ScienceDaily: Top Environment News

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• New study finds extreme longevity in white sharks
• Neolithic mural may depict ancient eruption
• Two million years ago, human relative 'Nutcracker Man' lived on tiger nuts
• Fossil pigments reveal the colors of ancient sea monsters
• Discovery of ancient Egyptian tomb of Khonsuemheb
• GPS traffic maps for leatherback turtles show hotspots to prevent accidental fishing deaths
• Organic mega flow battery promises breakthrough for renewable energy
• Coral chemical warfare: Suppressing competitor enhances susceptibility to predator
• Massive exoplanets may be more Earth-like than thought: 'Super-Earths' likely to have oceans, continents
• Symbiotic fungi inhabiting plant roots have major impact on atmospheric carbon, scientists say
• Elephant shark genome decoded: New insights gained into bone formation and immunity
• Biologists establish new method for studying RNA's regulatory 'footprint'
• Geography has impact on grapevine moth's success in French vineyards
• Ocean's hidden waves show their power: Origins of giant underwater waves explained
• Climate change: How does soil store carbon dioxide?
• Soap bubbles for predicting cyclone intensity?
• Microbe community changes may reduce Amazon's ability to lock up carbon dioxide
• Updating air pollution measurement methods
• Temperature most significant driver of world's tallest trees
• Ants shape thoraces to match tasks they perform
• Discovery spotlights key role of mystery RNA modification in cells
• Suburban sprawl cancels carbon footprint savings of dense urban cores

New study finds extreme longevity in white sharks Posted: 08 Jan 2014 09:41 PM PST Great white sharks -- top predators throughout the world's ocean -- grow much slower and live significantly longer than previously thought, according to a new study.

Neolithic mural may depict ancient eruption Posted: 08 Jan 2014 09:39 PM PST Volcanic rock dating suggests the painting of a Çatalhöyük mural may have overlapped with an eruption in Turkey.

Two million years ago, human relative 'Nutcracker Man' lived on tiger nuts Posted: 08 Jan 2014 09:39 PM PST A new study concludes that ancient ancestors who lived in East Africa between 2.4 million-1.4 million years ago mostly ate tiger nuts with additional nourishment from fruits and invertebrates, like worms and grasshoppers. The study examines the diet of Paranthropus boisei, nicknamed "Nutcracker Man," through studying modern-day baboons in Kenya to help to explain a puzzle that has vexed archaeologists for 50 years.

Fossil pigments reveal the colors of ancient sea monsters Posted: 08 Jan 2014 02:07 PM PST During the Age of the dinosaurs, huge reptiles, such as mosasaurs and ichthyosaurs, ruled the seas. Previously, scientists could only guess what colors these spectacular animals had; however, pigment preserved in fossilized skin has now been analyzed. The unique soft tissue remains were obtained from a 55 million-year-old leatherback turtle, an 85 million-year-old mosasaur and a 196–190 million-year-old ichthyosaur. This is the first time that the color scheme of any extinct marine animal has been revealed.

Discovery of ancient Egyptian tomb of Khonsuemheb Posted: 08 Jan 2014 02:05 PM PST Researchers have discovered a new private tomb in the el-Khokha area of Egypt's Theban necropolis, across the Nile from Luxor. The owner of the tomb was Khonsuemheb, who was called Chief of the Workshop for Mut and Chief Brewer of the Temple of Mut.

GPS traffic maps for leatherback turtles show hotspots to prevent accidental fishing deaths Posted: 08 Jan 2014 12:45 PM PST Pacific leatherback turtles, among the most endangered animal populations in the world, often die hooked or tangled in industrial longlines that set thousands of hooks in the ocean to catch fish. In a new study, researchers show the use-intensity distributions for 135 satellite-tracked adult turtles and distributions of longline fishing effort in the Pacific Ocean. The overlap of these distributions in space and time allows prediction of bycatch risk.

Organic mega flow battery promises breakthrough for renewable energy Posted: 08 Jan 2014 12:42 PM PST Scientists and engineers have demonstrated a new type of battery that could fundamentally transform the way electricity is stored on the grid, making power from renewable energy sources such as wind and solar far more economical and reliable.

Coral chemical warfare: Suppressing competitor enhances susceptibility to predator Posted: 08 Jan 2014 10:33 AM PST Competition may have a high cost for at least one species of tropical seaweed. Researchers examining the chemical warfare taking place on Fijian coral reefs have found that one species of seaweed increases its production of noxious anti-coral compounds when placed into contact with reef-building corals, but at the same time becomes more attractive to herbivorous fish.

