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Overfishing of large and top predatory fishes on Caribbean coral reefs substantially reduces the amount of nutrients stored and recycled within the ecosystem by fishes, new interdisciplinary research published today in Nature Communications concludes.

The study, by scientists at the University of Washington, the Center for Biological Diversity, the Smithsonian Institution and North Carolina State University, suggests that while avoiding local extinction of fish species is a conservation priority, management actions that preserve large fish groups such as sharks, groupers, snappers and jacks are needed to maintain an adequate flow of nutrients within ecosystems.

Researchers have flown aircraft over an oil and gas field and pinpointed -- with unprecedented precision -- sources of the greenhouse gas methane in real time. The technique led to the detection and immediate repair of two leaks in natural gas pipelines in the Four Corners region of the U.S. Southwest.

The technique led to the detection and immediate repair of two leaks in natural gas pipelines in the Four Corners region of the U.S. Southwest. The approach could inform strategies for meeting new federal limits on methane emissions from the oil and gas industry. Methane emissions have spiked in recent decades along with the boom in natural gas drilling.

A surge in major wildfire events in the U.S. West as a consequence of climate change will expose tens of millions of Americans to high levels of air pollution in the coming decades, according to a new Yale-led study conducted with collaborators from Harvard.

The researchers estimated air pollution from past and projected future wildfires in 561 western counties, and found that by mid-century more than 82 million people will experience "smoke waves," or consecutive days with high air pollution related to fires.

The regions likely to receive the highest exposure to wildfire smoke in the future include northern California, western Oregon, and the Great Plains.

El cambio climático, la deforestación, la pérdida de diversidad biológica, destrucción de ecosistemas

marinos, disminución de la calidad del aire en las ciudades y contaminación de los mantos acuíferos son sólo

algunos ejemplos que denotan que la problemática ambiental resulta muy compleja por tratarse de un

enigma multifactorial. La adaptación al cambio climático y el adoptar una cultura de sostenibilidad

representan el mayor reto para la sociedad del siglo XXI.

Alcanzar la sostenibilidad entre el desarrollo de una población que crece exponencialmente y el uso de los

recursos naturales es una tarea que no se podrá cumplir a menos que logremos una participación conjunta y

coordinada de todos. Cada uno tiene una tarea distinta pero todas deben estar encaminadas a alcanzar un

equilibrio entre los esfuerzos por resolver estos problemas.

La tarea del gobierno es hacer políticas públicas que incentiven actividades económicas responsables con el

ambiente, promover una educación de responsabilidad ambiental en la población, sancionar a quienes

incumplan con la ley y afecten directa o indirectamente al ambiente, así como una política participativa en la

cual se involucre a toda la sociedad en la toma de decisiones.

Electric cars that exist today could be widely adopted despite range constraints, replacing about 90 percent of existing cars, and could make a major dent in the nation's carbon emissions, new research indicates.

The study, which found that a wholesale replacement of conventional vehicles with electric ones is possible today and could play a significant role in meeting climate change mitigation goals, was published today in the journal Nature Energy by Jessika Trancik, the Atlantic Richfield Career Development Associate Professor in Energy Studies at MIT's Institute for Data, Systems, and Society (IDSS), along with graduate student Zachary Needell, postdoc James McNerney, and recent graduate Michael Chang SM '15.