Harvesting fire-killed trees is an effective way to reduce woody fuels for up to four decades following wildfire in dry coniferous forests, a U.S. Forest Service study has found.
Why post-fire logging is important
articles
Bristol University sheds new light on early terrestrial vertebrate
The first 3D reconstruction of the skull of a 360 million-year-old near-ancestor of land vertebrates has been created by scientists from the Universities of Bristol and Cambridge.
The 3D skull, which differs from earlier 2D reconstructions, suggests such creatures, which lived their lives primarily in shallow water environments, were more like modern crocodiles than previously thought.
Could China & India's Air Pollution be behind our Cold, Snowy Winters?
It's March. It's freezing. And there's half a foot of snow on the ground. When is this winter going to end?
Many scientists think that climate change might be one cause of this year's "snowpocalypse" in Boston and bitter cold snaps in New York and Washington.
But physicists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory have been looking into another culprit: air pollution in China and India.
Saturn's moon Enceladus is spewing tiny silica grains, new study finds
A new study by a team of Cassini mission scientists led by the University of Colorado Boulder have found that microscopic grains of rock detected near Saturn imply hydrothermal activity is taking place within the moon Enceladus.
The grains are the first clear indication of an icy moon having hydrothermal activity, in which seawater infiltrates and reacts with a rocky crust, emerging as a heated, mineral-laden solution. The finding adds to the tantalizing possibility that Enceladus, one of at least 60 Saturn moons or moonlets and which displays remarkable geologic activity including geysers, could contain environments suitable for living organisms.
Feds Propose to Protect 330,000 Acres for Black Pine Snakes
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service today proposed to protect 338,100 acres of critical habitat in Mississippi and Alabama for black pine snakes, whose southeastern, longleaf pine forests have been reduced to less than 5 percent of their historic extent. The snake depends on these forests, which are being lost to agriculture and pine plantations, fire suppression and urbanization. Black pine snakes were proposed for Endangered Species Act protection last fall as the result of a settlement agreement with the Center for Biological Diversity that speeds protection decisions for 757 imperiled species around the country.
Nuevo proceso convierte residuos de biomasa en productos quÃmicos
Un nuevo proceso catalítico es capaz de convertir lo que antes se consideraba residuos de biomasa en productos químicos útiles que se pueden utilizar en perfumes, para elaborar bases para aromas o para crear combustible de alto octanaje para autos de carreras y aviones.
Un equipo de investigadores del Centro para la conversión Catalítica Directa de Biomasa en Combustibles, de la Universidad de Purdue, o C3Bio, ha desarrollado un proceso que utiliza un catalizador químico y calor para estimular reacciones que convierten la lignina en sustancias químicas valiosas. La lignina es una molécula resistente y de gran complejidad que le da a la célula vegetal su pared de estructura rígida.
