ScienceDaily
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Most penguin populations continue to decline, biologists warn
Penguin biologists from around the world warn that ten of the planet's eighteen penguin species have experienced further serious population declines. The effects of climate change, overfishing, chronic oil pollution and predation by introduced mammals are among the major factors cited repeatedly by penguin scientists as contributing to these population drops.
Scientist offers better ways to engineer Earth's climate to prevent dangerous global warming
There may be better ways to engineer the planet's climate to prevent dangerous global warming than mimicking volcanoes, a climate scientist in Canada says in two new studies.
Global warming's silver lining? Northern countries will thrive and grow, researcher predicts
Move over, Sunbelt. The New North is coming through, a geographer predicts in a new book. As worldwide population increases by 40 percent over the next 40 years, sparsely populated Canada, Scandinavia, Russia and the northern United States will become formidable economic powers and migration magnets, Laurence C. Smith writes.
Giant Greenland iceberg -- largest in the northern hemisphere -- enters Nares Strait
The European Space Agency's Envisat satellite has been tracking the progression of the giant iceberg that calved from Greenland's Petermann glacier on 4 August 2010. A new animation shows that the iceberg, the largest in the northern hemisphere, is now entering Nares Strait -- a stretch of water that connects the Lincoln Sea and Arctic Ocean with Baffin Bay.
Research shows continued decline of Oregon's largest glacier
Researchers have returned to Collier Glacier for the first time in almost 20 years and found that the glacier has decreased more than 20 percent from its size in the late 1980s. The findings are consistent with glacial retreat all over the world and provide some of the critical data needed to help quantify the effects of global change on glacier retreat and associated sea level rise.
Ants take on Goliath role in protecting trees in the savanna from elephants
Ants are not out of their weight class when defending trees from the appetite of nature's heavyweight, the African elephant, a new study finds. Columns of angered ants will crawl up into elephant trunks to repel the ravenous beasts from devouring tree cover throughout drought-plagued East African savannas, playing a potentially important role in regulating carbon sequestration in these ecosystems.
Most new farmland in tropics comes from slashing forests, research shows
A new study shows that more than 80 percent of the new farmland created in the tropics between 1980 and 2000 came from felling forests, which sends carbon into the atmosphere and drives global warming. But the research team also noted that big agribusiness has largely replaced small farmers in doing most of the tree cutting in Brazil and Indonesia, which may make it easier to rein in the trend.
Seafood stewardship questionable, experts argue
The world's most established fisheries certifier is failing on its promises as rapidly as it gains prominence, according to leading fisheries experts.
Impact hypothesis loses its sparkle: Shock-synthesized diamonds said to prove catastrophic impact killed off N. American megafauna can't be found
The warming that following the last Ice Age was interrupted by a cold snap that killed off megafauna such as the giant ground sloth and the woolly mammoth. Could this crisis have been caused by an asteroid impact or a comet breaking up in the atmosphere? Unfortunately the geological evidence for such a dramatic event has not stood up to scrutiny.
Marine animals suggest evidence for a trans-Antarctic seaway
A tiny marine filter-feeder that anchors itself to the sea bed offers new clues to scientists studying the stability of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet -- a region that is thought to be vulnerable to collapse. Scientists analyzed sea-bed colonies of bryozoans from coastal and deep sea regions around the continent and from further afield.