Scientific American - Environment

Could an Infection Cause Tourette's-Like Symptoms in Teenage Girls?

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 18:05:00 EST

Over the weekend Erin Brockovich made the news yet again as she and her nonprofit team descended on the village of Le Roy, N.Y., determined to test for environmental toxins that might be giving the town's teenagers symptoms of Tourette's syndrome. She has reportedly been stonewalled thus far by local officials, who have already ruled out toxins as the cause of last October's sudden outbreak of tics and involuntary movements in 12 girls who attend Le Roy Junior–Senior High School. An environmental testing company surveyed the air and water and found nothing amiss, and a local neurologist concluded upon examining the girls that they had "conversion disorder," a catchall moniker for physical symptoms that originate in the mind because of stress, trauma or even mass hysteria.

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Temperatures--Not Acid--Could Cook Coral to Death

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 17:01:00 EST

One of the biggest natural tragedies of recent years is the deterioration of Australia's Great Barrier Reef , a vast structure of coral off the continent's east coast that supports a profusion of wildlife. In addition to overfishing and nutrient pollution, the world's largest natural structure has suffered from rising ocean temperatures. But, perhaps less well known, Australia's west coast has some massive reefs of its own, offshore in the southeastern Indian Ocean. Massive stony corals of the genus Porites swell to the surface, and new research published February 2 in Science suggests those located in the colder waters farthest south are growing better than ever --thanks to warming ocean temperatures.

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Can Cleaner Cooking and Solar Power Help Solve Energy Poverty in Africa? [Slide Show]

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 16:01:00 EST

KWADUKUZA, South Africa--A Zulu crowd's ululations welcomed Jacob Zuma, president of the Republic of South Africa, back to KwaZulu–Natal, his home province. He had come to tell them of his commitment to bring them, and the rest of the nation, better access to energy--as well as to announce the distribution of solar-powered hot water heaters and LED lighting systems as well as clean-burning cookstoves.

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Photo Quiz: Guess the Image

Sun, 29 Jan 2012 14:00:00 EST

Parts of Thailand were left unrecognizable at the end of last year, after the country experienced its worst floods in 50 years. [More]

Animals Get the Upper Paw, or Hoof, or Claw (preview)

Sun, 29 Jan 2012 10:00:00 EST

In journalism, there’s what you call your dog-bites-man situation. Which is anything too common and expected to be a good story (unless the dog is one of those Resident Evil hellhounds, or the man is Cesar Millan). An example of a dog-bites-man science story is yet another confirmation of Einstein and relativity.

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How Much Energy Do You Waste Charging Your Cell Phone?

Sun, 29 Jan 2012 09:00:08 EST

How many chargers do you own? One for your cell phone? Another for your laptop? Yet another for your tablet, podcast player or even electric toothbrush? It adds up.

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Micro-Bubbles Cut Cost of Algae-Derived Biofuel

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 19:47:08 EST

Algae naturally produce oil. When it’s processed, that oil can be turned into biofuel, an alternative energy source. There’s just one snag--harvesting the oil from algae-filled water is prohibitively expensive. But researchers have come up with an effervescent solution: bubbles smaller than the width of a human hair can help reduce the costs of collecting algae oil.

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Readers Respond to "Toxins All Around Us" and Other Articles

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 12:00:00 EST

CHEMISTRY COMMENTARY [More]

Designers of Exotic Materials Learn New Tricks from Animals (preview)

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 08:45:00 EST

Among the first things you notice when you step into the corner office of Harvard University professor Joanna Aizenberg are the playthings. Behind her desk sit a sand dollar, an azure butterfly mounted in a box, a plastic stand with long fibers that erupt in color when a switch is pulled, and haphazard rows of toys. Especially numerous are the Rubik’s cubes--the classic three-by-three, of course, but also ones with four, five, six and even seven mini cubes along each edge. An eight-year-old would be in heaven.

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Children May Be Exposed to Higher Chemical Concentrations Than Their Mothers

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 07:00:00 EST

Children living near DuPont’s plant in West Virginia are exposed to much higher concentrations of an industrial chemical than their mothers, according to a newly published study.

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Has Petroleum Production Peaked, Ending the Era of Easy Oil?

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 16:31:00 EST

Despite major oil finds off Brazil's coast, new fields in North Dakota and ongoing increases in the conversion of tar sands to oil in Canada , fresh supplies of petroleum are only just enough to offset the production decline from older fields. At best, the world is now living off an oil plateau--roughly 75 million barrels of oil produced each and every day--since at least 2005, according to a new comment published in Nature on January 26. ( Scientific American is part of Nature Publishing Group.) That is a year earlier than estimated by the International Energy Agency--an energy cartel for oil consuming nations.

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State of the Union: Research, Technology and Energy

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 13:00:08 EST

Welcome to the Scientific American podcast Science Talk, posted on January 25th, 2012. I’m Steve Mirsky. Last night, President Obama delivered the State of the Union Address. Here is a little more than six minutes of it, the sections dealing with research, technology and energy. Anywhere I’ve made an edit in the audio, you’ll hear a musical interlude. And I’ve lowered the volume on some of the applause for the sake of all of our ears. I think science-interested listeners across the political spectrum can find points of both strong agreement and major disagreement in these few minutes of the talk:

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The Scientist: Jim Hansen Risks Handcuffs to Make His Research Clear

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 12:00:00 EST

Editor's note: Climate Query is a semi-weekly feature offered by Daily Climate, presenting short Q&A's with players large and small in the climate arena. Read others in the series at http://wwwp.dailyclimate.org/tdc-newsroom/query/climate-queries .

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Worried about Air Pollution? Don't Hide Indoors

Sun, 22 Jan 2012 09:00:08 EST

You need to get out more. Whether it's smog or tiny particles of pollution , Americans face the bulk of their health risks from bad air inside. Why? We spend most of our time indoors.

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The Smart Way to Play God with Earth's Limited Land

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 16:31:00 EST

Editor's Note: The following is an excerpt from Mark Lynas's book , The God Species: Saving the Planet in the Age of Humans .

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The Evolving Truth about Fracking for Natural Gas [Updated]

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 15:36:00 EST

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Fracking Would Emit Large Quantities of Greenhouse Gases

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 15:00:00 EST

Add methane emissions to the growing list of environmental risks posed by fracking.

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Recommended: Science on Ice: Four Polar Expeditions (preview)

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 11:00:00 EST

Science on Ice: Four Polar Expeditions [More]

Rainforest in Transition: Is the Amazon Transforming before Our Eyes?

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 14:31:00 EST

The Amazon rainforest is in flux, thanks to agricultural expansion and climate change. In other words, humans have "become important agents of disturbance in the Amazon Basin," as an international consortium of scientists wrote in a review of the state of the science on the world's largest rainforest published in Nature on January 19. ( Scientific American is part of Nature Publishing Group.) The dry season is growing longer in areas where humans have been clearing the trees--as has water discharge from Amazon River tributaries in those regions. Multiyear and more frequent severe droughts, like those in 2005 and 2010, are killing trees that humans don't cut down as well as increasing the risks of more common fires (both man-made and otherwise).

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Insect-to-Insect Disease Transmission Squeezes U.S. Citrus Crop

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 10:00:00 EST

If orange juice is a part of your breakfast, you might be in trouble. A debilitating disease has citrus growers questioning the future of the orange industry in Florida and other parts of the U.S., and new revelations about how it spreads is making prospects look even worse. According to recent research, the insects that transmit the disease don't just spread it from tree to tree--they spread it amongst themselves as well.

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