Scientific American

Why Manhattan's Green Roofs Don't Work--and How to Fix Them

Fri, 17 May 2013 07:00:00 EST

On a rooftop in New York City’s Chelsea neighborhood, two students are collecting soil samples from boxes planted with species from two native plant communities: Hempstead Plains, which are grasses belonging to a prairie community originally found on Long Island, and Rocky Summit grasslands,which grow on the tops of mountains and ridges throughout southern New England and all of New York State. They carefully place the dirt from the soil core into a plastic bag and seal it up to be taken to the lab for analysis.

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Fracking Can Be Done Safely, but Will It Be?

Fri, 17 May 2013 06:00:00 EST

Out of sight (and smell), natural gas slowly bubbled up into Norma Fiorentino’s private water well near the town of Dimock in northeastern Pennsylvania--in the heart of the new fracking boom in the U.S. Then, on New Year's Day 2009, when a mechanical pump flicked on and provided the spark, Fiorentino's backyard exploded. She and many others blame the blast on fracking --the colloquial name for the natural gas drilling process that combines horizontal drilling and the fracturing of shale deep underground with high-pressure water to create a path for gas to flow back up the well. [More]

400 PPM: Can Artificial Trees Help Pull CO2 from the Air?

Thu, 16 May 2013 11:01:00 EST

Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere have touched 400 parts per million for the first time in at least 800,000 years. The jagged saw-toothed line of the Keelings' father-and-son measurements climbed above that milestone briefly this month before the budding growth of the Northern Hemisphere's spring began sucking CO2 back out of the sky. But human greenhouse gas pollution looks set to continue to rise--and photosynthetic plants on land or at sea can only do so much. As greenhouse gas levels increase further, could machines help wash the skies of the excess CO2? [More]

Rise in Roadkill Requires New Solutions

Thu, 16 May 2013 06:00:00 EST

In the 1960s widening U.S. Highway 27 just north of Tallahassee cut Florida's Lake Jackson into two sections. When water levels fell too low in either part, thousands of turtles, frogs, snakes and alligators would hit the road to head for the other side--where cars and trucks often hit the animals . In February of 2000 Matt Aresco, then a PhD student at The Florida State University in Tallahassee, drove through and was stunned at the sight of dozens of crushed turtles. For the next five weeks he patrolled the road between the lakes, once counting 343 dead turtles in 10 days. "It was so heartbreaking to see dozens of turtles, animals that could be 50 or 60 years old, smashed before they make it two feet onto the road," he says.

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Amazon Be Dammed: Deforestation Undermines Future Viability of Brazil s Hydropower Projects

Wed, 15 May 2013 17:30:00 EST

The Amazon Basin is the epicenter of the world’s hydropower plants--the same gushing rains that give the region its lush foliage make it a prime destination for developers seeking to capitalize on this allegedly renewable energy source. But the long-term sustainability of these projects, which use the natural flow of water to generate electricity, is now under scrutiny.

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Snowpack, Ice Cover Shrinking on Rocky Mountains

Wed, 15 May 2013 14:30:00 EST

LONDON Around 20 percent of the snow cover in North America's greatest mountain range has been lost because of warmer springs in the last three decades.

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Moon Base Work Yields Clean Steel Process

Mon, 13 May 2013 10:00:08 EST

Flaming cauldrons of molten metal have long been the primary venues for steel production . But blast furnaces require a lot of coal, which means greenhouse gas pollution. In fact, worldwide, steelmaking is responsible for 5 percent of annual emissions.

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West Africa Struggles to Fill a Climate Knowledge Gap

Mon, 13 May 2013 07:00:00 EST

DAKAR, Senegal – Just two seasons exist here: the rainy and the dry. At the best of times, the temperamental rains come for three or four months and turn dusty plains into green pastures, forests and fields.

