News by Subject Policy & Ethics

The tiny shells at the bottom of Lake Nakaumi in southwest Japan may contain the secrets of the East Asia summer monsoon. This rainy season is fairly predictable, ushering in air and precipitation conducive to growing crops, but -- sometimes without any hint -- the pattern fails. Some areas of East Asia are left without rainfall, and their crops die. Other areas are inundated with rain, and their crops and homes flood.

Scientists from the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa apply new computer models to identify where cesspool conversion and marine conservation efforts will minimize human impacts on coral reefs.

As the world struggles to meet the increasing demand for energy, coupled with the rising levels of CO2 in the atmosphere from deforestation and the use of fossil fuels, photosynthesis in nature simply cannot keep up with the carbon cycle. But what if we could help the natural carbon cycle by learning from photosynthesis to generate our own sources of energy that didn't generate CO2?

New research provides the most complete account to date of the viruses that impact the world's oceans, increasing the number of known virus populations tenfold. Researchers analyzed marine samples far and deep in an effort to understand the complexities of viruses, which are increasingly being recognized as important players in the oceans' role in tempering the effects of climate change.

Regardless of whether we are dealing with a floodplain landscape or an entire national park, the success of a restoration project depends on more than just the reintroduction of individual plant or animal species into an area. In the latest issue of Science, a international team of researchers reveals it is more a matter of helping the damaged ecosystem to regenerate and sustain itself.

By acting as gatekeepers, microbes can affect geological processes that move carbon from the earth's surface into its deep interior, according to a study published in Nature and coauthored by microbiologists at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. The research is part of the Deep Carbon Observatory's Biology Meets Subduction project.

Changes in temperature and precipitation have already impacted the amount of nitrogen introduced into US waterways. This can lead to toxin-producing algal blooms or low-oxygen dead zones called hypoxia.