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Environmental News Network -- Know Your Environment
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
