The planet's soil releases about 60 billion tons of carbon into the atmosphere each year, which is far more than that released by burning fossil fuels. This happens through a process called soil respiration. This enormous release of carbon is balanced by carbon coming into the soil system from falling leaves and other plant matter, as well as by the underground activities of plant roots.
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Europe's installed wind capacity will increase at a slower rate to the end of the decade than previously estimated, due to regulatory uncertainty and weak economic growth, an industry association said on Wednesday (23 July). European Union countries will have a combined 192.4 gigawatts (GW) of installed wind energy capacity by 2020, 64% higher than 2013 levels, the European Wind Energy Association (EWEA) said in a report.
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Their scruffy beards weren't ironic, but there are reasons mammoths and mastodons could have been the hipsters of the Ice Age. According to research from the University of Cincinnati, the famously fuzzy relatives of elephants liked living in Greater Cincinnati long before it was trendy -- at the end of the last ice age. A study led by Brooke Crowley, an assistant professor of geology and anthropology, shows the ancient proboscideans enjoyed the area so much they likely were year-round residents and not nomadic migrants as previously thought.
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Usted probablemente ha escuchado que el derretimiento del permafrost es un gran contribuyente al aumento de los niveles de gases de efecto invernadero en nuestra atmósfera, y que el permafrost en derretimiento puede incluso causar una aceleración imparable del calentamiento global. Sin embargo, una nueva investigación con el apoyo de la National Science Foundation (NSF), presenta un contraargumento de este punto de vista científico, ampliamente difundido, de que el deshielo del permafrost acelera uniformemente calentamiento de la atmósfera, indicando que algunos lagos del Ártico, en cambio, almacenan más gases de efecto invernadero que los que se emiten a la atmósfera.
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The size and age of plants have more of an impact on their productivity than temperature and precipitation, according to a landmark study by University of Arizona researchers. UA professor Brian Enquist and postdoctoral researcher Sean Michaletz, along with collaborators Dongliang Cheng from Fujian Normal University in China and Drew Kerkhoff from Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio, have combined a new mathematical theory with data from more than 1,000 forests across the world to show that climate has a relatively minor direct effect on net primary productivity, or the amount of biomass – wood or any other plant materials – that plants produce by harvesting sunlight, water and carbon dioxide.
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As every parent knows, bringing up children can be a draining business. Now researchers have found that banded mongoose parents find it so stressful, they have no energy left to care for the next litter. It seems the energetic demands of caring for pups pushes up the mongooses' stress hormone levels.
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