Evolution

25 August 2009
The evolutionary benefits of crying
Crying is known to be a symptom of pain or stress, but an evolutionary biologist believes that tears are also an evolution-based mechanism to bring people closer together and make interpersonal relationships stronger...

17 July 2009
Male chromosome facing extinction
The male sex chromosome, the Y chromosome, is evolving at a much more rapid pace than the X chromosome, and researchers say that it is losing genes at a rate that eventually could lead to the Y chromosome's complete disappearance...

10 July 2009
Ugly males more fertile
Attractive males release fewer sperm per mating to increase the odds of producing offspring across a range of females, suggesting that matings with attractive males may be less fruitful than those with unattractive ones...

13 January 2009
Humans reshaping other species at lightning speed
Human activities such as fishing and hunting are having astonishingly broad and swift impacts on the body size and reproductive abilities of fish and other commercially harvested species, potentially jeopardizing the ability of entire populations to recover, according to a new study...

9 December 2008
Credit card maxed out? Blame your sex drive
Foreclosures, credit card debt, bank bailouts - all symptoms of compulsive overspending, which a University of Michigan researcher believes can be explained by evolution and men's need to procreate...

3 December 2008
The "perfect" body not always perfect
The hormones that make women physically stronger, more competitive and better able to deal with stress also tend to redistribute fat from the hips to the waist, which means that having an imperfect body may come with substantial benefits for some women...

12 November 2008
Adaptive proteins "control" their own evolution
A previously hidden mechanism that guides the way biological organisms respond to the forces of natural selection has been observed making the proteins found in most living organisms behave like adaptive machines, subtly directing aspects of their own evolution to create order out of randomness...

27 August 2008
Honey, We Shrunk The Cod
New research has added further weight to the controversial idea that overfishing by humans is driving rapid evolutionary change in fish, making them smaller and less fecund while driving commercially valuable species like cod to the brink of economic extinction...

26 August 2008
Size Of Genitalia Dependent On Need To Fight
Researchers examining male horned beetles from four geographically separated populations say the groups have diverged significantly in the size of the male genitalia, and natural selection operating on the other end of the animal – the fighting horns atop the beetles' heads – seems to be driving it much more quickly than expected...

20 August 2008
Melanoma Not Without Benefits
In male swordtail fish, black melanoma splotches help lure females, suggesting that the usually deadly melanoma gene is conserved for its beneficial role in sexual selection...

18 June 2008
Male Homosexuality Placed In Darwinian Context
Italian researchers say that male homosexuality in humans can be explained by a model based on sexually antagonistic selection; where genetic factors spread in the population by giving a reproductive advantage to one sex while disadvantaging the other...

18 March 2008
1st Rule Of Evolution: Strive For Complexity
UK scientists have revealed what may well be the first "rule" of evolution - a pervasive drive to become increasingly more complex...

11 December 2007
Modern Man In Evolutionary Fast Lane
Driven by exponential population growth and cultural shifts, the past 40,000 years have been a time of supercharged evolutionary change for humans...

30 November 2007
Skin Deep
While the bad old days of an overt "whites only" policy could be dismissed as consciously constructed segregation, more recent types of racism seem to be "unconscious," below-the-surface manifestations. But do these cases of unconscious racism suggest that racism is a product of evolution?

5 November 2007
Evolutionary Risk Distribution Law Identified
When do cells retain specific gene sequences, and when do they allow evolution to experiment with them? New research indicates that a sort of "risk distribution law" is in effect...

5 October 2007
Fish Hatcheries Cause Stunning Loss Of Reproductive Fitness
Trout raised in hatcheries suffer a dramatic and unexpectedly fast drop in their ability to reproduce in the wild...

28 August 2007
Shifting Evolution Up A Gear
New research suggests that "moving the goalposts" may be one method of speeding-up evolutionary change...

13 July 2007
Evolution And The Hive Mind
Would it be too far fetched to suggest that social pressures could affect brain function at a genetic level? One study has identified collective behavioral differences between the United States and China, possibly suggesting the beginning of brain divergence among humans...

