Articles

Scientists from the Institute for Conservation Research at the San Diego Zoo and UCLA are researching animal decision making across disciplinary boundaries.  In a recent study, they investigated how animal decision making can be affected by human impacts on the environment. They argue that understanding the ways animals respond to different situations can help scientists conserve species more effectively. 

Imagine a world in which people and the environment are valued before profit.  Researchers theorize an economy that is local and decided by people, respecting their needs and regional environments.

Does news coverage affect the length of people’s showers? A recent scientific study seeks to understand how mass media is related to water use behavior, by examining the influence of abnormally high drought related news coverage in California’s San Francisco bay area. The researchers find a strong link between heightened news coverage and a reduction in urban water use, indicating that mass media has the potential to lead to significant behavioral changes.

Climate change is increasing storm severity globally. During storms, polluted sediment can be transported. A study focusing on the Meadowlands demonstrates how tide gates can prevent the transportation of contaminated sediment.

You know the skin-crawling, hair-raising feeling right before you drift off to sleep? It might not be “all in your head”. Bed bugs are on the rise, and travelers are unknowingly shuttling them across the oceans. Researchers wanted to know exactly how bed bugs were making long journeys at an unprecedented rate. They found bed bugs are attracted to dirty laundry, not just old mattresses. As international travel increases, bed bugs are jumping into suitcases and spreading across the globe.

Agricultural land is not often thought of as an ecosystem or as habitat. However, farmers as a group collectively manage a large fraction of the land in Britain (as in every country) and their choices have a significant impact on the health of the environment and wildlife. How can farmers be encouraged to become environmental stewards?

Our current energy storage technologies aren’t good enough to deliver practical electric vehicles. Lithium-air batteries may change that, if researchers can solve a few tricky problems.

Despite a decline in active mercury pollution, lingering environmental mercury is still a human health concern. Scientists working to track the movement of global mercury have discovered a new route – mercury moves through the stocking of lakes for recreational fishing. Because of fish stocking, the toxic heavy metal is moving from oceans to mountain lakes at an estimated global rate of one ton per year. This finding calls for fisheries managers to pay closer attention to the health of their recreational stock before releasing into lakes.

Ecosystem service valuation is a method for assigning economic value to an ecosystem. This is not a holistic process. Many environment benefits such as the production food and water and climate stability cannot be measured by economics alone. To include these additional benefits, researchers developed an innovative method that considers environmental aspects through open dialogue and public engagement.

Antibiotics emitted from pharmaceutical plants have been known to contribute to water pollution in some regions of the world. New research reveals that biological communities downstream of plants change as a result of such exposure. This finding supports growing evidence that antibiotics can change the makeup of rivers and streams.

Electric vehicles are running the roads, claiming green fame. Could they also earn their drivers money? In a recent study, researchers mapped out the economics of vehicle-to-grid energy storage for peak electricity demand reduction and potential profits.

When considering the best end-of-life (i.e. disposal) options for construction and demolition wood, there are three categories to consider — recycling, burying, or burning. Life cycle analysis gives insight into the least environmentally harmful and costly end-of-life category.

As large wildfires threaten communities in many parts of the world, understanding how climate change will influence extreme fire events can help predict future fire risk. In a recent study, researchers used new models to find that human emissions increased fire risk by 1.5 to 6 times in western Canada.

Researchers have developed a system for purifying salt water that can run on solar energy. This technology could make fresh drinking water available in remote areas.