Massive exoplanets may be more Earth-like than thought: 'Super-Earths' likely to have oceans, continents Posted: 08 Jan 2014 10:33 AM PST Massive terrestrial planets, called "super-Earths," are known to be common in our Milky Way galaxy. Now scientists report the odds of these planets having an Earth-like climate are much greater than previously thought. They conclude that most tectonically active super-Earths -- regardless of mass -- store most of their water in the mantle and will have both oceans and exposed continents, enabling a stable climate such as Earth's.

Symbiotic fungi inhabiting plant roots have major impact on atmospheric carbon, scientists say Posted: 08 Jan 2014 10:32 AM PST Microscopic fungi that live in plants' roots play a major role in the storage and release of carbon from the soil into the atmosphere, according to new research. The role of these fungi is currently unaccounted for in global climate models.

Elephant shark genome decoded: New insights gained into bone formation and immunity Posted: 08 Jan 2014 10:31 AM PST An international team of researchers has sequenced the genome of the elephant shark, a curious-looking fish with a snout that resembles the end of an elephant's trunk.

Biologists establish new method for studying RNA's regulatory 'footprint' Posted: 08 Jan 2014 09:37 AM PST Biologists offer a new method to efficiently obtain an entire "footprint" of interactions between RNA and the proteins that bind to RNA molecules.

Geography has impact on grapevine moth's success in French vineyards Posted: 08 Jan 2014 08:27 AM PST 'Location, location, location' is an adage also true for the European grapevine moth, it seems. Research has shown that these pests are better adapted and more successful in certain French wine-growing regions than in others, because of the variety of grape on which they occur and the abundance of their natural enemies around them.

Ocean's hidden waves show their power: Origins of giant underwater waves explained Posted: 08 Jan 2014 07:24 AM PST Large-scale tests in the lab and the South China Sea reveal the origins of underwater waves that can tower hundreds of feet.

Climate change: How does soil store carbon dioxide? Posted: 08 Jan 2014 07:24 AM PST Global carbon dioxide emissions continue to rise -- in 2012 alone, 35.7 billion tons of this greenhouse gas entered the atmosphere. Some of it is absorbed by the oceans, plants and soil. They provide a significant reservoir of carbon. Scientists have now discovered how organic carbon is stored in soil: The carbon only binds to certain soil structures. This means that soil's capacity to absorb CO2 needs to be re-assessed and incorporated into today's climate models.

Soap bubbles for predicting cyclone intensity? Posted: 08 Jan 2014 05:10 AM PST Could soap bubbles be used to predict the strength of hurricanes and typhoons? However unexpected it may sound, this question prompted physicists to perform a highly novel experiment: they used soap bubbles to model atmospheric flow. A detailed study of the rotation rates of the bubble vortices enabled the scientists to obtain a relationship that accurately describes the evolution of their intensity, and propose a simple model to predict that of tropical cyclones.

Microbe community changes may reduce Amazon's ability to lock up carbon dioxide Posted: 07 Jan 2014 02:09 PM PST A new paper looks for the first time at the reaction of free-living nitrogen-fixing microorganisms called diazotrophs to the conversion of rainforests to pastureland in the Amazon. Researchers found big changes to the diazotroph communities that they say may reduce the region's ability to act as a reservoir for greenhouse gas.

Updating air pollution measurement methods Posted: 07 Jan 2014 01:37 PM PST Using advanced monitoring to assess health risk from air pollution, environmental health scientists hope to demonstrate for the first time in a real-world setting that air pollution can and should be regulated based on toxicology variables rather than simply on the volume of particles in the air.

Temperature most significant driver of world's tallest trees Posted: 07 Jan 2014 06:29 AM PST Understanding forest biodiversity and how carbon dioxide is stored within trees is an important area of ecological research. The bigger the tree, the more carbon it stores and a study explores global variance in tree height, identifying temperature as the most important factor behind the tallest species.

Ants shape thoraces to match tasks they perform Posted: 07 Jan 2014 06:28 AM PST Scientists have discovered that the specialization of queen and worker ants goes beyond the presence or absence of wings. In a new study, researchers showed that ants grow the size of their thoracic segments differently according to the specialized tasks they will perform as adults. In particular, the researchers discovered that worker ants have a unique thoracic architecture that explains how they are able to hunt and carry preys many times their own weight.

Discovery spotlights key role of mystery RNA modification in cells Posted: 06 Jan 2014 12:59 PM PST Experiments show that one major function of a certain chemical modification on messenger RNA governs the longevity and decay of RNA, a process critical to the development of healthy cells.

Suburban sprawl cancels carbon footprint savings of dense urban cores Posted: 06 Jan 2014 10:32 AM PST According to a new study, population-dense cities contribute less greenhouse gas emissions per person than other areas of the country, but these cities' extensive suburbs essentially wipe out the climate benefits. Dominated by emissions from cars, trucks and other forms of transportation, suburbs account for about 50 percent of all household emissions -- largely carbon dioxide -- in the United States.

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