27 June 2007
Did Trichromatic Vision Evolve Because of Colorful Bottoms Or Colorful Fruit?
Ohio University researchers believe they have shown that trichromatic color vision (the ability to discriminate red from green) was present in some primates long before it became a method of sexual communication...

13 June 2007
Researchers Ponder Primordial Broth
Scientists contemplating the primordial brew that all life sprang from are getting closer to understanding how simple chemicals, which have no self-interest, can become "biological" and driven to evolve by natural selection...

1 June 2007
The Personal Face Of Evolution
Research suggesting that animals – from primates to mollusks – have personalities means that scientists are now asking intriguing questions regarding the evolutionary significance of personalities, and the advantages and disadvantages that different types of personality can confer...

25 May 2007
Turbocharged Evolution
Instead of waiting for nature's sluggish hit-and-miss process of producing a viable adaptation or mutation, researchers have shown that it may be possible to engineer evolutionary processes in a fraction of the time. Specifically, recent research on synthetic proteins indicates that there may be no limits or time constraints on human evolution – should we so choose...

19 April 2007
Mites Re-Evolve Sexual Reproduction
After millions of years of asexual reproduction, a family of mites has taken the unusual step of resuming sexual reproduction...

20 March 2007
Sex Optional For Evolutionary Adaptation
Micro-organisms that gave up on sex 40 million years ago have nevertheless managed to evolve into distinct species; challenging the assumption that sex is necessary for organisms to diversify...

16 March 2007
Chill Out To Evolve
Species don't evolve faster in warmer climes as had been thought; rather, it is cooler regions that crank-up speciation rates...

16 February 2007
Is Evolutionary Development Like Flat-Pack Furniture?
Could horizontal gene transfer that occurred in the distant past account for the incredible development of the human brain, and the subsequent human-chimp split? If so, what piece of vital genetic information did we acquire that gave us our cognitive edge?

12 February 2007
Prof Questions Darwinian Dogma
Cell biology seems to run contrary to the model that most people have in their heads, says a Darwinian detractor...

30 January 2007
Horizontal Gene Transfer Accelerating Evolution
Sexual selection and random genetic mutations are slowpokes in the evolution stakes, say scientists who are modeling the evolutionary effects of horizontal gene transfer...

11 January 2007
Females Get Into Sexual Selection Game
Stiff competition amongst breeding female meerkats suggests novel selection pressures previously only seen in male animals...

2 January 2007
Human Brain Evolution Slows To A Crawl
The human brain underwent explosive growth after we split from our chimp cousins, but the pace of evolutionary change among the thousands of genes expressed in brain tissue has slowed since then...

17 November 2006
Lizards Pushed Into Evolutionary Fast Lane
Evolutionary biologists have witnessed natural selection dramatically change direction in a very short period of time...

24 October 2006
Shrinking Food Supply Leads To Shrinking Brain
Scientists studying orangutans in Indonesia have evidence for an evolutionary connection between food availability and brain size...

26 September 2006
Stealth And Sacrifice Show Evolution At Work
Male crickets on the Hawaiian Island of Kauai have lost their noise-making ability but have adapted their behavior in an ingenious manner to continue to meet up with female crickets...

14 August 2006
America: In Evolution We Don't Trust
One in three American adults firmly rejects the concept of evolution, a significantly higher proportion than found in any western European country...

16 June 2006
HIV's Virulence An Evolutionary Accident
The high virulence of HIV-1 might be due to an accident of evolution. Researchers believe that gene function lost during the course of viral evolution predisposed HIV-1 to instigate the fatal immune system failures that are its hallmark...

13 June 2006
Researchers Investigate Giant Sperm Paradox
The sperm of certain male fruit flies (drosophila bifurca) is 20 times longer than the creature itself, presenting evolutionary biologists with a cryptic conundrum...

