Welcome to the Science in the News Homepage

A selection of scientific information that I found interesting.

(J.D. Ackerman, UNBC)

he motivated, somewhat become scientifically illiterates despite the best efforts of elementary, secondary, and college-level instructors

EOS (AGU) 79(36):429-432, 1998.

"World fishing fleet overcapacity is five times greater than previously estimated by the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) and 2.5 times greater than is needed to catch fish at a sustainable rate according to a new study released by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF)."

EOS (AGU) 79(35):414, 1998.

"..this creature introduced from South America, known as the nutria (Myocaster coypus), is literally eating away at the Blackwater Refuge as well as many other wetlands and agricultural lands in Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, and at least 18 other US states with feral populations, plus causing damge in some parts of Canada and Europe."

EOS (AGU) 79(35):413-414, 1998.

"From 1865 until 1899, the Navassa Phosphate Company of Baltimore, Maryland, mined about 800,00 tons of guano from the 2-square mile Navassa Island...located 40 miles west of Haiti.."

EOS (AGU) 79(34):406, 1998.

"NASA announced in mid-July the creation of a new office to coordinate agency-sponsored efforts to detect, track, and characterize potentially hazardous asteroids and comets that could aproach the Earth."

EOS (AGU) 79(30):354, 1998.

"El Nino, which has dramatically altered the climate in many regions around the globe, also infinitesimally increases the length of the day (LOD)...During the peak period of the current El Nino, LOD increased temporarily by about 600-700 microseconds"

EOS (AGU) 79(22):258, 1998.

"Long-term trends in summertime ground-level ozone-smog that is formed through a series of chemical reactions between nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds (VOC) in the presences of sunlight - decreased significantly in ... New York, Los Angeles and Chicago. ...Anthropogenic sources of VOC emissions decreased by 12% while nitrogen oxide emissions remained constant..."

EOS (AGU) 79(3):30, 1998.

"One possible key to understanding large-scale [lake effects on weather] is a whorl of air [a mesoscale aggregate vortex] that develops from tremendous heating and moistening by lakes during wintertime cold air inversions over the United States and southern Ontario..."

EOS (AGU) 78(49):566, 1997.

"Paul Epstein [HArvard Medical School] is also concerened about the potential for increased disease outbreaks that arise from glocbal warming. "There is a clear correlation between extreme weather events and outbreaks, " he says..."The connection between public health and climate "is an underappreciated issue."...."

EOS (AGU) 78(46):524, 1997.

"More alarming than this rapid spread [of the coral softening disease], is the fact that it is only one of many mysterious new diseases that have been discovered attacking corals around the world. In what they are describing as an epidemic, researchers say that in the last few years corals, some centuries old, from Florida Keys through the Caribbean to places as distant as the Philippines, are quickly succumbing to diseases never seen before. The problem seems to occur at all depths and the number of species and individuals affected are increasing..."

CEPNEWS (UNEP) 12(3): 6, 1997.

"The discovery of possible traces of life in a Martian meteorite [McKay et al. 1996] calls to mind a 100-year-old dispute between sir William Thomson (later Lord Kelvin] and the Nobel Prize winning Swedish Scientist, Svante August Arrhenius. Both scientists believed that life on our planet was brought from another planter, rather than have originating from inorganic matter here..."

EOS (AGU) 78(34):359, 1997.

"The number of people with science and engineering degrees admitted to the United States on permanent visasa with work certification dropped 26% between 1993 and 1994 - from 23,534 to 17,403 - according to a new NSF data brief that analyzesthe information from the INS. "

EOS (AGU) 78(26):358, 1997.

"...In the Gulf of Mexico...scientists have just discovered what could be a new species of centipede-like worm living on or within gas hydrates - mounds of methane ice- rising from the ocean floor."

EOS (AGU) 78(32):330, 1997.

"According to the report [The Increasing Linkage Between U.S. Technology and Public Science, NSF], seventy-five percent of papers cited by U.S. industry patents are public science, authored at academic, governmental, and other public institutions."

EOS (AGU) 78(26):265, 1997.

"Coral Reefs and Carbon Dioxide. On Sept. 22, 1997, Japan's New Energy and Industrial Development Organization released the results of a 7-year study of coral reefs, concluding that, contrary to conventional wisdom, coral reefs release more carbon dioxide than they absorb."

Dow Jones News September 1997

"The development of a natural antifreeze in fish [glycoproteins in the notothenoid family] may provide a new line of evidence for when Earth's southern ocean froze..."

