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Fish ignore alarming noises in acidifying seawater
Posted by ScienceNews: None Given on June 1st, 2011
ScienceNews: Greenhouse gases dissolving in the world’s oceans may have the eerie effect of disrupting young fishes’ natural reluctance to swim toward scary noises.
When raised in water mimicking the predicted acidifying chemistry of future oceans, juvenile clownfish appeared perfectly willing to swim toward speakers broadcasting the recorded daytime sounds of a reef teeming with predators, says fish ecologist Steve Simpson of the University of Bristol in England. “When you’re a centimeter long as a fish,...
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Arctic Ocean hosts weird freshwater pond
Posted by ScienceNews: None Given on April 6th, 2011
ScienceNews: As rivers empty into seas, freshwater mixes into the vast briny depths to replace water lost to evaporation. Or that’s what’s supposed to happen. But for the past dozen years, scientists now report, a large share of river inflows and sea-ice melt within a large expanse of the Arctic Ocean has effectively pooled with little mixing.
An unusual and persistent pattern of clockwise winds has corralled at least 7,500 cubic kilometers of freshwater within the Beaufort Gyre off northern Canada, reports...
Heavier crudes, heavier footprints
Posted by ScienceNews: None Given on December 4th, 2010
ScienceNews: Relying on heavy oils and tar sands as the feedstock for liquid fuels will exaggerate the greenhouse-gas emissions associated with fossil-fuel use, a new study finds.
Light crudes are the easiest to work with. But as their biggest and most accessible reservoirs have been tapped -- and often tapped out -- the oil industry has increasingly been turning to what has been termed “unconventional” stocks. These are viscous, if not tarry, forms of petroleum. And as the upper graph below shows, the average...