18 May 2006
Early Humans And Chimps Much More Than Just Good Friends
Early humans still had the hots for their chimp cousins and possibly interbred with them, suggesting that the evolutionary divergence is much more recent – and more complicated – than previously thought...

24 February 2006
Food For Thought
Was it a shoreline diet rich in iodine that triggered explosive brain growth in early hominids? One scientist thinks so, although his detractors maintain that language and tool-use were the catalysts for our big brains...

17 February 2006
Sex – Evolution’s Janitor
Sexual reproduction is a complicated, biologically costly business and researchers now think they know what it is about sex that justifies such a big energy investment...

20 January 2006
Evolution Makes A Mockery Of Fishing Policy
Fisherman take the largest individuals from a fish population, creating evolutionary pressure that selects for smaller, less viable fish, and because the changes are genetic, they don’t immediately normalize when fishing ceases...

17 January 2006
Darwin's Dilemma Solved?
Two biologists may have answered one of evolutionary theory’s most puzzling questions, by explaining the seemingly random genetic changes that organisms undergo...

9 December 2005
Balls vs Brains In Batty Battle For Evolutionary Success
Testes that account for around 10 percent of body mass? Fascinating new research into mammalian sexual selection has found that bats have evolved this way, but at the expense of brain size...

15 November 2005
Drug Gene Link To Human Evolution
A gene that is believed to play a role in human perception and drug dependence is expressed more readily in humans than in other primates, indicating a split in our evolution...

28 October 2005
Asexual Reproduction The First Step To Extinction
Scientists studying asexual fungi believe that asexual reproduction could be the first step on the road to extinction...

23 September 2005
Missing Link A Tripping Chimp?
New research into prehistoric dietary habits suggests that the humans who split from their chimp cousins seven million years ago may have subsisted on roots and tubers that they foraged from under the savannah. Interestingly, one particular root contains psychoactive compounds that can cause effects similar to the drug LSD. Could it be that human intelligence was jump-started in chimps thanks to a mind-expanding trip?

23 September 2005
Insight Into Eye Evolution Deals Blow To Intelligent Design
The human eye is one of nature's most complex works, which Intelligent Design advocates often cite as proof of an overarching creator. But new research has uncovered the missing evolutionary link between simple invertebrate eyes and our own sophisticated vision system...

9 September 2005
Key Points In Brain Evolution Identified
Ongoing natural selection in humans means our brains are still evolving, say researchers who have found that two previous evolutionary jumps coincided with key points in human history...

19 August 2005
Intelligent Design Down Under
It’s not hard to see how Intelligent Design could gain a strong foothold in the United States. After all, America’s puritanical roots and the robustness of its bible belt, coupled with a clueless administration, should ensure that Intelligent Design will co-habit with evolutionary theory throughout the nation’s schools. But Intelligent Design has opened up a new front south of the border - Australia. And our convict descended buddies were a tad shocked when Brendan Nelson, the Australian Federal Education Minister, said that Intelligent Design should be taught alongside the theory of evolution in Australian schools...

28 July 2005
Autism, Asperger’s and Evolution
What is the difference between a genetic abnormality and genetic evolution? Is the human body’s adaptability responsible for many of the conditions that we call mental disorders? Researchers concede that the science world is still in the dark about the causes of autism and asperger’s disorder, but do believe that autism and asperger’s are most likely genetically oriented. Is it possible that in disorders such as autism and Asperger’s we are witnessing evolution at work?

17 June 2005
Evolution Appears To Be A Start-Stop Affair
Evolutionary theory says that continuous alterations occur during the course of genome evolution, but some regions of the human genome exist in a long stasis, "punctuated" by relatively brief episodes of activity...

3 June 2005
Inherited Disease Findings Stir Evolutionary Debate
Findings that a disease that affects you today could be the result of one of your ancestors being exposed to an environmental toxin during pregnancy are sure to stir the old evolutionary blank-slate debate...

20 May 2005
Halting Evolution To Fight Illness
Researchers working with the bacterium E. coli have demonstrated a new way of fighting antibiotic resistance: by stopping evolution...