EOS (AGU) 78:166, 1997.

"Of more than 25,000 Ph.D.s conferred by universities in the United States in 1995, more than 40% were granted to non-US citizens."

EOS (AGU) 78(8):86, 1997.

"... over the past 25 years, major air pollutants in the United States have decreased by almost 30%. Air quality has improved for all six of the "criteria pollutants" monitored by EPA, including carbon monoxide, lead, nitrogen dioxide ..."

EOS (AGU) 78(6):62, 1997.

Mar. 5, 1997, Australian scientists, using underwater lasers to measure coral growth, reported in Nature that corals grow mostly at night.

Reuters

"[According to a recent news report]...a 1,200 year old lotus seed from China... was germinated and dated by radiocarbon techniques... by UCLA Plant Physiologists. The seeds [was] from the Chinese village of Pulantien."

Wildflower (CWS) 12(1):9, 1996.

"Researchers believe that they have found circumstantial evidence in ancient rocks [3.85 billion-year-old rock formation on Akilia Island in southwest Greenland] to suggest moving back the birthday of life on earth by 400 million years."

EOS (AGU) 77(47):466, 1996.

"[According to a NSF/TIMSS study]...conventional U.S. education standards [are] unfocused and aimed at the lowest common denominator."

EOS (AGU) 77(46):454, 1996.

"[According to Dr. Peter Thomas (former Coordinator of the International Coral Reef Initiative)]...Urgent and immediate action muist be taken if we are to prevent the loss of the world's coral reef ecosystems in our children's lifetimes."

CEPNEWS(UNEP) 10(3):3, September 1996.

"Scientists find 'New' lifeform in seafloor Vent. Methanoococcus jannaschii [was] discovered during 1982 dives with Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution's Alvin sub...this deep sea microbe's genetic blueprint has been sequenced and identified as part of the ancient third kingdom of organisms known as Archaea."

Sea Technology 37(9):9, 1996.

"[According to Neil Lane (Director NSF)]... Scientists [ought to] step beyond their campuses, laboratories, ministries, and institutions and into the center of their communities to engage in active dialoque with their fellow citizens...We would agree that science...is a force absolutely fundamental to our well being, and, in fact, survival."

EOS (AGU) 77(41):394, 1996.

According to The Nature Conservancy's report "America's Least Wanted" non-native species introductions introductions have cost the U.S. economy billions of dollars and have contributed to the decline of almost half of U.S. threatened and endangered species.

The Nature Conservancy press

"[According to a Bayer Corp Survey] ... more than 60% of corporate human resource directors and 40% of elementary school principals said that most young Americans lack adequate science preparation for entry-level jobs in industry. ... [Moreover, according to information from the National Science Foundation,] ... 9% of a diverse cross section of Americans said that they felt "very well informed" about science and technology ... only 23% understood the nature of scientific inquiry well enough to judge the scientific basis of the result of an experiment."

EOS (AGU) 77(38):365, 1996.

"Can there be anything more disgusting than the sight of some yuppie in some oversized, overpowered, gas-guzzling four-by-four" D. Dejardin [referring to current gas prices].

McLean's 109(41): 4, 1996.

"The ecologist of the future must have a broad and fundamental understanding of the chemistry, the physics, and the biological functioning of our universe." Ruth Patrick [from her ALSO Lifetime Achievement Award Acceptance Speach].

ASLO Bulletin 5(2):16, 1996.

"[According to Science & Engineering Indicators 1996] ... overall R&D has dropped from 2.8% of the US Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 1991 to 2.4% in 1995, and spending on non-defense research has dropped below 2% of GDP. Japan now invests 2.7% in non-defense R&D; Germany 2.4%."

EOS (AGU) In Brief 771996.

"[According to the EPA Water Quality report] ... despite 25 years of environmental legislation...more than 20% of all [US] community drinking water systems are fed by a facility that violates some public safety requirement, and more than 70 million Americans drink water that exceeds federal standards for lead concentrations at least once a year ... America's best natural water purifying system, wetlands, are disappearing at a rate of 70,000-90,000 acres per year. [view report at http://www.epa.gov/owow/indic]"

EOS (AGU) In Brief 77, 1996.

"The [need, quality and extent of environment education in primary and secondary schools of the Wider Caribbean] survey found that although coastal and marine resources contribute significantly to the economies of the countries of the Wider Caribbean region, educational systems have placed very little emphasis on coastal and marine environments."

CEPNEWS(UNEP) 10(2):2, June 1996.

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Last modified on December 24, 1998.