tabs on the extent of the recent Gulf oil spill with satellite images ever so often. NOAA is the lead agency on oil spills and uses airplane fly-overs to assess oil spill extent. Continue Reading »
John Balbus, MD, MPH, Senior Advisor for Public Health for the National Institutes of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), will discuss the significant public health threats and opportunities presented by climate change and the way children around the globe could be affected. Dr. Balbus will show the keynote lecture, “Putting a Human Face On Climate Change: A Public Health Perspective,” at 5 p.m. PT, Saturday, May 1, for the 2010 Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) opening general session on the Vancouver Convention & Exhibition Centre in British Columbia, Canada. Continue Reading »
Spanish and French researchers have evaluated the spread of the invasive mosquitofish Gambusia holbrooki, which is native to the us and lives in Mediterranean rivers in Spain and France. The scientists warn that climate change will extend the current distribution area of this and other invasive species to the north. Continue Reading »
Research led by the University of Edinburgh suggests that plant leaves account for under one per cent of the Earth’s emissions of methane –which is considered to be about 25 times more effective than carbon dioxide at global warming.
The results contrast with a previous scientific study which had suggested that plants were responsible for producing large amounts of the greenhouse gas. Continue Reading »
Developing countries will be producing at least twice as much electronic waste (e-waste) as developed countries within the next 6-8 years, according to a new study published in ACS’ semi-monthly journal Environmental Science & Technology. Eric Williams and colleagues cite a dramatic increase in ownership of PCs and other electronic devices in both developed and developing countries. Continue Reading »
New investigation indicates that among the biggest fresh-water floods within Earth’s history happened about 17,000 years ago and inundated a large area of Alaska that’s right now occupied in part through the city of Wasilla, widely recognized because associated with the 2008 presidential campaign.
The event had been one of at least 4 “megafloods” because Glacial Lake Atna breached ice public works and released water. The actual lake protected more than 3,500 square miles in the Copper River Basin northeast of Anchorage and Wasilla. Continue Reading »
Could natural labels lead you to overeat? These types of labeling certainly appear to make individuals believe their own organic snack has a lot fewer energy compared to it will.
These bits of information had been presented at this week’s Experimental Biology conference in Anaheim, Calif. These people demonstrated which people who consumed natural cookies called “organic” thought which their snack included 40% less energy than the exact same cookies that got no label, according to Jenny Wan-Chen Lee, a graduate student with the Cornell Food and Brand Lab. Continue Reading »