21 January 2005
Genetic Gradient Theory Challenges Evolutionary Ideas
The results of research into gradually changing genetic traits could have profound implications for current approaches to conservation...

22 December 2004
Promiscuous Proteins Provide Evolutionary Shortcuts
Proteins that indulge in so-called promiscuous activities can provide nature with ready-made starting points for the evolution of new functions...

10 November 2004
Promiscuous Females Make For Competitive Sperm
Females that mate with many partners create selective pressure for the male to make his semen more competitive...

16 August 2004
Prions Role In Evolution Revealed
Prions help cells navigate the risky business of natural selection by expressing a variety of hidden genetic traits...

11 August 2004
Evolution Itself Subject To Natural Selection
Scientists suggest that the ability to reorder genes or to cause large-scale genetic change are themselves genetic traits, traits that are subject to selection like any others...

9 August 2004
Big Brain Evolved Through Social Problem Solving
Open-ended thinking and social problem solving led human brains to surpass other species in size, developing ecological dominance 2 million years ago...

23 February 2004
Forced Mutations Demonstrate Evolution In Action
An experiment which forced E. coli bacteria to adapt or die demonstrated that they were capable of improvising a novel molecular tool to save themselves...

17 November 2003
Evolutionary Changes Not Always Small
The theory that a species evolves by going through a large number of small genetic changes may not be completely accurate...

22 May 2003
Superfast Evolutionary Change In Mice Observed
Changes in mice over just 150 years suggest genetic evolution can occur a lot faster than many had thought possible...

17 February 2003
A Revolution In Evolution
Darwin may have been wrong about sex. Or at least too narrow minded. There is growing evidence that Darwin's idea of sexual selection requires sweeping revisions...

21 April 2002
New Insight Into Basic Mechanism Of Evolution
The basic cellular machinery that generates the genetic diversity central to evolution does not operate quite the way scientists have thought...

Environment

27 August 2009
Unique tree could help feed Africa
A type of acacia tree with an unusual growth habit - unlike virtually all other trees - holds particular promise for farmers in Africa as a free source of nitrogen for their soils that could last generations...

20 August 2009
Decomposing plastic refuse releasing BPA into oceans
Plastic waste in the ocean isn't just unsightly and a danger to marine animals. Scientists have now found that certain plastics breakdown rapidly in the ocean, releasing a heady cocktail of toxic chemicals such as bisphenol A which is known to interfere with mammalian reproductive systems...

18 August 2009
Asian food crisis looms
Asia's food demand is expected to double by 2050, requiring increases in land and irrigation that are simply not possible, finds a new report...

30 July 2009
Jellyfish significant contributors to large-scale ocean mixing
Climate change scientists may need to rethink the factors governing the interaction of the world's oceans, thanks to new findings that show the global power input from swimming creatures such as jellyfish is as much as a trillion watts of energy, comparable to that of wind and tidal forces...

6 July 2009
Processed foods linked to Alzheimer's and diabetes
A new study by US researchers has found a substantial link between increased levels of nitrates in our environment and food with increased deaths from diseases; including Alzheimer's, diabetes and Parkinson's...

18 May 2009
Cloud-seeding microorganisms go under the microscope
A new study is the first to yield direct data on how bacteria, fungal spores and plant material influence cloud formation at high altitudes...

14 May 2009
Back to the drawing board for North Atlantic circulation
The conveyor belt paradigm that is used to describe the North Atlantic Ocean's circulation has it that the Gulf Stream-warmed ocean releases heat to the atmosphere in the northern North Atlantic, leaving ocean water colder and denser as it moves north. But this is a vast oversimplification, say oceanographers...

1 April 2009
Disinfectant by-products create toxic cocktail
The disinfection of water stands out as possibly the most significant public health achievement, but a recent study shows that the chemicals used to purify the water we drink and use in swimming pools react with organic material in the water yielding a surprisingly toxic brew...

5 March 2009
Dead Sea dying?
The water levels in the Dead Sea are dropping at an alarming rate with serious environmental consequences, say German researchers...

