Summaries | Headlines
Growing More Rice With Less Water (October 18, 2007) -- Twenty years after its discovery in the forested mountains of Vietnam, local authorities here have agreed to establish new nature reserves to protect a critically endangered wild ox. Found only in ... > full story
Fishing Ban Protects Largest Coral Reef In The Philippines (October 18, 2007) -- Reef fish and other marine species can breathe easier with the introduction of a fishing ban around Apo Reef, the largest coral reef in the Philippines and the second largest contiguous reef in the ... > full story
Endangered Wild Ox Given Lifeline (October 18, 2007) -- Twenty years after its discovery in the forested mountains of Vietnam, local authorities here have agreed to establish new nature reserves to protect a critically endangered wild ox. Found only in ... > full story
Some Tropical Birds Depend Completely On Army Ants To Flush Out Prey (October 17, 2007) -- In the jungles of Central and South America, a group of birds has evolved a unique way of finding food -- by following hordes of army ants and letting them do all the work. Some of the birds rely ... > full story
Stronger EPA Leadership Needed To Improve Water Quality In Mississippi River, Report Says (October 17, 2007) -- The US Environmental Protection Agency must take a more aggressive leadership role in implementing the Clean Water Act if water quality in the Mississippi River and the northern Gulf of Mexico is to ... > full story
Hidden Costs Of Climate Change In US: Major, Nationwide, Uncounted (October 17, 2007) -- The total economic cost of climate change in the United States will be major and nationwide in scope. Climate change will affect all sectors of the national economy, especially agriculture, energy ... > full story
Ancient Fossil Evidence Supports Carbon Dioxide As Driver Of Global Warming (October 17, 2007) -- A new way to study Earth's past climate by analyzing the chemical composition of ancient marine fossils has been devised. The first published tests with the method further support the view that ... > full story
Upper Midwest Forests Are Losing Diversity, Complexity (October 17, 2007) -- Forests in the nation's Upper Midwest have changed greatly since the time of the early settlers. And more changes may be coming. Researchers found that none of the areas surveyed - from Minnesota to ... > full story
Giant Wave Experiment Reveals Poorly Understood Behavior Of Tsunamis (October 17, 2007) -- With the goal of saving lives and preventing environmental and structural damage during real tsunamis, Princeton Engineering researchers have been creating experimental mini-tsunamis. Existing models ... > full story
After Drought, Diversity Dries Up And Ponds All Look The Same (October 17, 2007) -- An ecologist has discovered that after ponds dry up through drought in a region, when they revive, the community of species in each pond tends to be very similar to one another, like so many suburban ... > full story
Switchgrass: Bridging Bioenergy And Conservation (October 17, 2007) -- An important part of the answer to the country's energy woes could be blowing in the prairie wind, according to one plant geneticist. He has spent the past 10 years breeding switchgrass, an ... > full story
What Is The World's Potential To Produce Biodiesel? (October 17, 2007) -- What do the countries of Thailand, Uruguay and Ghana have in common? They all could become leading producers of the emerging renewable fuel known as biodiesel, according to a new ... > full story
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Solstice -- The summer solstice is an astronomical term regarding the position of the sun in relation to the celestial equator. The summer solstice is the day of the year with the longest daylight period and ... > full article
Mid-Atlantic United States flood of 2006 -- The Eastern United States flooding of June 2006 is a significant flooding event in much of Mid-Atlantic region of the eastern United States. The flooding was very widespread, affecting numerous ... > full article
Japanese beetle -- The Japanese Beetle (Popillia japonica) is a beetle about 1.5 cm (0.6 inches) long and 1 cm (0.4 inches) wide (smaller in Canada), with shiny copper-colored elytra and a shiny green top of the thorax ... > full article
Gypsy moth -- The gypsy moth, Lymantria dispar, is a moth of European origin. Gypsy moth larvae prefer hardwoods, but may feed on several hundred different species of trees and shrubs. In the East the gypsy moth ... > full article
Tree -- A tree can be defined as a large, perennial, woody plant. Though there is no set definition regarding minimum size, the term generally applies to plants at least 6 m (20 ft) high at maturity and, ... > full article
Agriculture -- Agriculture is the process of producing food, feed, fiber and many other desired products by the cultivation of certain plants and the raising of domesticated animals (livestock). The practice of ... > full article
Plant -- Plants are a major group of living things including familiar organisms such as trees, flowers, herbs, ferns, and mosses. About 350,000 species of plants, defined as seed plants, bryophytes, ferns and ... > full article
Fungus -- A fungus (plural fungi) is a eukaryotic organism that digests its food externally and absorbs the nutrient molecules into its cells. Fungi are very important economically: yeasts are responsible for ... > full article
Photosynthesis -- Photosynthesis, generally, is the synthesis of sugar from light, carbon dioxide and water, with oxygen as a waste product. It is arguably the most important biochemical pathway known; nearly all life ... > full article
Carbon dioxide -- Carbon dioxide is a chemical compound composed of one carbon and two oxygen atoms. It is often referred to by its formula CO2. It is present in the Earth's atmosphere at a low concentration and acts ... > full article
Earth's atmosphere -- Earth's atmosphere is a layer of gases surrounding the planet Earth and retained by the Earth's gravity. It contains roughly 78% nitrogen and 21% oxygen 0.97% argon and carbon dioxide 0.04% trace ... > full article
Solar radiation -- Solar radiation is radiant energy emitted by the sun, particularly electromagnetic energy. About half of the radiation is in the visible short-wave part of the electromagnetic spectrum. The other ... > full article
Ultraviolet -- Ultraviolet (UV) radiation is electromagnetic radiation of a wavelength shorter than that of the visible region, but longer than that of soft X-rays. The Sun emits ultraviolet radiation in the UVA, ... > full article
Solar wind -- A solar wind is a stream of charged particles (i.e., a plasma) which are ejected from the upper atmosphere of a star. When originating from stars other than the Earth's Sun, it is sometimes called a ... > full article
Greenhouse gas -- Greenhouse gases are components of the atmosphere that contribute to the greenhouse effect. Some greenhouse gases occur naturally in the atmosphere, while others result from human activities such as ... > full article
Greenhouse effect -- The greenhouse effect is the process in which the emission of infrared radiation by the atmosphere warms a planet's surface. The name comes from an analogy with the warming of air inside a greenhouse ... > full article
Methane -- Methane is a significant and plentiful fuel which is the principal component of natural gas. Burning one molecule of methane in the presence of oxygen releases one molecule of CO2 (carbon ... > full article
Nitrous oxide -- Nitrous oxide, also known as dinitrogen oxide or dinitrogen monoxide, is a chemical compound with chemical formula N2O. It is commonly known as laughing gas due to the exhilarating effects of ... > full article
Sulfur hexafluoride -- Sulfur hexafluoride (SF6) is a gas whose molecules consist of one sulfur atom and six fluorine atoms. It is colorless, odorless, non-toxic, and non-flammable, and is soluble in water and some other ... > full article
Haloalkane -- The haloalkanes (also known as Halogenoalkanes) are a group of chemical compounds, consisting of alkanes, such as methane or ethane, with one or more halogens linked, such as chlorine or fluorine, ... > full article
