Seasonality of Sea Ice Enhances Climate Warming in the Arctic

The sea ice cover of the Arctic Ocean shrinks rapidly with most ice loss observed during the summer months. A new study under participation of the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel recently published in the international peer-reviewed journal Scientific Reports shows that this sea ice cover becomes increasingly seasonal. As the authors state the strongest changes in the Arctic can be expected to occur in the coming decade.

Researchers use virtual reality to unpick causes of common diseases

Researchers from the University of Oxford are using a unique blend of virtual reality and innovative genetic techniques to understand the causes of diseases such as diabetes and anaemia.

Beech trees native to Scotland after all, scientists discover

Beech trees should be considered native to Scotland – despite a long-running debate over their national identity, researchers at the University of Stirling and Science and Advice for Scottish Agriculture (SASA) report.

Ensuring carpoolers are compatible is key to ridesharing success

Ensuring that would-be carpoolers are riding with people they actually like could potentially decrease car use by nearly 60 per cent, research from a professor at the University of Waterloo has found.

York study finds exposure to neonics results in early death for honeybee workers and queens

Worker and queen honeybees exposed to field-realistic levels of neonicotinoid insecticides die sooner, reducing the health of the entire colony, a new study led by York University biologists has found.

Researchers were also surprised to find the neonicotinoid-contaminated pollen collected by the honeybees came not from crops grown from neonicotinoid-treated seeds, but plants growing in areas adjacent to those crops.

Possible new threat to Earth's ozone layer

The Montreal Protocol has been hailed for controlling chlorine-based chemicals that created a vast hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica. But new research by British and American scientists suggest a chemical not controlled by the international treaty poses a potential risk to the Earth’s protective ozone layer.

Are your fireworks causing pollution?

If you’re a fan of pyrotechnics shows, just thinking about fireworks probably conjures up a fond memory of oohing and aahing along with a crowd, as colors burst overhead and smoke drifts across the — hey, wait a minute.

Sorry, but I’m here to rain on your fireworks, because those delightful explosions come with a hefty dose of pollution. It doesn’t have to be that way, though — in fact, many municipalities are seeking out alternatives that allow residents to enjoy the fun, minus the environmental impact.

More summer sunshine leading to increased Greenland ice melt

A team of scientists, led by the University of Bristol, has discovered that a marked decrease in summer cloud cover during the last 20 years has significantly accelerated melt from the Greenland ice sheet.

Dragonflies reveal how biodiversity changes in time and space

An ecological filter in a pond, such as voracious fish that feed on dragonflies and damselflies, can help ecologists predict how biodiversity loss may impact specific habitats, according to Rice University researchers who spent four years studying seasonal changes in ponds across East Texas.

In one of the first studies of its kind, the scientists show that strong environmental “filters” — in this case, predatory fish — cause dragonfly and damselfly communities to vary regularly from year to year and season to season in ponds across East Texas. The results, which appear online this week in the journal Ecology Letters, show how an ecological filter can help ecologists predict how biodiversity loss may impact specific habitats.

New Measurement Will Help Redefine International Unit of Mass

Using a state-of-the-art device for measuring mass, researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have made their most precise determination yet of Planck's constant, an important value in science that will help to redefine the kilogram, the official unit of mass in the SI, or international system of units. Accepted for publication (link is external) in the journal Metrologia, these new results come ahead of a July 1 international deadline for measurements that aim to redefine the entire SI in terms of fundamental constants of nature.