24 February 2009
Biodiverse regions are hotspots for war
Over 80 percent of the world's major armed conflicts from 1950-2000 occurred in regions identified as the most biologically diverse and threatened places on Earth...

20 January 2009
Paradoxically, pollutants causing Nile fishery to grow dramatically
While many of the world's fisheries are in serious decline, the coastal Mediterranean fishery off the Nile Delta has expanded dramatically since the 1980s, thanks to sewage and fertilizer run-off which has caused an explosion in fish numbers...

16 December 2008
Saltwater irrigation trial a success
New research offers the possibility of using saltwater to irrigate soil in the world's arid regions, turning previously unusable land into a sustainable and productive agricultural resource...

18 November 2008
Pesticides at "safe" levels combine to form deadly cocktail
Concentrations of the ten most widely used pesticides that fall within EPA safe-exposure levels, when combined, form an extremely toxic mixture that is deadly to amphibians and may represent a significant threat to humans in the future...

17 November 2008
Mystery microbe forces rethink of ocean ecology
A newly discovered microorganism that lives in the open ocean is able to "fix" nitrogen but does not rely on photosynthesis for energy, forcing scientists to revise their understanding of how carbon and nitrogen cycle through ocean ecosystems...

3 November 2008
One-third of world's fish catches being needlessly used as animal feed
In flagrant disregard of the worsening overfishing crisis in our oceans, an alarming new study contends that one-third of the world's ocean fish catches are ground up and fed to farm-raised livestock...

25 September 2008
Boulder debris indicates biggest ever tsunami
A line of massive boulders on the western shore of Tonga could be evidence of the most powerful volcano-triggered tsunami ever, dwarfing even the 1883 Krakatau (Krakatoa) tsunami which is estimated to have been over 100 feet high...

14 August 2008
Slimy Future Predicted For World's Oceans
Habitat destruction, overfishing, ocean warming, increased acidification and massive nutrient runoff are combining to turn Earth's oceans into simplistic ecosystems dominated by microbes, toxic algal blooms, jellyfish and disease...

22 July 2008
Monsoon Formation Theory Gets Overhaul
Geoscientists have come up with a new explanation for the formation of monsoons, proposing an overhaul of a theory that had held firm for more than 300 years...

7 July 2008
Farmlands Too Toxic For Amphibians
Zoologists have found that toads in busy suburban areas are less likely to suffer from reproductive system abnormalities than toads near farms – where some of the amphibians examined had both testes and ovaries...

3 July 2008
Species Extinction Threat Vastly Underestimated
Extinction risks for populations of endangered species are likely being underestimated by as much as 100-fold because of a mathematical "misdiagnosis," suggests a new study...

9 June 2008
The Food Crisis Wildcard: Ozone
Ozone, a pollutant which can damage plants and reduce crop yields, will likely exacerbate the current global food crisis, says a scientist who believes that the new EPA standards to combat rising ozone levels will not be enough to protect plants from its effects...

26 May 2008
Scientists Mull Earthquake Love Waves
A new study shows that large earthquakes routinely trigger smaller jolts worldwide, sometimes as far away as on the opposite side of the planet and in areas not normally prone to quakes...

19 May 2008
Grandpa's Soap Alive And Kicking
Examining East Coast estuaries, researchers have established that the endocrine disruptors triclosan and triclocarban, used in soaps and other personal care products, are still persisting in sediment after up to 50 years, with little degradation...

6 May 2008
Fungi Enlisted To Clean-Up Depleted Uranium
In a discovery that could have important implications for the clean-up of war ravaged countries, researchers have found evidence that fungi can "lock" depleted uranium into a mineral form that would be less likely to find its way into plants, animals, or the water supply...

2 April 2008
Under Pressure: Earth Science (Part II)
This week we continue with a top ten list of urgent Earth science questions devised by a group of leading Earth science experts at the behest of the National Research Council...

