News by Subject Earth Science

A new scientific article shows that 25 European waterbird species can change their wintering areas depending on winter weather. Warm winters allow them to shift their wintering areas northeastwards, whereas cold spells push birds southwestwards.

Antarctica is high and dry and mostly bitterly cold, and it's easy to think of its ice and snow as locked away in a freezer, protected from melt except around its low-lying coasts and floating ice shelves. But that view may be wrong.

A new study reveals the negative effects of traffic noise on frogs and how some frogs have adapted. Traffic noise is stressful to frogs and impairs the production of skin peptides that defend against pathogens like chytrid fungus. Frogs from ponds near noisy highways show a dampened stress response and altered immune profile when exposed to noise compared to frogs from quiet ponds, suggesting they have adapted to reduce the negative effects of traffic noise.

Frogs from groups exposed to a deadly virus are breeding at younger ages, new research suggests.

Rutgers scientists have developed catalysts that can convert carbon dioxide -- the main cause of global warming -- into plastics, fabrics, resins and other products.

The Phlegraean Fields in the west of Naples have entered the first stage of a new caldera cycle. That is the conclusion vulcanologists have reached on the basis of rock analysis and with the help of a model.