Earth
- Plants
Bees face ‘unprecedented’ pesticide exposures at home and afield
Honey bees are being hammered by some mysterious environmental plaque that has a name — colony collapse disorder – but no established cause. A two-year study now provides evidence indicting one likely group of suspects: pesticides. It found “unprecedented levels” of mite-killing chemicals and crop pesticides in hives across the United States and parts of Canada.
- Paleontology
Fossilized poop bears tooth marks
Shark-bitten fecal matter probably came from an assault on an ancient croc.
- Earth
Ice drilling nets shrimpy surprise
Underwater camera captures an Antarctic crustacean, as a serendipitous part of a larger ice shelf study.
- Chemistry
Methane-making microbes thrive under the ice
Antarctica’s ice sheets could hide vast quantities of the greenhouse gas, churned out by a buried ecosystem.
- Ecosystems
Iron fertilization in ocean nourishes toxic algae
Efforts to prevent global warming by fertilizing the oceans with iron could trigger harmful algal blooms.
- Health & Medicine
For a lucky few, ‘dioxins’ might be heart healthy
Dioxins and their kin are notorious poisons. They work by turning on what many biologists had long assumed was a vestigial receptor with no natural beneficial role. But it now appears that in a small proportion of people, this receptor may confer heart benefits.
- Climate
National academies to review IPCC procedures
Global science organizations asked to help evaluate processes that produced 2007 climate report.
- Climate
Ancient Norse colonies hit bad climate times
Temperatures in Iceland plummeted soon after settlers arrived, a new chemical analysis suggests.
- Earth
Green-ish pesticides bee-devil honey makers
Pesticides are agents designed to rid targeted portions of the human environment of undesirable critters – such as boll weevils, roaches or carpenter ants. They’re not supposed to harm beneficials. Like bees. Yet a new study from China finds that two widely used pyrethroid pesticides – chemicals that are rather “green” as bug killers go – can significantly impair the pollinators’ reproduction.
- Earth
Country ants make it big in the city
Odorous house ants act like invading aliens when they discover urban living.
- Life
Mature females key to beluga sturgeon survival
Hatchery fish are unlikely to restore caviar-producing fish populations, a new assessment finds.
- Earth
Fowl surprise! Methylmercury improves hatching rate
A pinch of methylmercury is just ducky for mallard reproduction, according to a new federal study. The findings are counterintuitive, since methylmercury is ordinarily a potent neurotoxic pollutant.
