Burning in Biological News

Spring agricultural fires have large impact on melting Arctic

... discovery was that large-scale agricultural burning in Russia, Kazakhstan, China, the U.S., Canada, ... A particular threat is posed by springtime burning - to remove crop residues for new planting or ... some of the campaign's findings on agricultural burning and transport to the Arctic will be officially ...

Commercial ships spew half as much particulate pollution as world's cars

... oil needed to deal with wear and tear from burning less-refined fuels. "Fortunately, engines burning 'cleaner,' low-sulfur fuels tend to require less ... says Corbett. One surprising result of burning low-sulfur fuels is that, although total particle ...

AGU journal highlights -- Dec. 31, 2008

... 9. Influence of biomass burning and mineral dust found in West Africa The ... pathways over West Africa, finding biomass burning aerosols lofted above undercutting dust-laden air. Aerosols from biomass burning appear to absorb significantly more radiation ...

Alternative to burning: environmentally sound disposal for wood chips

... burning, chipping and soil incorporation avoid burning controls recently imposed by many states and the ... the pruned wood to the end of the field for burning costs $30-50 per acre." A previous article ... HortScience addressed the nutritional aspects of burning wood chips. Concerns that incorporation of wood ...

Curbing coal emissions alone might avert climate danger, say researchers

... ongoing rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide from burning of fossil fuels might be kept below harmful ... Global Biogeochemical Cycles . The burning of fossil fuels accounts for about 80 percent of ... or by capturing and trapping CO 2 from coal burning before it reaches the air. The remaining ...

Smoke smudges Mexico City's air, chemists identify sources

... from fires set to clear agricultural fields or burning in the hills south of the city. Burned bits of ... by a previous study of fly ash from incinerators burning municipal waste. Emissions from smelting, another ... the case for pinning metals in the air onto burning waste. "If you were to burn electronic waste, ...

Greenland ice core reveals history of pollution in the Arctic

... Earth's polar regions. The study, titled "Coal burning Leaves Toxic Heavy Metal Legacy in the Arctic," ... from a Greenland ice core showed pollutants from burning coal--the toxic heavy metals cadmium, thallium ... before the advent of cleaner, more efficient coal burning technologies and the switch to oil and gas-based ...

Incense is psychoactive: Scientists identify the biology behind the ceremony

... leaders have contended for millennia that burning incense is good for the soul. Now, biologists ... the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, describe how burning frankincense (resin from the Boswellia plant) ... most present day worshipers assume that incense burning has only a symbolic meaning. To determine ...

Scientists aim to boost world energy supplies -- with microbes!

... considerations, Mr Rafter accepts that burning fossil fuels may contribute to climate change but ... to use to extract heavy oil reserves and that burning methane is environmentally preferable to burning oil. In theory, the technology could also be ...

Green skies: Engineer's work may reduce jet travel's role in global warming

... and kinetic models that accurately simulate the burning of jet fuel, a complex and poorly characterized ... of greenhouse gasses released in creating and burning jet fuel. According to the U.S. Department of ... because the carbon dioxide emitted from burning biomaterials will be removed from the atmosphere ...

American Chemical Society's Weekly Presspac -- June 17, 2009

... recommending that the Chinese government consider phasing out the direct burning of traditional chunks of coal in millions of households. It suggests that ... powder and clay and are molded into multihole columns. They found that burning briquettes in well-ventilated stoves dramatically reduced black carbon ...

Leading scientists and scholars urge action on climate issues

... of carbon dioxide, the principal greenhouse gas and a by-product of burning coal, oil and natural gas, to 450 parts per million and to limit the rise ... politicians are willing to accept in deflecting further emissions from burning coal, oil and gas, and from deforestation. The scholars emphasize that ...

Stanford's Woods Institute awards new round of Environmental Venture Projects

... of Anthropogenic Fire in the Desert Grasslands of Australia: Intentional burning is increasingly being recognized as an important force in shaping ... of anthropogenic fire has been particularly significant, with indigenous burning hypothesized to have radically altered the continent's biogeography. This ...

