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Archive for June 19th, 2015
Proposed floodplain restoration reduces flood risk and restores salmon habitat
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 19th, 2015
ScienceDaily: Salmon are severely impacted by the loss of floodplain habitats throughout the West Coast. In few places is this more pronounced than in Oregon's Tillamook Bay, where nearly 90 percent of estuaries' tidal wetlands have been lost to development -- threatening the survival of federally-protected coho salmon and the safety of the local community. Now, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, NOAA Fisheries, and others have come together to reduce flood risk, increase resiliency of the ecosystem, and...
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Hunting Ways Keep Synthetic Estrogens Out Of Rivers And Seas
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 19th, 2015
National Public Radio: Once wastewater is released into the environment, these synthetic hormones can have negative effects on wildlife. Synthetic estrogen is a type of endocrine disruptor, a chemical that affects the endocrine system either by acting like a hormone or by blocking the action of natural hormones. It has caused some species of male fish to become feminized, even causing them to produce eggs in their testes.
One possibility researchers have explored for neutralizing these estrogens before they escape into...
Science Panel Tries to Reinject Reality into Flood Insurance Pricing
Posted by New York Times: Andrew C. Revkin on June 19th, 2015
New York Times: Federal flood insurance in the United States is a mess, with politics continuing to trump data, and taxpayers paying the price. Just track the heroic passage of the Bigger-Waters Flood Insurance Reform Act in 2012 and its subsequent gutting as property owners howled. The followup bill in 2014 had a name that perfectly reflects the irrational nature of what transpired: Homeowner Flood Insurance Affordability Act. Will we ever have a Homeowner Taking Responsibility for Building in Flood Zones Act?...
How Fast Will Rising Temperatures Shrink CO2 Storage?
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 19th, 2015
Scientific American: As human activity has increased the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, carbon cycling has helped to buffer against some of the greenhouse gas's warming effects. But over time, if carbon dioxide levels continue to increase, the planet will become progressively less able to sequester CO2 in the soil or deep within the ocean.
Scott Doney, a senior scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, compares the scenario to an open faucet flowing into a basin (of air),...
German govt clashes with Bavaria over nuclear storage site plan
Posted by Reuters: Markus Wacket and Michael Nienaber on June 19th, 2015
Reuters: The German government presented a plan on Friday for four interim storage sites to host nuclear waste now piled up at plants in France and Britain, but the move drew criticism from Bavaria, which wants none of the material. After Japan's Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011, Germany decided to shut all of its nuclear plants by 2022, but still has to work out how to handle tonnes of highly radioactive waste. Original plans to turn an interim nuclear waste storage site in salt formations in Lower Saxony's...
Evidence of key ingredient during dawn of life
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 19th, 2015
ScienceDaily: Before there were cells on Earth, simple, tiny catalysts most likely evolved the ability to speed up and synchronize the chemical reactions necessary for life to rise from the primordial soup. But what those catalysts were, how they appeared at the same time, and how they evolved into the two modern superfamilies of enzymes that translate our genetic code have not been understood. In the Journal of Biological Chemistry, scientists from the UNC School of Medicine provide the first direct experimental...
Bee health complexity requires scientific solutions
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 19th, 2015
ScienceDaily: A lifelong beekeeper and Mississippi State University Extension Service apiculture specialist offers an unusual list of reasons for bee colony death. "My top three reasons for bee colony death are Varroa mites, Varroa mites and Varroa mites," said bee expert Jeff Harris. "This is my sarcastic response to the heavy emphasis in the press on the effects of insecticides and other pesticides on honey bees. "Please don't misunderstand me. Insecticides and other pesticides kill honey bees, either acutely...
Microalgae, produced on a commercial scale
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 19th, 2015
ScienceDaily: Many products, including food supplements, cosmetics and biodiesel, are made from substances derived from microalgae. A fully automated pilot plant operated by Fraunhofer in Leuna is capable of producing microalgae on pilot scale. The concentration of algae in its reactors is five times higher than in conventional closed reactors. The researchers who designed the plant will be exhibiting it at the ACHEMA 2015 show in Frankfurt am Main from June 15 to 19.
Microalgae are highly versatile organisms....
Warm water causes concern on Carson River watershed
Posted by Nevada Appeal: None Given on June 19th, 2015
Nevada Appeal: The Carson River watershed is in hot water.
That's what happens when the Sierra Nevada snowpack that normally feeds the system is way below normal - just 7 percent of average this year with peak spring runoff finished two months early.
"The water is low and slow and warm," said Duane Petite, Carson River project director, The Nature Conservancy.
Petite spoke at the conservancy's 805-acre River Fork Ranch near Genoa, one of the stops on a two-day tour of the Carson River watershed hosted...
GOP-run Senate panel takes on Obama environmental rules
Posted by Associated Press: Andrew Taylor on June 19th, 2015
Associated Press: Republicans controlling a powerful Senate committee moved Thursday to block Obama administration initiatives to curb global warming, issue new clean water rules and regulate hydraulic fracturing on federal land. The vote by the Senate Appropriations Committee represents a sweeping attack on the president's ambitious environmental agenda. Republicans say the rules themselves are an assault on the coal industry, farmers and western landowners. The battle played out on a $31 billion spending bill...