news from the lab

Environmental Sciences - 20.02
Researcher Helps Discover and Characterize a 300-Million-Year Old Forest, Preserved Like Pompeii
Pompeii-like, a 300-million-year-old tropical forest was preserved in ash when a volcano erupted in what is today northern China. A new study by University of Pennsylvania paleobotanist Hermann Pfefferkorn and colleagues presents a reconstruction of this fossilized forest, lending insight into the ecology and climate of its time.

Life Sciences - Environmental Sciences - 19.02
Yosemite’s alpine chipmunks take genetic hit from climate change
Global warming has forced alpine chipmunks in Yosemite to higher ground, prompting a startling decline in the species' genetic diversity, according to a new study by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley.

Social Sciences - Environmental Sciences - 13.02
China's pollution related to e-cars may be more harmful than gasoline cars
MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL (02/13/2012) —Electric cars have been heralded as environmentally friendly, but new findings from an international research team suggest that electric cars in China have an overall impact on pollution that could be more harmful to health than gasoline vehicles.

Environmental Sciences - Earth Sciences - 6.02
Researchers Uncover a Mechanism to Explain Dune Field Patterns
In a study of the harsh but beautiful White Sands National Monument in New Mexico, University of Pennsylvania researchers have uncovered a unifying mechanism to explain dune patterns. The new work represents a contribution to basic science, but the findings may also hold implications for identifying when dune landscapes like those in Nebraska's Sand Hills may reach a "tipping point" under climate change, going from valuable grazing land to barren desert.

Agronomy/Food Science - Environmental Sciences - 30.01
Kids under chronic stress more likely to become obese
The more ongoing stress children are exposed to, the greater the odds they will become obese by adolescence, reports Cornell environmental psychologist Gary Evans in the journal Pediatrics (129:1). Nine-year-old children who were chronically exposed to such stressors as poverty, crowded housing and family turmoil gain more weight and were significantly heavier by age 13 than they would have been otherwise, the study found.

Medicine/Pharmacology - Environmental Sciences - 23.01
New U-M computer model predicts cholera outbreaks up to 11 months in advance
ANN ARBOR, Mich. - A new University of Michigan computer model of disease transmission in space and time can predict cholera outbreaks in Bangladesh up to 11 months in advance, providing an early warning system that could help public health officials there.

Environmental Sciences - Chemistry - 19.12.2011
Upper atmosphere facilitates changes that let mercury enter food chain
Humans pump thousands of tons of vapor from the metallic element mercury into the atmosphere each year, and it can remain suspended for long periods before being changed into a form that is easily removed from the atmosphere.

Environmental Sciences - Earth Sciences - 1.12.2011
CO2 levels plunged as Antarctica froze
A Yale University-led research team has found evidence that carbon dioxide levels in Earth's atmosphere plunged prior to and during the initial icing of Antarctica, about 34 million years ago. The new findings provide further evidence of atmospheric carbon dioxide's role as a major trigger of global climate change.

Earth Sciences - Environmental Sciences - 17.11.2011
Massive volcanoes, meteorite impacts delivered one-two death punch to dinosaurs
by Morgan Kelly A cosmic one-two punch of colossal volcanic eruptions and meteorite strikes likely caused the mass-extinction event at the end of the Cretaceous period that is famous for killing the dinosaurs 65 million years ago, according to two Princeton University reports that reject the prevailing theory that the extinction was caused by a single large meteorite.

Medicine/Pharmacology - Environmental Sciences - 10.11.2011
Wood smoke from cooking fires linked to pneumonia, cognitive impacts
Two new studies led by University of California, Berkeley, researchers spotlight the human health effects of exposure to smoke from open fires and dirty cookstoves, the primary source of cooking and heating for 43 percent, or some 3 billion members, of the world's population.

Environmental Sciences - Earth Sciences - 4.11.2011
Climate engineers weigh the risks of "planet hacking" projects
Research investigates how well solar radiation management would combat climate change November 3, 2011 - Let there be no doubt: sun blockers and cloud-seeding machines exist only in the future, in hypotheticals and backup plans.

Physics/Astronomy - Environmental Sciences - 2.11.2011
NASA Study of Clays Suggests Watery Mars Underground
PASADENA, Calif. - A new NASA study suggests if life ever existed on Mars, the longest lasting habitats were most likely below the Red Planet's surface. A new interpretation of years of mineral-mapping data, from more than 350 sites on Mars examined by European and NASA orbiters, suggests Martian environments with abundant liquid water on the surface existed only during short episodes.

Environmental Sciences - Life Sciences - 31.10.2011
Savannas, forests in a battle of the biomes, Princeton researchers find
by Morgan Kelly Climate change, land use and other human-driven factors could pit savannas and forests against each other by altering the elements found by Princeton University researchers to stabilize the two.

Environmental Sciences - Life Sciences - 13.10.2011
Can indigenous peoples gather reliable environmental data that meet scientific standards?
Some scientists argue that the cultural and educational differences between trained scientists and native peoples are too large for the latter's data to be relied on in environmental studies.

Chemistry - Environmental Sciences - 5.10.2011
What Will Happen to Soil Carbon as the Climate Changes A Team of Scientists Seeks Answers
The ground beneath your feet could hide a sleeping giant. Globally, soils store three times as much carbon as there is in the atmosphere or in living plants. Scientists don't know what will happen to this carbon in response to climate change.