Where the Jordan Stops Flowing

A new study conducted at Tel Aviv University and published in the journal Water Research argues that Israel's Jordan River may be a useful case study for the challenges facing stream restoration initiatives around the world. The Jordan River has been ravaged by unbridled population growth and defunct sewage treatment plants.

New Tool Uses Behavioral Cues to Assess Pain in ICU Patients Who Can't Communicate

A new Behavior Pain Assessment Tool (BPAT) provides a simple way to evaluate pain in critically ill patients—including those who aren't able to communicate their pain verbally, reports a study in PAIN®, the official publication of the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP). The journal is published by Wolters Kluwer.

Exploring ocean waters to characterize atmospheric aerosols

Aerosols are collections of fine particles, either biological or of other types, in suspension in a gaseous medium. They play a major role in cloud formation and therefore have a strong impact on climate models. They are however extremely hard to study due to the small size and immense variety of their constituent particles. But researchers from the University of Geneva (UNIGE), Switzerland, members of the PlanetSolar Deepwater expedition, have now succeeded in linking the composition of marine biological aerosols - and therefore their influence on the climate - to that of bodies of water under them within the Atlantic Ocean, thereby paving the way to an indirect study of these aerosols through water analysis. This study, which has been published in Scientific Reports, will contribute to making climate models more accurate.

London researchers enroll first Canadian patients in trial of tissue implant using patients' own cartilage cells

Dr. Alan Getgood and his team at Western University and Lawson Health Research Institute are the first in Canada to participate in an investigative trial to determine the safety and efficacy of using a patient’s own cartilage cells to repair knee cartilage injuries.

Battling nature's nasty side

When told the subject of her research has a bit of an alien predator vibe, Natacha Hogan is quick to agree.

“Oh, I like that,” said the assistant professor in the Department of Animal and Poultry Science. “When you look at the structures of these mycotoxins, some really are scary looking. Many are very complex structures with multiple rings fused together and many functional groups hanging off the sides. They sort of look like spiders.”

El Salvador Passes World's First Total Ban on Metals Mining

El Salvador has become the first nation in the world to ban the mining of gold and other metals, ending a decades-long fight by activists to protect the country’s limited water resources.

NASA Sees the Remnants of Tropical Cyclone Debbie Moving off Australia's East Coast

The remnant clouds and showers associated with Ex-Tropical Cyclone Debbie were slowly moving off the coasts of Queensland and New South Wales as NASA's Terra satellite passed overhead on March 31.

On March 31 at 01:30 p.m. AEST/Queensland (March 30 at 11:30 p.m. / U.S.), the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer aboard NASA's Terra satellite captured a visible image of Debbie's remnants. The remnant clouds and showers were blanketing southeastern Queensland and northeastern New South Wales, Australia. The system appeared frontal in nature, stretching from north to south over the eastern Australian coast.

Bio-inspired energy storage: a new light for solar power

Inspired by an American fern, researchers have developed a groundbreaking prototype that could be the answer to the storage challenge still holding solar back as a total energy solution.

The new type of electrode created by RMIT University researchers could boost the capacity of existing integrable storage technologies by 3000 per cent.

From grass to grassoline

Researchers at Ghent University have developed a process that turns grass into fuel.

Scientists at the Centre for Microbial Ecology and Technology (CMET), Ghent University have developed a way to turn grass into biofuel. Will we soon drive on ‘grassoline’?

"Until now, grass has mainly served as feed for animals. We can get more out of grass: due to its vast abundance, it is an attractive source to produce organics such as aviation fuel" , scientist Way Cern Khor tells us. During his PhD research at Ghent University, Belgium, he investigated methods that disintegrate and bioconvert grass until it can be used as a fuel.

Some of Greenland's coastal ice will be permanently lost by 2100

The glaciers and ice caps that dot the edges of the Greenland coast are not likely to recover from the melting they are experiencing now, a study has found.

Researchers report in the current issue of the journal Nature Communications that melting on the island passed a tipping point 20 years ago. The smallest glaciers and ice caps on the coast are no longer able to regrow lost ice.