ScienceDaily: Top Environment News

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• Rice agriculture accelerates global warming: More greenhouse gas per grain of rice
• Offsetting global warming: Targeting solar geoengineering to minimize risk and inequality
• Turbo switch of calcium pump in biological cells discovered
• Mississippi river diversion helped build Louisiana wetlands, geologists find
• Fishy physics: Adaptation lets silvery fish reflect light without polarization, may help them evade predators
• Discovery of biological energy-sensing switch could have broad implications for biology and medicine

Rice agriculture accelerates global warming: More greenhouse gas per grain of rice Posted: 21 Oct 2012 12:44 PM PDT More carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and rising temperatures cause rice agriculture to release more of the potent greenhouse gas methane (CH4) for each kilogram of rice it produces, new research reveals.

Offsetting global warming: Targeting solar geoengineering to minimize risk and inequality Posted: 21 Oct 2012 10:39 AM PDT By tailoring geoengineering efforts by region and by need, a new model promises to maximize the effectiveness of solar radiation management while mitigating its potential side effects and risks.

Turbo switch of calcium pump in biological cells discovered Posted: 21 Oct 2012 10:39 AM PDT Scientists have discovered a turbo switch in the vital calcium pump in our body's cells. Researchers discovered that the on-off switch of the pump has a previously unknown third position, which switches the pump into a turbo gear.

Mississippi river diversion helped build Louisiana wetlands, geologists find Posted: 21 Oct 2012 10:39 AM PDT Geologists used the occasion of the Mississippi River flood of the spring of 2011 to observe how floodwaters deposited sediment in the Mississippi Delta. Their findings offer insight into how new diversions in the Mississippi River's levees may help restore Louisiana's wetlands.

Fishy physics: Adaptation lets silvery fish reflect light without polarization, may help them evade predators Posted: 21 Oct 2012 10:39 AM PDT Silvery fish such as herring, sardine and sprat have evolved special skin that gets around a basic law of physics, according to new research. Reflective surfaces polarize light, a phenomenon that fishermen or photographers overcome by using polarizing sunglasses or polarizing filters to cut our reflective glare. However, researchers found that these silvery fish have overcome this basic law of reflection -- an adaptation that may help them evade predators.

Discovery of biological energy-sensing switch could have broad implications for biology and medicine Posted: 21 Oct 2012 10:39 AM PDT Biochemists have discovered a genetic sequence that can alter its host gene's activity in response to cellular energy levels. The scientists have found this particular energy-sensing switch in bacterial genes, which could make it a target for a powerful new class of antibiotics. If similar energy-sensing switches are also identified for human genes, they may be useful for treating metabolism-related disorders such as type 2 diabetes and heart disease.

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