17 March 2008
Under Pressure: Earth Science (Part I)
In order to better understand our volatile planet, a bunch of US scientific agencies recently encouraged leading Earth science boffins to bang their heads together to identify the 10 most pressing Earth science questions...

4 March 2008
Bacterial Rainmakers Ubiquitous
Scientists have uncovered evidence linking airborne bacteria from plants to the cycle of precipitation, underscoring the complex interplay between our planet's climate and biosphere...

4 February 2008
California's Water Supply Dwindling
The snowpack in the Sierras has shrunk by 20 percent thanks to our warming climate, leading researchers to warn of a looming water crisis in the Western United States...

29 January 2008
Something Fishy About Rocketing Oceanic Nitrogen Levels
The collapse of fishing grounds from over-fishing has played a significant role in disturbing the balance between nitrogen entering and leaving coastal water systems...

14 January 2008
High Levels Of Antibiotic Resistance In Arctic Birds
Researchers are alarmed that remote colonies of Arctic birds are carrying antibiotic-resistant bacteria...

7 January 2008
How Do We Cure An Industrial Hangover?
As we proceed turkey and pudding-stuffed into yet another year, and we've finally nursed our sore heads back to health, there's another consumption-based ailment to consider: our industrial hangover...

6 November 2007
Biodiversity Crunch Threatens Plant Productivity
The impact of species loss on ecosystems will dramatically compromise the important benefits that humans get from nature...

30 October 2007
Organic Carbon Declines In Fertilized Soils
Adding nitrogen fertilizer is believed to benefit the soil by building organic carbon, but University of Illinois soil scientists have overturned this central tenet of the agricultural revolution...

9 October 2007
GE Corn A Threat To Waterways?
A widely planted variety of genetically engineered corn has the potential to cause significant damage to aquatic ecosystems...

12 September 2007
The Parking Lot As Environmental Vandal
Parking spaces – which in some US counties outnumber resident families by more than 10-to-1 – are warming the climate and causing heavy-metal water pollution...

9 August 2007
Study Slams Mainstream Farming Techniques
Long-established plow-based agricultural methods combined with the economic imperative to improve crop yields are rapidly depleting the Earth's soil supply, say US scientists...

31 July 2007
Woody Girth, Not Length, Makes For Healthy Streams
The width of the vegetated borders around waterways determines how protected the water is from excess nitrogen inflow...

8 June 2007
Down On The Farm? Yields, Nutrients And Soil Quality
While systemized, large-scale agriculture delivered last century's much ballyhooed agricultural revolution, history tells us that unsound farming methods can cause the collapse of civilizations. Now, it seems, Western nations may once again be staring down the barrel, as studies into today's commercial farming practices show that they are having a negative effect on crop yields, nutrient content and the environment...

5 June 2007
DIY Terra Preta Soils Double As Carbon Sink
Processing waste biomass using pyrolysis creates a byproduct that could help turn depleted soils into highly fertile terra preta while at the same time locking up excess carbon...

11 May 2007
POP Goes The Planet
While most would agree that there's nothing wrong with making global warming a popular issue, there is a risk that other clear and present environmental dangers are being eclipsed. One largely forgotten issue is the insidious problem of persistent organic pollutants (POPs) that continue to wreak havoc on the Earth's ecosystems...

2 May 2007
Gloomy Prognosis For Amphibians
Widespread environmental changes coupled with evolutionary constraints may mean that many amphibious species will soon become extinct...

30 March 2007
Plummeting Shellfish Stocks Blamed On Shark Overfishing
The fragile nature of ocean ecosystems is becoming ever more apparent as scientists uncover complex new relationships between diverse marine creatures...

26 March 2007
Limited Resources The Key To Biodiversity?
Somewhat counter-intuitively, experiments have shown that a plentiful supply of water and nutrients actually restricts ecosystem biodiversity...

9 February 2007
Going Gaga Over Gaia
As scientists continue to grapple with the complexities of climate change, one thing is becoming abundantly clear: each of Earth's seemingly discrete environmental systems is crucially dependent upon another. This basic yet important observation has led scientists to reconsider the Gaia Hypothesis - a controversial idea first proposed in 1970...

