ScienceDaily: Top Environment News

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• The need to feed programs Campylobacter's 'Sat Nav'
• Spring may come earlier to North American forests, increasing uptake of carbon dioxide
• NASA to launch ocean wind monitor to space station
• Tomorrow's life-saving medications may currently be living at the bottom of the sea
• ‘Zoomable’ map of poplar proteins offers new view of bioenergy crop
• Antarctic lake beneath the ice sheet tested
• Cultural evolution changes bird song
• Ants' behavior leads to research method for optimizing product development time, costs
• New evidence highlights threat to Caribbean coral reef growth: Many Caribbean coral reefs are starting to erode
• Lessons of the 1953 East Coast of England flood disaster
• Real angry birds 'flip the bird' before a fight: Biologists use robots to study attacks of male swamp sparrows
• New insights into managing our water resources
• Scientists trick iron-eating bacteria into breathing electrons instead
• Survival of the prettiest: Sexual selection can be inferred from the fossil record
• Next generation solar cells: Trapping sunlight with microbeads

The need to feed programs Campylobacter's 'Sat Nav' Posted: 29 Jan 2013 04:02 PM PST Researchers have uncovered how the food-borne bacterial pathogen Campylobacter jejuni can change its swimming behavior to find a location with more food.

Spring may come earlier to North American forests, increasing uptake of carbon dioxide Posted: 29 Jan 2013 02:14 PM PST Trees in the con­ti­nen­tal US could send out new leaves in the spring up to 17 days ear­lier in the com­ing cen­tury than they did before global tem­per­a­tures started ris­ing, accord­ing to a new study. . These climate-driven changes could lead to changes in the com­po­si­tion of north­east­ern forests and give a boost to their abil­ity to take up car­bon dioxide.

NASA to launch ocean wind monitor to space station Posted: 29 Jan 2013 12:17 PM PST In a clever reuse of hardware originally built to test parts of NASA's QuikScat satellite, the agency will launch the ISS-RapidScat instrument to the International Space Station in 2014 to measure ocean surface wind speed and direction. The ISS-RapidScat instrument will help improve weather forecasts, including hurricane monitoring, and understanding of how ocean-atmosphere interactions influence Earth's climate.

Tomorrow's life-saving medications may currently be living at the bottom of the sea Posted: 29 Jan 2013 10:09 AM PST Two new research articles demonstrate how the next class of powerful medications may currently reside at the bottom of the ocean. In both cases, the researchers were focused on ocean-based mollusks – a category of animal that includes snails, clams and squid and their bacterial companions.

‘Zoomable’ map of poplar proteins offers new view of bioenergy crop Posted: 29 Jan 2013 10:08 AM PST Researchers seeking to improve production of ethanol from woody crops have a new resource in the form of an extensive molecular map of poplar tree proteins.

Antarctic lake beneath the ice sheet tested Posted: 29 Jan 2013 09:19 AM PST In a first-of-its-kind feat of science and engineering, scientists have successfully drilled through 800 meters (2,600 feet) of Antarctic ice to reach a subglacial lake and retrieve water and sediment samples that have been isolated from direct contact with the atmosphere for many thousands of years.

Cultural evolution changes bird song Posted: 29 Jan 2013 09:19 AM PST Thanks to cultural evolution, male Savannah sparrows are changing their tune, partly to attract "the ladies." According to a study of more than 30 years of Savannah sparrows recordings, the birds are singing distinctly different songs today than their ancestors did 30 years ago -- changes passed along generation to generation, according to a new study.

Ants' behavior leads to research method for optimizing product development time, costs Posted: 29 Jan 2013 08:17 AM PST Trying to find just the right balance of time spent in meetings and time performing tasks is a tough problem for managers, but a researcher believes the behavior of ants may provide a useful lesson on how to do it.

New evidence highlights threat to Caribbean coral reef growth: Many Caribbean coral reefs are starting to erode Posted: 29 Jan 2013 08:14 AM PST Coral reefs build their structures by both producing and accumulating calcium carbonate, and this is essential for the maintenance and continued vertical growth capacity of reefs. Researchers have discovered that the amount of new carbonate being added by Caribbean coral reefs is now significantly below rates measured over recent geological timescales, and in some habitats is as much as 70 percent lower.

Lessons of the 1953 East Coast of England flood disaster Posted: 29 Jan 2013 08:13 AM PST Sixty years ago, on 31 January and 1 February 1953, over 300 people died in flooding on the East Coast of England. Recent research has found that the Cabinet partly funded the response to avoid blame and further requests for funding.

Real angry birds 'flip the bird' before a fight: Biologists use robots to study attacks of male swamp sparrows Posted: 29 Jan 2013 07:02 AM PST Male sparrows are capable of fighting to the death. But a new study shows that they often wave their wings wildly first in an attempt to avoid a dangerous brawl.

New insights into managing our water resources Posted: 29 Jan 2013 07:02 AM PST Understanding how our water catchments react to natural disturbances, may offer hydrologists greater insight into how to manage our water supplies. Key to this, is an understanding of the steady state and why water responds differently in different circumstances.

Scientists trick iron-eating bacteria into breathing electrons instead Posted: 29 Jan 2013 05:06 AM PST Scientists have developed a way to grow iron-oxidizing bacteria using electricity instead of iron, an advance that will allow them to better study the organisms and could one day be used to turn electricity into fuel.

Survival of the prettiest: Sexual selection can be inferred from the fossil record Posted: 29 Jan 2013 05:02 AM PST Detecting sexual selection in the fossil record is not impossible. The term "sexual selection" refers to the evolutionary pressures that relate to a species' ability to repel rivals, meet mates and pass on genes. We can observe these processes happening in living animals, but how do palaeontologists know that sexual selection operated in fossil ones?

Next generation solar cells: Trapping sunlight with microbeads Posted: 29 Jan 2013 04:56 AM PST In five to seven years, solar cells will have become much cheaper and only one-twentieth as thick as current solar cells. The trick is to deceive the sunlight with microbeads.

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