For 30 years, two General Electric facilities released about 1.3 million pounds of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) into New York’s Hudson River, devastating and contaminating fish populations. Some 50 years later, one type of fish—the Atlantic tomcod—has not only survived but appears to be thriving in the hostile Hudson environment.
Researchers from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) have joined colleagues from New York University (NYU) and NOAA to investigate this phenomenon and report that the tomcod living in the Hudson River have undergone a rapid evolutionary change in developing a genetic resistance to PCBs. (more…)
*Geobiologists uncover Davy Jones Locker of fossils near small village in south China*
Almost 600 million years ago, before the rapid evolution of life forms known as the Cambrian explosion, a community of seaweeds and worm-like animals lived in a quiet deep-water niche near what is now Lantian, a small village in south China.
Then they simply died, leaving some 3,000 nearly pristine fossils preserved between beds of black shale deposited in oxygen-free and unbreathable waters. (more…)
*Krafla volcano gives geologists unique, unexpected opportunity to study magma*
Geologists drilling an exploratory geothermal well in 2009 in the Krafla volcano in Iceland met with a big surprise: underground lava, also called magma, flowed into the well at 2.1 kilometers (6,900 feet) depth.
It forced the scientists to stop drilling. (more…)
Research by the University of Exeter has revealed that ants have a big impact on their local environment as a result of their activity as ‘ecosystem engineers’ and predators.
The study, published in the Journal of Animal Ecology, found that ants have two distinct effects on their local environment. (more…)
*Project to Streamline IT Infrastructure to Improve Service Delivery, Reduce Energy Consumption and Strengthen Security*
NEW YORK, N.Y. – 31 Jan 2011: IBM today announced that it has been selected by the City of New York to build a more efficient, smarter technology platform for CITIServ, the City’s IT infrastructure modernization program. The goal of the project is to streamline delivery of City services by consolidating and updating outdated and incompatible IT, thereby reducing energy consumption, strengthening security, and providing City workers with faster access to the latest technologies. (more…)
Stanford, CA — Genghis Khan and his Mongol hordes had an impact on the global carbon cycle as big as today’s annual demand for gasoline. The Black Death, on the other hand, came and went too quickly for it to cause much of a blip in the global carbon budget. Dwarfing both of these events, however, has been the historical trend towards increasing deforestation, which over centuries has released vast amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, as crop and pasture lands expanded to feed growing human populations. Even Genghis Kahn couldn’t stop it for long. (more…)
*Study of Chinese citizens says jobs more important than salary when it comes to pro-environmental behavior*
People with good jobs found in large cities are more likely to engage in pro-environmental activities. So says a new study of China’s environmental behavior published this week in the British journal Environmental Conservation.
For the first time, scientists weighed employment and leadership when considering how people act regarding their natural surroundings. They found the status and political power of companies in cities such as Beijing, Shanghai and Tianjin strongly influence the conservation practices of their employees. (more…)
Close up of a cute baby 7-month old panda cub in the Wolong Nature Reserve in Sichuan, China. Image credit: Sheila Lau. Source: Wikipedia
Finally some good news on the environment, on ecology and on the Giant Panda: a revolutionary new technique developed by the PR China’s Chengdu breeding center seems certain to assure that greater numbers of this endangered species can be raised in thereby save it from extinction.
Just 1,600 Giant Pandas live in the wild, in 40 government-controlled panda reserves in the People’s Republic of China. The new breeding program has raised the number of animals bred in captivity to 300, while just this year 19 cubs have been born after artificial insemination programs in China’s two main breeding centers.
Breeding Giant Pandas in captivity is no easy task. They have the strangest gestation period which can range from eleven weeks to eleven months, they appear not to be sexually aroused by being held in captivity, females are on heat for 72 hours a year and are fertile during a 12 to 24-hour window inside that period. The small size of the male penis also means the mating position has to be exactly right, and this is not always possible in captivity. (more…)