Researcher garners major award from NIH for further exploration into the mechanisms of obesity

... body functions, called the sympathetic nervous system, to initiate fat burning and then sensory nerves, in turn, communicate back to the brain cells to continue or stop the fat burning depending upon the information the brain receives from the fat. Other ...

One-fifth of fossil-fuel emissions absorbed by threatened forests

... undisturbed forest are absorbing nearly a fifth of the CO 2 released by burning fossil fuels. The researchers show that remaining tropical forests ... absorbing about 18% of the CO 2 added to the atmosphere each year from burning fossil fuels, substantially buffering the rate of climate change." The ...

Biofuels boom could fuel rainforest destruction, Stanford researcher warns

... produced in the tropics, chances will be good that we are effectively burning rainforests in our gas tanks," she warned. Policies favoring biofuel ... to more than 40 years worth of global carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels. Gibbs' previous findings asserted that the carbon debt ...

Study: Did early climate impact divert a new glacial age?

... gases methane from terraced rice paddies and carbon dioxide from burning forests into the atmosphere. In turn, a warmer atmosphere heated the ... gases with the Industrial Revolution," Kutzbach notes. "The large-scale burning of coal for industry has swamped everything else" in the record. But ...

Revised theory suggests carbon dioxide levels already in danger zone

... per million (ppm) and is increasing by about 2 ppm each year from the burning of fossil fuels (coal, oil, and gas) and from the burning of forests. "This work and other recent publications suggest that we ...

Making metabolism more inefficient can reduce obesity

... heat, mouse white fat cells activated alternate, and more inefficient, fat burning pathways. In this case, though, inefficiency is beneficial, as the mice ... bodies had adapted to the change. Thus, Kozak and colleagues note, fat burning does not necessarily require making thermogenesis easier; by making it ...

Iowa State engineer works to clean and improve engine performance

... electrical controls. There's more horsepower, better efficiency, cleaner burning and greater reliability. But Kong with the help of 15 graduate ... dense with hydrogen and doesn't produce greenhouse gases when it burns. So burning ammonia in engines could be an early step to developing a hydrogen ....

Meeting to highlight health impacts of smell and taste

... know they are putting theirs lives on the line when they rush into a burning building, but may not be aware of the potential risk to their sense of ... hazard as it may diminish his or her ability to smell smoke or burning wires. The NIDCD-funded researchers say their results illustrate the ...

NASA responds to California wildfire emergency imaging request

... information that will be used to help fight more than 300 wildfires burning within the state. Additional flights are planned for next week. The ... will help us maximize attacks on the more than 300 active fires currently burning in California." The Ikhana aircraft is imaging almost 4,000 square ...

Carnegie Mellon researchers to curb CO2 emissions

... needs, said MacLean, an associate professor at the University of Toronto. burning more coal without carbon capture and storage will just increase our ... nations of the world to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2012. Because burning coal creates power and releases gases that help drive global warming, ...

Irritating smells alert special cells, NIH-funded study finds

... you know. Chop an onion and you risk crying over your cutting board as a burning sensation overwhelms your eyes and nose. Scientists do not know why ... fibers. Once stimulated, the trigeminal nerve will convey pain and burning sensations and can trigger protective reflexes such as gagging and ...

Nitrogen pollution boosts plant growth in tropics by 20 percent

... seeping into runoff water and evaporating into the atmosphere. Industrial burning and forest clearing also pumps nitrogen into the air. We hope our ... to which humans change natural ecosystems, for example by cutting down or burning the tropical forests. Further, climate change may determine whether these ...

Washington University, 2 industries, team to clean up mercury emissions

... Mercury is released into the environment in trace quantities from the burning of coal in electric-generating plants, Biswas said. The amount of ... Meramec power plant is the first in the nation to generate electricity by burning paint solids recovered from an automotive manufacturing facility. In the ...

