The Underestimated Cooling Effect on the Planet from Historic Fires

Historic levels of particles in the atmosphere released from pre-industrial era fires, and their cooling effect on the planet, may have been significantly underestimated according to a new study.

An Ancient Medicine Shows New Promise: Arsenic in Combination with an Existing Drug Could Combat Cancer

Investigators have discovered that arsenic in combination with an existing leukemia drug work together to target a master cancer regulator. The team, led by researchers at the Cancer Center at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC), is hopeful that the discovery could lead to new treatment strategies for diverse types of cancer. Their findings were published today online in Nature Communications. 

A Diverse Diet May Not Be the Healthiest One

Encouraging people to eat a wide variety of foods to ensure they meet all their dietary needs may backfire, according to a new scientific statement from the American Heart Association that provides an overview of recent scientific studies.

Why House Sparrows Lay Both Big and Small Eggs

Why does the egg size of house sparrows vary so much? Isn’t it always an advantage to be big?

Perhaps not surprisingly, baby sparrows that hatch from large eggs are consistently bigger their small egg counterparts. They can store up more reserves if food becomes scarce. So you would think that it’s always a good idea to lay big eggs because your offspring would seem to have a greater chance of survival.

Rain-on-snow flood risk to increase in many U.S. mountain regions

Flooding caused by rain falling on snowpack could more than double by the end of this century in some areas of the western U.S. and Canada due to climate change, according to new research from CU Boulder and the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR).

Rooting for Clean Water

One by one, Dr. Chris Opio and Chandehl Morgan carefully remove trees from one-gallon buckets.

Sea stars critical to kelp forest resilience

A study by Simon Fraser University resource and environmental management researcher Jenn Burt reveals that sunflower sea stars play a critical role in the resilience of B.C.'s kelp forests, which are among the most productive ecosystems on Earth.

Extreme rainfall, why it happens and how we predict it

When it rains, it pours, the saying goes. When it pours to excess, that’s when life gets messy. And possibly dangerous.

Below-average ‘dead zone’ measured in Gulf of Mexico

NOAA-supported scientists have determined that this year’s Gulf of Mexico “dead zone”— an area of low oxygen that can kill fish and marine life — is approximately 2,720 square miles.

Scientists complete mission to map fast-moving fault off Alaska

Researchers from NOAA, U.S. Geological Survey and their partners have completed the first high-resolution, comprehensive mapping of one of the fastest moving underwater tectonic faults in the world, located in southeastern Alaska.