NASA Spots a Diminished, but Drenching Ex-Tropical Cyclone Don

Tropical Storm Don didn't live long before it weakened to a remnant low pressure area in the North Atlantic Ocean. Before it weakened NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP satellite captured a visible image of the storm on its approach to the Windward Islands. The GPM satellite analyzed the storm's rainfall as it developed and moderate to heavy rainfall is expected to accompany the remnants in the Windward Islands on July 19.

Pangolins at 'huge risk' as study reveals dramatic increases in hunting across Central Africa

The hunting of pangolins, the world’s most illegally traded mammal, has increased by 150 percent in Central African forests from 1970s to 2014, according to a new study led by the University of Sussex.

New USGS Filter Removes Phosphorus from Waste Water

A tabletop water filter demo designed to remove phosphorus from waste water has in five-years grown into a fully functional water treatment system capable of filtering more than 100-thousand gallons per day.

Designed by a small U.S. Geological Survey team, this cost-effective and environmentally friendly water filter system uses discarded mining byproducts, called mine drainage ochre, as the primary filtering agent to remove phosphorus from municipal and agricultural waste waters.

Developing new technology for cheaper biofuel

PhD chemistry student Leila Dehabadi has developed a new way to separate water from ethanol, the key component in alcoholic beverages and biofuel, using starch-based materials such as corn. The method could reduce costs because it doesn’t involve using additional energy to isolate the ethanol.

“Compared to distillation, this new approach based on green chemistry and engineering will be a significant saving to biofuel and alcohol production in Saskatchewan and globally by changing the way water is separated from ethanol mixtures,” said Lee Wilson, U of S chemistry professor and Dehabadi’s supervisor. 

Sea temperature changes contributing to droughts

Fluctuations in sea surface temperature are a factor in causing persistent droughts in North America and around the Mediterranean, new research suggests. 

Non-toxic alternative for next-generation solar cells

Researchers have demonstrated how a non-toxic alternative to lead could form the basis of next-generation solar cells.

Climate impacts of super-giant oilfields go up with age

Even oilfields aren’t immune to the ravages of time: A new study finds that as some of the world’s largest oilfields age, the energy required to keep them operating can rise dramatically even as the amount of petroleum they produce drops.

Record-breaking marine heatwave cooks Tasmania's fisheries

Climate change was almost certainly responsible for a marine heatwave off Tasmania’s east coast in 2015/16 that lasted 251 days and at its greatest extent was seven times the size of Tasmania, according to a new study published today in Nature Communications.

Using Omega 3 Fatty Acids to Treat Alzheimer's & Other Diseases?

Understanding how dietary essential fatty acids work may lead to effective treatments for diseases and conditions such as stroke, Alzheimer’s disease, age-related macular degeneration, Parkinson’s disease and other retinal and neurodegenerative diseases. The key is to be able to intervene during the early stages of the disease. That is the conclusion of a Minireview by Nicolas Bazan, MD, PhD, Boyd Professor and Director, and Aram Asatryan, PhD, postdoctoral researcher, at the Neuroscience Center of Excellence at LSU Health New Orleans School of Medicine published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry’s Thematic Minireview Series: Inflammatory transcription confronts homeostatic disruptions. The paper is available online.

High-dose vitamin D doesn't appear to reduce the winter sniffles for children

Giving children high doses of vitamin D doesn’t appear to reduce the winter sniffles, a new study has found.