US faces burning emissions issue

... related to manmade emissions. The fires include wild fires, prescribed burning and burning for agricultural purposes, but the majority of these emissions come from ...

US fires release large amounts of carbon dioxide

... of about 25 percent of the average monthly emissions from all fossil fuel burning throughout California. "Enormous fires like this pump a large amount of ... to rely on forests to help absorb carbon dioxide. "The fires that are burning today in the United States are part of the legacy of the past century of ...

Neilson member of Nobel Prize-winning panel of scientists

... -- It all started as a graduate school thesis project. Ive always had a burning desire to figure out why things live where they do, says bioclimatologist ... basis of my masters and doctorate theses back in the mid-1970s. That burning desire led Neilson to develop the Mapped Atmosphere-Plant-Soil System ...

Coal and black liquor can produce energy from papermaking

... industry's black liquor waste into synthesis gas is a better choice than burning it for heat, improves the carbon footprint of coal-to-liquid processes, ... but DME is not that far away in efficiency. DME is also much cleaner burning than either gasoline or diesel. Converting black liquor and coal into ...

University of Hawaii at Manoa researchers reveal ocean acidification at Station ALOHA

... The burning of fossil fuels has released tremendous amounts of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) into the atmosphere, significantly impacting global ...

Symposium to discuss geoengineering to fight climate change at the ESA Annual Meeting

... oceans. In addition, he says, the maximum possible rate of ocean iron fertilization could only offset a small fraction of the current rate of carbon burning by humans. Ocean fertilization also does not alleviate the increasing problem of ocean acidification, caused by carbon dioxide from the ...

Humans lend a hand to critically endangered waterbird

... approaching danger. Traditional small-scale farming by local communities is therefore crucial to the ibis' survival because grazing livestock and burning of the forest understorey opens up these habitats making them suitable for the birds. "Our findings show that this critically endangered species ...

Results of national assessment of first responder location systems to be announced Aug. 3

... location systems. In particular, they will explain the difficulties of navigating and communicating while working in the extreme environment of a burning building or while responding to crimes such as hostage-takings. They will show how those realities complicate the challenge of developing systems ...

Wood stoves -- a viable home heat source?

... options, while others have been turning to a more traditional method for a solution to these rising costs. In Canada and the United States, wood burning stoves have been reevaluated as a potentially viable option for home heating. The case for modern woodstoves has developed with the improvement of ...

Medical use for waste television screens

... to manage. "It is important that we find ways of recycling as many elements of LCDs as possible so we don't simply have to resort to burying and burning them." The researchers have developed a technique where recovered material is heated in water in a microwave and washed in ethanol to produced ...

Waste water treatment plant mud used as 'green' fuel

... "the best option for getting rid of mud that would have had to be dumped elsewhere, while also powering the plant". "As this mud is already waste, burning it does not enter into the atmospheric CO 2 emissions assigned to each country under the Kyoto Protocol", Jos Luis Domingo, lead author of the study ...

Rising acidity levels could trigger shellfish revenue declines, job losses

... to drop significantly in the next 50 years, according to a new study by researchers at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI). Intensive burning of fossil fuels and deforestation over the last two centuries have increased CO 2 levels in the atmosphere by almost 40 percent. The oceans have ...

UC Davis begins $2.8 million in studies of agricultural nitrogen's impacts

... from soils, seeps into groundwater and runs off into surface waters. Wastes from cattle, chickens and other livestock include nitrogen. Farm machines burning oil, gasoline and diesel release nitrogen to the air. The resulting environmental impacts include: Trapped solar radiation in the atmosphere, ...

Who will pick up the bill?

... ecosystems forever and may have a direct impact on our economy, resulting in substantial revenue declines and job losses. Intensive fossil-fuel burning and deforestation over the last two centuries have increased atmospheric CO2 levels by almost 40%, which has in turn fundamentally altered ocean ...