ScienceDaily: Top Environment News

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• What goes down must come back up: Effects of 2010-11 La Niña on global sea level
• Estrogenic plants linked to altered hormones, possible behavior changes in monkeys
• Beargrass, a plant of many roles, is focus of new report
• Today's domestic turkeys are genetically distinct from wild ancestors
• Storm surge barriers for Manhattan could worsen effects on nearby areas: Other options proposed
• Mars formed from similar building blocks to that of Earth, reveals study of Martian meteorites
• After 121 years, identification of 'grave robber' fossil solves a paleontological enigma
• Evidence of a 'mid-life crisis' in great apes
• Greenland's viking settlers gorged on seals
• New species literally spend decades on the shelf
• Mosquitos fail at flight in heavy fog, though heavy rain doesn't faze them
• Scientists pioneer method to predict environmental collapse

What goes down must come back up: Effects of 2010-11 La Niña on global sea level Posted: 19 Nov 2012 02:29 PM PST In 2010-11, global sea level fell nearly a quarter inch. But, when it comes to long-term sea level, what comes down must eventually come back up.

Estrogenic plants linked to altered hormones, possible behavior changes in monkeys Posted: 19 Nov 2012 02:14 PM PST Male red colobus monkeys that ate more of an estrogen-containing plant not only had higher levels of the hormones estradiol and cortisol in their systems, they were more aggressive, had more sex and groomed less. The finding that the consumption of plant-based hormones may have affected primate behavior suggests that it could have played an important role in primate evolution.

Beargrass, a plant of many roles, is focus of new report Posted: 19 Nov 2012 02:14 PM PST Beargrass is an ecologically, culturally, and economically important plant in the Western United States and, for the first time, landowners, managers, and harvesters now have a comprehensive report about the species.

Today's domestic turkeys are genetically distinct from wild ancestors Posted: 19 Nov 2012 02:12 PM PST No Thanksgiving dinner is complete without a succulent roasted turkey. The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that consumers cook and eat more than 45 million turkeys every Thanksgiving. Very few Americans, however, know much about the difference between their gravy-smothered poultry and the poultry that earlier generations of Americans ate to celebrate the holiday. "Ancient turkeys weren't your Butterball," said Rob Fleischer, head of the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute's Center for Conservation and Evolutionary Genetics. "We set out to compare the genetic diversity of the domestic turkeys we eat today with that of the ancestral wild turkey from South Mexico. Some of what we found surprised us."

Storm surge barriers for Manhattan could worsen effects on nearby areas: Other options proposed Posted: 19 Nov 2012 01:35 PM PST The flooding in New York and New Jersey caused by Superstorm Sandy prompted calls from Gov. Andrew Cuomo and other officials to consider building storm surge barriers to protect Lower Manhattan from future catastrophes. But, such a strategy could make things even worse for outlying areas that were hit hard by the hurricane, such as Staten Island, the New Jersey Shore and Long Island's South Shore, a City College of New York landscape architecture professor warns.

Mars formed from similar building blocks to that of Earth, reveals study of Martian meteorites Posted: 19 Nov 2012 01:35 PM PST A team of scientists studied the hydrogen in water from the Martian interior and found that Mars formed from similar building blocks to that of Earth, but that there were differences in the later evolution of the two planets. This implies that terrestrial planets, including Earth, have similar water sources.

After 121 years, identification of 'grave robber' fossil solves a paleontological enigma Posted: 19 Nov 2012 12:13 PM PST Researchers have resolved the evolutionary relationships of Necrolestes patagonensis, a paleontological riddle for more than 100 years. Researchers have correctly placed the strange 16-million-year-old Necrolestes in the mammal evolutionary tree, unexpectedly moving forward the endpoint for the fossil's evolutionary lineage by 45 million years and showing that this family of mammals survived the extinction event that marked the end of the Age of Dinosaurs.

Evidence of a 'mid-life crisis' in great apes Posted: 19 Nov 2012 12:13 PM PST Chimpanzees and orangutans can experience a mid-life crisis just like humans, a study suggests.

Greenland's viking settlers gorged on seals Posted: 19 Nov 2012 10:23 AM PST Greenland's viking settlers, the Norse, disappeared suddenly and mysteriously from Greenland about 500 years ago. Natural disasters, climate change and the inability to adapt have all been proposed as theories to explain their disappearance. But now a Danish-Canadian research team has demonstrated the Norse society did not die out due to an inability to adapt to the Greenlandic diet: an isotopic analysis of their bones shows they ate plenty of seals.

New species literally spend decades on the shelf Posted: 19 Nov 2012 10:22 AM PST Many of the world's most unfamiliar species are just sitting around on museum shelves collecting dust. That's according to a new report showing that it takes more than 20 years on average before a species, newly collected, will be described.

Mosquitos fail at flight in heavy fog, though heavy rain doesn't faze them Posted: 19 Nov 2012 07:45 AM PST Mosquitos have the remarkable ability to fly in clear skies as well as in rain, shrugging off impacts from raindrops more than 50 times their body mass. But just like modern aircraft, mosquitos also are grounded when the fog thickens.

Scientists pioneer method to predict environmental collapse Posted: 19 Nov 2012 06:38 AM PST Scientists are pioneering a technique to predict when an ecosystem is likely to collapse, which may also have potential for foretelling crises in agriculture, fisheries or even social systems. The researchers have applied a mathematical model to a real world situation, the environmental collapse of a lake in China, to help prove a theory which suggests an ecosystem 'flickers,' or fluctuates dramatically between healthy and unhealthy states, shortly before its eventual collapse.

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