2 February 2007
Survival Of The Cutest
The protection of endangered species is central to many conservation agencies, yet invariably it's the same pleasing-to-the-eye creatures that hog the limelight. Sumatran Tigers and baby Harp Seals push the right buttons with the public, but would promotional images of an endangered Antigua Ground Lizard or Wyoming Toad elicit the same response? Probably not, with new research predicting that only the most aesthetically pleasing creatures may survive humankind's continued reshaping of the Earth...

8 December 2006
Planet Earth: Love It And Leave It
Environmentalists take issue with the elephantine budgets routinely sunk into space exploration, which they believe could be better spent fixing Earth's more immediate problems. But a new book contends that both environmentalists and space agencies are really working toward the same end: the survival of the species...

4 December 2006
Of Pendulums And Predation
The study of oscillations in biological populations could lead to profound insights into the workings of complex ecological systems...

27 October 2006
Threat From Plummeting Biodiversity Qualified
A large meta-study has shown that biodiversity is intrinsically linked to the ecological "services" that nature provides to humanity, which now look set for a major upset...

13 September 2006
Prozac In Wastewater Threatens Mussels
Antidepressants aren't giving freshwater mussels much to smile about. In fact, Prozac could be threatening these mollusks with extinction...

15 May 2006
Redirect River To Save Louisiana, Says Engineer
An environmental engineer says re-routing the mouth of the Mississippi river would stop the disappearance of coastal wetlands which act as a natural barrier against hurricanes and storm surges...

12 May 2006
Botanic Mechanics Celebrate 150 Year Long Experiment
Apparently, watching grass grow isn't quite as boring as you may expect, and can, in fact, be downright fascinating. This is especially true if you happen to be one of the many ecologists eagerly anticipating the arrival of The Park Grass Experiment's 150th anniversary celebrations, which will be held at Rothamsted Research later this month. After a century and a half, The Park Grass Experiment is in fact the world's longest running ecological experiment...

30 March 2006
World’s Fish Stocks Face New Danger
Agricultural run-off and pollution are lowering the levels of dissolved oxygen in seawater, inducing sex changes in embryonic fish, leading to an overabundance of males...

24 March 2006
Ozone – The Pollutant That Got Away
Scientists at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies have evaluated how ozone pollution in the troposphere has contributed to warming in specific regions of the world over the past 100 years. They found that ozone in the lower levels of the atmosphere was responsible for a staggering one-third to one-half of observed warming in the Arctic region...

23 March 2006
Increasing Soil Erosion Threatens World’s Food Supply
While climate change hogs the headlines, a more insidious threat that is largely ignored is steadily destroying great swathes of the world’s croplands...

7 February 2006
Lost World Found In New Guinea
An expedition to the remote Foja Mountains in New Guinea has turned up dozens of previously unknown mammals, frogs, butterflies and plants...

20 January 2006
Birds Ain’t Doing It, Bees Ain’t Doing It, And Biodiversity Is The Victim
A global decrease in pollinators such as birds, bees and flies means that plants in biodiverse hotspots are not getting enough pollen to reproduce. While it’s possible for plants to self-pollinate, this alone does not progress or strengthen the species, as, like any other living organism, a plant needs genetic variation in order for the species to survive. And it’s this lack of genetic variation that could make widespread plant extinctions unavoidable...

12 January 2006
Amazon A Desert For Soil Bacteria
Most people would expect the Amazon jungle to be home to a diverse range of soil bacteria, but in fact, just the opposite is true...

9 January 2006
Treated Wood A Long Term Environmental Threat
The arsenic used to treat wooden decks, utility poles and fences will leach into the environment for decades, posing a grave threat to groundwater reserves...

25 November 2005
Satellite Provides Spectacular New Volcanic Images
Montagu Island, in the South Sandwich Islands, is home to a newly erupting volcano that satellite photos show is enlarging the island at a prodigious rate...

