Summaries | Headlines

ESA's Medspiration Project Branches Out To Support Biodiversity (March 22, 2007) -- Maps of the sea surface temperature around Galapagos Islands and Cocos Island in the Pacific Ocean are being produced daily and are available online in full resolution in near-real time as part of ... > full story

Biologists Produce Global Map Of Plant Biodiversity (March 22, 2007) -- Biologists have produced a global map of estimated plant species richness. Covering several hundred thousand species, the scientists say their global map is the most extensive map of the distribution ... > full story

Lack Of Fuel May Limit US Nuclear Power Expansion (March 22, 2007) -- Limited supplies of fuel for nuclear power plants may thwart the renewed and growing interest in nuclear energy in the United States and other nations, says an MIT expert on the ... > full story

Recycling: Scientists Blend Paint Into Plastic (March 22, 2007) -- Engineers at Rutgers University have developed a process to recycle waste latex paint -- the largest component of household hazardous waste -- by blending it with common plastics. In laboratory ... > full story

Substantial Amount Of Mercury Entering The Ocean Through Groundwater (March 22, 2007) -- Researchers from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution have found a new and substantial pathway for mercury pollution flowing into coastal waters. Marine chemists have detected much more dissolved ... > full story

Improving Microbial Fuel Cells Using A Brush Full Of Microbes (March 22, 2007) -- Generating electricity from renewable sources will soon become as easy as putting a brush and a tube in a tub of ... > full story

Biofuel: Turning Old Fat Into Jet Fuel (March 22, 2007) -- New biofuels technology developed by North Carolina State University engineers has the potential to turn virtually any fat source -- vegetable oils, oils from animal fat and even oils from algae -- ... > full story

Whatever The Warming, Ocean Acidifies From Carbon-dioxide Buildup (March 22, 2007) -- A new study indicates that future changes in ocean acidification caused by atmospheric carbon dioxide emissions are largely independent of the amount of climate change caused by those ... > full story

Solar Blast From The Past Dwarfed Modern Ozone Destruction (March 22, 2007) -- A burst of protons from the Sun in 1859 destroyed several times more ozone in Earth's atmosphere than did a 1989 solar flare that was the strongest ever monitored by satellite, a new analysis ... > full story

Going Nowhere Fast: Top Rivers Face Mounting Threats (March 21, 2007) -- Rivers on every continent are drying out, threatening severe water shortages, according to a new WWF report. The report, World's Top Rivers at Risk, released ahead of World Water Day (22 March), ... > full story

Lower Carbon Dioxide Emissions From Coal-fueled Power Plants Possible With Technology Development (March 21, 2007) -- A more economical technology for a 90 percent reduction of carbon dioxide emissions from coal-fueled power plants is being developed by a chemical engineer and his colleagues at the University of ... > full story

Powerful New Tool To Track Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide By Source (March 21, 2007) -- Scientists from the NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory have announced a new tool to monitor changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases by region and source. The tool, called ... > full story

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Waste -- Waste, rubbish, or garbage is unwanted or undesired material. Waste is something which has lost its apparent value to its owner. It is a misplaced ... > full article

Environmental engineering -- Environmental engineering is the application of science and engineering principles to improve the environment (air, water, and/or land resources), to provide healthful water, air, and land for human ... > full article

Tropospheric ozone -- Ozone (O₃) is a key constituent of the troposphere. Photochemical and chemical reactions involving it drive many of the chemical processes that occur in the atmosphere by day and by night. ... > full article

Smog -- Smog is a kind of air pollution, originally named for the mixture of smoke and fog in the air. Classic smog results from large amounts of coal burning in an area and is caused by a mixture of smoke ... > full article

Hazardous waste -- Hazardous waste is waste that poses substantial or potential threats to public health or the environment and generally exhibits one or more of the these characteristics: ignitability, corrosivity, ... > full article

Groundwater -- Groundwater is water located beneath the ground surface in soil pore spaces and in the fractures of geologic formations. A formation of rock/soil is called an aquifer when it can yield a useable ... > full article

Water pollution -- Water pollution is a large set of adverse effects upon water bodies (lakes, rivers, oceans, groundwater) caused by human activities. Although natural phenomena such as volcanoes, storms, earthquakes ... > full article

Air pollution -- Air pollution is a broad term applied to any chemical, physical (particulate matter), or biological agent that modifies the natural characteristics of the atmosphere. The atmosphere is a complex, ... > full article

Waste management -- Waste management is the collection, transport, processing or disposal of waste materials, usually ones produced by human activity, in an effort to reduce their effect on human health or local ... > full article

Landfill -- Landfill is a waste disposal site for the deposit of the waste onto or into land. Most modern landfills require a minimum of one containment ... > full article

Smoulder -- Smouldering (or smoldering in American spelling) combustion is a flameless form of combustion, deriving its heat from oxidations occurring on the surface of a solid fuel. Common examples are the ... > full article

Pollution -- Environmental pollution is the release of environmental contaminants, generally resulting from human activity. Carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides produced by industry and motor ... > full article

Fossil fuel -- Fossil fuels are hydrocarbons, primarily coal, fuel oil or natural gas, formed from the remains of dead plants and animals. In common dialogue, the term fossil fuel also includes ... > full article

Septic tank -- A septic tank is part of a small scale sewage treatment system often referred to as a septic system, which consists of the tank itself and a septic drain ... > full article

Automobile emissions control -- Automobile emissions control covers all the technologies that are employed to reduce the air pollution-causing emissions produced by ... > full article

Nitrogen oxide -- NOx is a generic term for the various nitrogen oxides produced during combustion. They are believed to aggravate asthmatic conditions, react with the oxygen in the air to produce ozone, which is also ... > full article

Environmental impact assessment -- An Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) is an assessment of the likely human environmental health impact, risk to ecological health, and changes to nature's services that a project may have. The ... > full article

Power station -- A power station or power plant is a facility for the generation of electric power. At the centre of nearly all power stations is a generator, a rotating machine that converts mechanical energy into ... > full article

Surface runoff -- Surface runoff is water, from rain, snowmelt, or other sources, that flows over the land surface, and is a major component of the water cycle. Runoff that occurs on surfaces before reaching a channel ... > full article

Planetary boundary layer -- The planetary boundary layer (PBL) is also known as the atmospheric boundary layer (ABL). It is the lowest part of the atmosphere and its behavior is directly influenced by its contact with the ... > full article