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Birds of Burden: 7 Ways Humans Harness Avian Abilities [Slide Show]

Sat, 11 May 2013 09:00:00 EST

Many of the 10,000 or so bird species on the planet are pretty, melodic or tasty. But birds are much more than that. Over the centuries, humankind has come up with some distinctive and surprising ways to take advantage of the unique abilities of our feathered friends. At various points in the history of civilizations, birds have served as hunters, guides and messengers. And we haven’t run out of new things for them to do. Farmers have employed raptors to strike terror into the hearts of crop-destroying birds, such as starlings and seagulls, scattering them back into the wild. With the proper training, birds might one day perform search and rescue.

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Ice Cores Reveal Green Arctic

Fri, 10 May 2013 19:14:08 EST

The Arctic wasn't always covered in ice. Samples of sediment layers beneath a frozen lake show this region used to be a lot warmer--and may thaw out again in the future. The work is in the journal Science . [Julie Brigham-Grette et al., Pliocene Warmth, Polar Amplification, and Stepped Pleistocene Cooling Recorded in NE Arctic Russia ]

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Produce Industry s Food Safety Push Takes Toll on the Environment

Fri, 10 May 2013 17:41:00 EST

Clean greens are healthy greens.

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Cutting Down Amazon for Agriculture Could Cut Yields

Fri, 10 May 2013 16:00:00 EST

LONDON – Researchers see no winners if agriculture made possible by widespread felling in the Amazon continues to expand.

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Mercury in Seafood Diet Linked to Fox Die-Off

Thu, 09 May 2013 17:15:00 EST

An isolated population of Arctic foxes that dines only on marine animals seems to be slowly succumbing to mercury poisoning.

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Valley Fever Throws Baseball a Curve

Thu, 09 May 2013 11:30:00 EST

Conor Jackson had a big bat and a bright future. But after he contracted a rare illness in 2009 while playing with the Arizona Diamondbacks he was never quite the same.

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Hanford Nuclear Waste Cleanup Plant May Be Too Dangerous

Thu, 09 May 2013 07:00:00 EST

The most toxic and voluminous nuclear waste in the U.S.--208 million liters --sits in decaying underground tanks at the Hanford Site (a nuclear reservation) in southeastern Washington State. It accumulated there from the middle of World War II, when the Manhattan Project invented the first nuclear weapon, to 1987, when the last reactor shut down. The federal government’s current attempt at a permanent solution for safely storing that waste for centuries--the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant here--has hit a major snag in the form of potential chain reactions, hydrogen explosions and leaks from metal corrosion. And the revelation last February that six more of the storage tanks are currently leaking has further ramped up the pressure for resolution.

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Interior Secretary: Fracking Regulations Will Be Based on Best Science

Wed, 08 May 2013 15:00:00 EST

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Cheap Nanotech Filter Clears Hazardous Microbes and Chemicals from Drinking Water

Tue, 07 May 2013 13:30:00 EST

About 780 million people--a tenth of the world’s population--do not have access to clean drinking water. Water laced with contaminants such as bacteria, viruses, lead and arsenic claims millions of lives each year. But an inexpensive device that effectively clears such contaminants from water may help solve this problem.

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Johnson & Johnson Removes Some Chemicals from Baby Shampoo, Other Products

Mon, 06 May 2013 11:15:00 EST

At a small ceremony in February, Johnson & Johnson executives were handed a scroll of 30,000 signatures from consumers.

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Chemicals of High Concern Found in Thousands of Children's Products

Mon, 06 May 2013 11:00:00 EST

Cobalt in plastic building blocks and baby bibs. Ethylene glycol in dolls. Methyl ethyl ketone in clothing. Antimony in high chairs and booster seats. Parabens in baby wipes. D4 in baby creams.

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Flame Retardants Linked to Lower IQs, Hyperactivity in Children

Mon, 06 May 2013 06:00:00 EST

Almost a decade after manufacturers stopped using certain chemical flame retardants in furniture foam and carpet padding, many of the compounds still lurk in homes. New work to be presented today reaffirms that the chemicals may also still be hurting young children who were exposed before they were born.

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