18 October 2005
Mountains Creating Atmospheric Hotspots
Wind gusts blowing over mountainous regions can create hotspots - of up to 1,000-degree Celsius - in the atmosphere and significantly affect regional air temperatures...

7 October 2005
Chernobyl: No People But A Thriving Ecosystem
After the meltdown, the prognosis for Chernobyl and its environs – succinctly dubbed by the Soviets as the Zone of Alienation – was grim. But surprisingly, Chernobyl’s surrounding flora and fauna have flourished remarkably. Author Mary Mycio vividly describes an extraordinary – and at times unearthly – new ecosystem that is flourishing in this no-man’s land, where radiation levels are too intense for people to live...

6 September 2005
Road De-Icing Threatens U.S. Aquatic Habitats
Fresh water systems across the northeastern United States are becoming saltier due to de-icing on roads, threatening previously pristine aquatic habitats...

4 August 2005
Roundup™ Super-Toxic For Frogs As Well As Tadpoles
The most popular herbicide in the world has been found to be amazingly efficient at killing frogs and tadpoles, at levels far below those found in much of the environment...

20 July 2005
Bird Poo Spreading Toxic Pollutants
Pristine ecosystems in Canada are becoming polluted with mercury and DDT thanks to seabirds that feed in polluted areas and then fly north to unload the contaminants via their guano...

29 June 2005
Mountains Formed In The Blink Of An Eye
A new 'cold crust' model suggests that mountains can be created much more quickly than previously thought, and at much cooler temperatures...

15 April 2005
More Dirt On Antimicrobial Soaps
In addition to past research that has shown how certain soaps and cleaning agents can adversely impact the environment, researchers have now found that the active agent in these products can interact with the chlorine in tap water, creating the carcinogen chloroform...

7 March 2005
Bacteria To Clean Up Chemical Weapons
Russian researchers believe a versatile bacterium called Pseudomonas putida could help mop up the toxic by-products caused by the destruction of chemical weapons...

2 March 2005
Cod Numbers Decline 96 Percent
In the pre-Civil War era, cod were the dominant fish species on the Scotian Shelf, but now their numbers are down by an astonishing 96 percent...

26 January 2005
Aussie Deserts Created By Ancient Fires
Massive burning of the landscape by ancient hunters and gatherers may have caused the failure of the Australian Monsoon resulting in the large deserts that make up the country's interior...

24 January 2005
Waterways Awash With Anti-Bacterial Chemical
New findings suggest that an antimicrobial chemical used in soaps and cleaning products has contaminated rivers and streams to a much greater extent than previously thought...

5 November 2004
Concern Over Environmental Estrogen
Even low environmental levels of the synthetic hormones used in oral contraceptives can still cause serious fertility problems in fish...

30 July 2004
Concrete Jungle A Blooming Miracle For Plants
A study has found that cities and towns create warmer conditions that cause plants to stay green longer each year...

14 July 2004
UV Light Turns Plankton Into Cloud Factories
A tiny sea creature could have a big impact on global climate change. Researchers have found that plankton can indirectly create clouds that block the Sun's rays...

23 June 2004
World's Forests Need Disasters
Without disturbances in nature, such as forest fires, icing, or volcanic activity, forests will eventually become impoverished, due to a lack of phosphorous...

12 January 2004
Salmon From Fish Farms A Tad Toxic
PCBs and other environmental toxins are present at higher levels in farm-raised salmon than in their wild counterparts...

17 April 2003
Algorithm For "Nature" Described
A new theory simplifies various aspects of ecological complexity with an elegant model that unites all of them and provides a theory for quantifying biodiversity...

11 April 2002
Prescription Drug Pollution May Harm Environment
The millions of doses of prescription drugs that Americans swallow annually do not disappear harmlessly, but instead make their way back into the environment where they may contaminate drinking water...

11 January 2002
Scientific Bias Causing Mass Extinctions
Scientific bias towards the cute or spectacular may be helping condemn a substantial proportion of the world's plants and animals to extinction...