Taming the Butterfly

An oil pipeline in northwestern US state Montana has ruptured and spilled crude oil into the Yellowstone River, a key tourist attraction in the region that runs through a famed national park, the pipeline operator acknowledged late Saturday.

Two NASA research aircraft will fly over the Baltimore-Washington area of northeastern Maryland through July as part of a mission to enhance the measurement of ground-level air quality from space.

That axiom of sustainability -- "recycle and reuse" -- could help ease concerns about a reliable supply of substances, indispensible for a modern technological society, that are produced almost exclusively in the Peoples' Republic of China. That's the conclusion of a study on these so-called "rare earth" elements in the ACS journal Environmental Science & Technology.

Stopping people fishing around Caribbean coral reefs by designating them legally protected marine reserves could help some of them survive the effects of a changing climate by more than 50 years.

Janet K. Swim, professor of psychology, Penn State, and her colleagues report that growing consumption and growing population are two significant contributors to human impact on the environment. Both substantially increase carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere, the researchers report in a special issue of American Psychologist that focuses on how psychology contributes to understanding and addressing global climate change. "Engaging in one type of environmentally friendly behavior can predispose one to engage in similar behaviors, inhibit other behaviors, or even increase environmentally harmful behaviors," said Swim.

panel of marine scientists who met earlier this year in Oxford, England, have concluded that the world's oceans are facing an unprecedented loss of species. As the London Independent reports today, "The seas are degenerating far faster than anyone has predicted, the report says, because of the cumulative impact of a number of severe individual stresses, ranging from climate warming and sea-water acidification, to widespread chemical pollution and gross overfishing." They concluded that the negative impacts are greater than predicted, and that mass extinctions could occur within one human generation.

Two professors from the University of Illinois; one specializing in materials science, the other in electrical engineering, have combined their talents to take the idea of printing circuits onto non-standard materials one step further by developing a conductive ink that can be used in a traditional rollerball ink pen to draw circuits by hand onto paper and other porous materials. In their paper published in Advanced Materials, team leads Jennifer Lewis, Jennifer Bernhard and colleagues describe how they were able to make a type of ink from silver nanoparticles that would remain a liquid while in the pen, but would dry like regular ink once applied. The pen could was then used to draw a functioning LCD display and an antenna.

alf the elephants from West and Central African savannahs have vanished in the past 40 years, scientists report in PLoS One.

EADS is looking to release an entirely electricity powered plane by the year 2035. The plane, which has been dubbed the VoltAir, was shown off at the Paris Air Show, which took place last week. The Paris Air Show is one of the largest aviation shows in the world.

Some areas of the southern United States are suffering from the longest dry spell since 1887 and a new Baylor University study shows that could prove problematic for aquatic organisms.

Greenland's ice sheet melted the most it has in over a half century last year, US government scientists said Tuesday in one of a series of "unmistakable" signs of climate change.

The obscure technology used in heated automobile seats, gadgets that charge iPhones from the heat of a campfire, and other devices is undergoing a renaissance and could well emerge as a new "green" substitute for traditional sources of energy and play other key roles in addressing some of society's most pressing sustainability issues. That's the conclusion of an article on the technology - termed thermoelectrics - in the current issue of Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN) the American Chemical Society's weekly newsmagazine.

A recently completed aerial survey of northern Botswana by Elephants Without Borders (EWB), through the support of Botswana's Dept. of Wildlife & National Parks, indicates that wildebeest, giraffes, kudu, lechwe, ostriches, roan and tsessebe antelope and warthog species are significantly challenged. Populations of these species appear to have dropped significantly over the past 15 years, specifically in Ngamiland, which encompasses the Okavango delta.

The island nation of Singapore is aggressively promoting a solution to the water scarcity that vexes countries worldwide: recycling toilet water to drink.

The health of the world's oceans is declining much faster than originally thought - under siege from pollution, overfishing and other man-made problems all at once - scientists say in a new report.

An international research team including University of Pennsylvania scientists has shown that the rate of sea-level rise along the U.S. Atlantic coast is greater now than at any time in the past 2,000 years and that there is a consistent link between changes in global mean surface temperature and sea level.

Pollution and global warming are pushing the world's oceans to the brink of a mass extinction of marine life unseen for tens of millions of years, a consortium of scientists warned Monday.

During the last space shuttle flight, astronauts will test a new method for recycling 'used' water. Water is essential for life, and having access to water beyond Earth will be a major obstacle for future space explorers.

For years, statistics have depicted growing income disparity in the United States, and it has reached levels not seen since the Great Depression. In 2008, the last year for which data are available, for example, the top 0.1 percent of earners took in more than 10 percent of the personal income in the United States, including capital gains, and the top 1 percent took in more than 20 percent.

On the heels of another halting round of talks on climate change, UN scientists this week will review quick-fix options for beating back the threat of global warming that rely on technology rather than political wrangling.