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During the research, the scientists were to answer the following questions which are currently considered to be important in the realm of radiobiology:

What are the peculiarities of low-dose gamma radiation`s effect on living creatures?

What are the differences between gamma and alpha, beta radiation in terms of their effect on living creatures?

Photobacterium phosphoreum, which is quite suitable for a comprehensive analysis of a radiation effect, was used as a test organism. In the course of the experiment, the luminous bacteria were put into an experimental capsule where they were undergoing the effect of different radiation capacity and duration under the temperatures of +5 °C, +10 °C, +20 °C.

Over the week of May 15, extreme rainfall drenched northeastern Australia and NASA data provided a look at the record totals.

The rainfall was the heaviest rainfall in that area since tropical cyclone Debbie hit Queensland Australia in late March. Much of the recent extremely heavy rainfall was due to storms associated with a trough or elongated area of low pressure slowly moving over northeastern Queensland from the Coral Sea. More than 100 millimeters or 3.9 inches of rain in 24 hours was reported near Townsville. A trough of low pressure that moved eastward from central Australia was also encroaching into western Queensland.   

A team of researchers from four American universities says the key to reducing harmful greenhouse gases (GHG) in the short term is more likely to be found on the dinner plate than at the gas pump.

The team, headed by Loma Linda University (LLU) researcher Helen Harwatt, PhD, suggests that one simple change in American eating habits would have a large impact on the environment: if Americans would eat beans instead of beef, the United States would immediately realize approximately 50 to 75 percent of its GHG reduction targets for the year 2020.

Falling sulfur dioxide emissions in the United States are expected to substantially increase rainfall in Africa’s semi-arid Sahel, while bringing slightly more rain to much of the U.S., according to a new study in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres.

Pollution filters placed on coal-fired power plants in the United States starting in the 1970s have dramatically cut emissions of sulfur dioxide, a toxic gas that contributes to acid rain and premature deaths from respiratory and cardiovascular diseases. If U.S. sulfur dioxide emissions are cut to zero by 2100, as some researchers have projected, rainfall over the Sahel could increase up to 10 percent from 2000 levels, computer simulations published in the study suggest.

A new study has found that children, especially boys, whose mothers were exposed to higher levels of outdoor particulate air pollution at the same time that they were very stressed were most likely to develop asthma by age six. The study was presented at the 2017 American Thoracic Society International Conference. 

The team, led by senior investigator Rosalind Wright, MD, MPH, co-director of the Institute for Exposomics Research at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, conducted this study because of their overarching interest in understanding how these and other environmental factors interact to produce respiratory health disparities.