ScienceDaily: Top Environment News

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• Honey bees fight back against Varroa
• New fish species offers literal take on 'hooking up'
• New clues about ancient water cycles shed light on U.S. deserts
• Napiergrass: A potential biofuel crop for the sunny Southeast
• Scientists capture clues to sustainability of fish populations
• It's not too late for troubled fisheries, experts say
• Uranium-contaminated site yields wealth of information on microbes 10 feet under
• Electronics that vanish in the environment or the body
• 'Semi-dwarf' trees may enable a green revolution for some forest crops
• Probability maps help sniff out food contamination
• New efficiency record for photovoltaic cells, thanks to heterojunction
• Nature's misfits: Reclassifying protists helps answer how many species remain undiscovered
• Salt cedar beetle damage widespread after warm summer
• Scientists bring the heat to refine renewable biofuel production
• La Bastida unearths 4,200-year-old fortification, unique in continental Europe
• Carnivorous plant catapults prey with snap-tentacles: Biologists describe new capture mechanism
• True love between grass and clover leads to richer harvest
• Dioxin causes disease and reproductive problems across generations, study finds

Honey bees fight back against Varroa Posted: 27 Sep 2012 05:53 PM PDT The parasitic mite Varroa destructor is a major contributor to the recent mysterious death of honey bee colonies. New research finds that specific proteins, released by damaged larvae and in the antennae of adult honey bees, can drive hygienic behavior of the adults and promote the removal of infected larvae from the hive.

New fish species offers literal take on 'hooking up' Posted: 27 Sep 2012 12:25 PM PDT A new species of freshwater fish has several interesting -- and perhaps cringe-inducing -- characteristics, including a series of four hooks on the male genitalia.

New clues about ancient water cycles shed light on U.S. deserts Posted: 27 Sep 2012 11:42 AM PDT The deserts of Utah and Nevada have not always been dry. Now a researcher has found a new water cycle connection between the U.S. southwest and the tropics, and understanding the processes that have brought precipitation to the western US will help scientists better understand how the water cycle might be perturbed in the future.

Napiergrass: A potential biofuel crop for the sunny Southeast Posted: 27 Sep 2012 11:25 AM PDT A grass fed to cattle throughout much of the tropics may become a biofuel crop that helps the nation meet its future energy needs, according to a scientist.

Scientists capture clues to sustainability of fish populations Posted: 27 Sep 2012 11:15 AM PDT Thanks to studies of a fish that gives birth to live young and is not fished commercially, scientists have discovered that food availability is a critical limiting factor in the health of fish populations.

It's not too late for troubled fisheries, experts say Posted: 27 Sep 2012 11:15 AM PDT New research confirms suspicions that thousands of "data-poor" fisheries, representing some 80 percent of the world's fisheries, are in decline but could recover with proper management.

Uranium-contaminated site yields wealth of information on microbes 10 feet under Posted: 27 Sep 2012 11:15 AM PDT At sites contaminated with heavy metals, remediation often involves feeding the naturally occurring bacteria in the soil to encourage them to turn soluble metals into solids that won't leech into aquifers and streams. To find out what these microbes are doing, scientists performed a metagenomic analysis of the underground microbial community at one former uranium mill site in Colorado, assigning more than 150,000 sequenced genes to 80 bacteria and Archaea.

Electronics that vanish in the environment or the body Posted: 27 Sep 2012 11:15 AM PDT Physicians and environmentalists alike could soon be using a new class of electronic devices: small, robust and high performance, yet also biocompatible and capable of dissolving completely in water – or in bodily fluids. Researchers have demonstrated a new type of biodegradable electronics technology that could introduce new design paradigms for medical implants that resorb into the body, environmental monitors and compostable consumer devices.

'Semi-dwarf' trees may enable a green revolution for some forest crops Posted: 27 Sep 2012 11:13 AM PDT The same "green revolution" concepts that have revolutionized crop agriculture and helped to feed billions of people around the world may now offer similar potential in forestry, scientists say, with benefits for wood, biomass production, drought stress and even greenhouse gas mitigation.

Probability maps help sniff out food contamination Posted: 27 Sep 2012 11:13 AM PDT Uncovering the sources of fresh food contamination could become faster and easier thanks to analysis done at Sandia National Laboratories' National Infrastructure Simulation and Analysis Center (NISAC). The study demonstrates how developing a probability map of the food supply network using stochastic network representation might shorten the time it takes to track down contaminated food sources.

New efficiency record for photovoltaic cells, thanks to heterojunction Posted: 27 Sep 2012 10:02 AM PDT Scientists have developed photovoltaic cells with an energy conversion efficiency of 21.4 percent, the highest obtained for the type of substrate they used. This breakthrough will contribute to lowering the cost of solar-cell-based installations.

Nature's misfits: Reclassifying protists helps answer how many species remain undiscovered Posted: 27 Sep 2012 09:42 AM PDT Since the Victorian era, categorizing the natural world has challenged scientists. No group has presented a challenge as tricky as the protists, the tiny, complex life forms that are neither plants nor animals. A new reclassification of eukaryotic life forms draws together the latest research to clarify the current state of protist diversity and categorization, as well as the many species that remain to be discovered.

Salt cedar beetle damage widespread after warm summer Posted: 27 Sep 2012 07:43 AM PDT Salt cedar along the waterways of the southern and eastern Panhandle is rapidly being defoliated and dying back, and one entomologist believes he knows why.

Scientists bring the heat to refine renewable biofuel production Posted: 27 Sep 2012 07:43 AM PDT Perhaps inspired by Arizona's blazing summers, scientists have developed a new method that relies on heat to improve the yield and lower the costs of high-energy biofuels production, making renewable energy production more of an everyday reality.

La Bastida unearths 4,200-year-old fortification, unique in continental Europe Posted: 27 Sep 2012 06:15 AM PDT Archaeological excavations carried out this year at the site of La Bastida (Totana, Murcia) have shed light on an imposing fortification system, unique for its time. The discovery, together with all other discoveries made in recent years, reaffirm that the city was the most advanced settlement in Europe in political and military terms during the Bronze Age (ca. 4,200 years ago -- 2,200 BCE), and is comparable only to the Minoan civilization of Crete.

Carnivorous plant catapults prey with snap-tentacles: Biologists describe new capture mechanism Posted: 27 Sep 2012 06:15 AM PDT Carnivorous plants feature complex mechanisms to survive in habitats poor in nutrients: trapping systems help them to lure, catch, kill, and digest small prey animals (mainly insects) and to take up the resulting nutrients. Traps that move are termed 'active', and such active systems are currently being investigated. Researchers show for the first time the trapping action of the particular sundew Drosera glanduligera.

True love between grass and clover leads to richer harvest Posted: 27 Sep 2012 06:15 AM PDT Clover fixes atmospheric nitrogen, and plants growing nearby benefit. But does clover gain anything from its neighbors in return? Recent research reveals that, in mixed cropping, both nitrogen-fixing plants and their neighbors improve in weight and quality. The research revealed that levels of both carbon and especially nitrogen, a measure of food value, were higher in plant mixtures.

Dioxin causes disease and reproductive problems across generations, study finds Posted: 26 Sep 2012 06:39 PM PDT Since the 1960s, when the defoliant Agent Orange was widely used in Vietnam, military, industry and environmental groups have debated the toxicity of its main ingredient, the chemical dioxin, and how it should be regulated. But even if all the dioxin were eliminated from the planet, researchers say its legacy will live on in the way it turns genes on and off in the descendants of people exposed over the past half century.

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