Wiping out all of Africa’s elephants could accelerate Earth’s climate crisis by allowing 7% more damaging greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, scientists say. But conserving forest elephants may reverse the trend, providing a service worth $43billion in storing carbon, the academics found. The research, published in Nature Geoscience, shows that …
SAN FRANCISCO – Three fault segments running beneath Northern California and its roughly 15 million people are overdue for a major earthquake, including one section that lies near the dams and canals that supply much of the state’s water, according to a geological study published on Monday. The three fault …
Research finds 20cm rise since start of 20th century, caused by global warming and the melting of polar ice, is unprecedented. The rise in sea levels seen over the past century is unmatched by any period in the past 6,000 years, according to a lengthy analysis of historical sea level …
Researchers from Britain, Canada and Hong Kong are conducting a three-dimensional study into air pollution and health. Photo: Sam Tsang Hong Kong's notorious "street canyons" have become the latest research subject for a group of the world's top scientists specialising in air pollution and health. Researchers from Britain, Canada and …
MYSORE: A study carried out by the scientists at Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) Hyderabad has indicated that elephants held in captivity in mutts, zoos and other places are living under stress and their incarceration has changed their breeding habits. Study finds that captivity has adversely affected their …
As sea levels rise, tidal flooding along the US coast is likely to become so common that parts of many communities, including the nation's capital, could become unusable within three decades, according to a new report from the Union of Concerned Scientists. Rising sea levels create a higher platform for …
The 2014 Nobel Prize in Physics has officially been awarded to Isamu Akasaki of Meijo University in Japan and to Hiroshi Amano of Nagoya University in Japan and to Shuji Nakamura of the University of California. Together, the scientists invented an efficient blue light-emitting diode, which has enabled bright and …
As the world population grows, it's important to continue to develop methods to increase crop yield in order to feed the burgeoning masses. Now, one scientist has developed a method to enhance crop yield through the contact of roots, aerial parts or even the substratum of a plant fungus. The …
British-American resea-rcher John O’Keefe won the Nobel Medicine Prize Monday with a Norwegian couple, May-Britt and Edvard Moser, for discovering an “inner GPS” that helps the brain navigate. They earned the coveted prize for identifying brain cells enabling people to orient themselves in space, with implications for diseases like Alzheimer’s, …
The Tibetan plateau has become the focus of intense meteorological study in a never-before attempt to understand its effect on climate locally as well as globally, notes Nature News. This development follows close on the heels of the massive floods which hit Kashmir and Pakistan recently. The $49-million Chinese effort, …
The Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine has been awarded to three scientists who discovered the brain's "GPS system". UK-based researcher Prof John O'Keefe as well as May-Britt Moser and Edvard Moser share the award. They discovered how the brain knows where we are and is able to navigate from …
Researchers have developed the first breath test for TB in the laboratory. It provides rapid information on drug resistance that takes up to six weeks using standard methods, US scientists report in the journal, Nature Communications. The bacteria emit a unique gas signature within 10 minutes of exposure to an …
Scientists have designed a new class of antibiotic which seeks and destroys resistance genes in bacteria. The unique approach could be used to genetically engineer bacteria in our bodies to become less dangerous. The technology might also lead to new treatments for metabolic diseases like obesity, the researchers claim. Scientists …
The Sunderbans tiger population may have reached its carrying capacity . The scientists of the Wildlife Institute of India (WII), who are compiling data as part of the all-India tiger census, have revealed this. The carrying capacity of a population is the maximum number of individuals that can live in …
Rich nations should make the deepest emission cuts and provide most money if countries are to share fairly the responsibility of preventing catastrophic climate change, says a major new study. Calculations by Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) scientists and Friends of the Earth suggest the UK would need to make cuts …
Scientists searching for a way to predict earthquakes have uncovered the most promising lead yet, after uncovering tell-tale chemical spikes in groundwater up to six months before tremors struck. Major earthquakes can kill hundreds of thousands of people, as in Haiti in 2010, but they are the only natural disaster …
Union Minister for Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation Uma Bharti has exhorted scientists of the Forest Research Institute to help in the restoration of ecological and spiritual aspects of Ganga rejuvenation. The Minister showed keen interest in the research activities of the institute particularly with respect to the …
Humanity is at an evolutionary paradox -- neither able to keep pace with man-made changes to the environment nor able to control constantly evolving pests and diseases, a leading paedetrician and scientist of New Zealand said Friday. "On the one hand some pathogens, cancers and pests are evolving faster than …
“Microorganisms are the best chemists on the planet,” declared Michael A. Fischbach, a chemist at the University of California, San Francisco. For evidence, Fischbach points to the many lifesaving drugs that microorganisms produce. In 1928, for example, Alexander Fleming discovered that mould wafting into his lab produced a bacteria-killing chemical …
BARCELONA (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - As climate-changing emissions surge globally, a summit of world leaders this month should help revitalizes ambitions to tackle climate change despite the absence of government heads from China and India, U.N. climate envoy Mary Robinson said. United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called the Sept. 23 …
Wildfires, insects and drought are crippling forests in the western United States' iconic Rocky Mountains, scientists warned on Wednesday, urging more efforts to stop global warming. "If left unchecked, the climate change that is driving this triple assault could fundamentally alter these forests as we know them," said the report …
