National Public Radio: NPR Science Correspondent Richard Harris traveled to Australia's Great Barrier Reef to find out how the coral reefs are coping with increased water temperature and increasing ocean acidity, brought about by our burning of fossil fuels. Day 5: A return to shore finds that people prefer cars to corals. It's not every day you open an in-flight magazine and read an ad touting "spitwater pressure cleaners for the mining industry." Flip the page and you'll also see an ad cajoling you to "snorkel, sip,...

Reuters: Habitats that could save threatened loggerhead sea turtles from extinction were identified on Friday by the U.S. government along 750 miles of Atlantic and Gulf Coast shoreline in six states. The habitats include islands and mainland areas in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama and Mississippi, including 90 beaches, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said. "We are taking a step to draw attention to important habitats needed to support the recovery of this magnificent species,"...

LiveScience: Almost half the world's population gets its water from glacier melt and rainfall in the Himalayas and other lofty peaks, yet little is understood about how climate change will affect these water sources. Now, using sophisticated technology and old-fashioned fieldwork, scientists are looking into the past to solve this mystery. "We're trying to understand the relationships between climate and glaciers and Earth's water resources from the perspective of Earth's paleoclimate," geologist Aaron Putnam...

Guardian: Bombay duck, or bombil as it is called locally, is one of Mumbai's polarising culinary experiences. This charmingly misnamed delicacy is actually a fish, whose pungent odour is part of that special love-it-or-hate it-Mumbai smell. It got its name in the days of the Raj, from being transported on an iconic train, the Bombay Daak, daak being the Hindi word for mail. The term was then bastardised to duck, which stuck. Now the fish is rapidly disappearing from the city's coastal waters, driven away...

New York Times: The seasonal rains called monsoons matter enormously to human affairs, from the Indian subcontinent to the American Southwest. Getting a better understanding of the forces that will shape these features of the climate system in coming decades is a big research priority, but also a very tough challenge given the many factors in play. A group of people hold onto a rope to help them cross a street as a monsoon hits Bombay, India.Associated Press A group of people hold onto a rope to help them cross...

Mongabay: Geoengineering schemes that aim to slow global warming by seeding oceans with iron to boost carbon dioxide-absorbing phytoplankton may not lead to long-term sequestration of the important greenhouse gas, finds a new study published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. The research looked at the impact of the 2010 eruption of Eyjafjallajökull volcano, which released large amounts of iron in the North Atlantic near Iceland. Some researchers speculated that iron fertilization would lead to...

BusinessGreen: The Green Investment Bank (GIB) has spent £57.5m to take a 24.95 per cent stake in the Rhyl Flats offshore wind farm, marking its first direct equity investment in the fast-expanding industry. Offshore wind is one of the government-backed bank's four priority sectors to which 80 per cent of its £3bn of capital must be directed, the other priority sectors being, non-domestic energy efficiency, the Green Deal programme, and waste infrastructure. The 90MW Rhyl Flats wind farm is located eight...

CNN: As the human footprint has spread, the remaining wildernesses on our planet have retreated. However, dive just a few meters below the ocean surface and you will enter a world where humans very rarely venture. In many ways, it is the forgotten world on Earth. A ridiculous thought when you consider that oceans make up 90% of the living volume of the planet and are home to more than one million species, ranging from the largest animal on the planet -- the blue whale -- to one of the weirdest -- the...

Tampa Bay Times: In 1990, Tampa Bay was designated an Estuary of National Significance by Congress, joining a small group of the nation's most beloved -- and troubled -- waterways. Like its sister estuaries of New York Harbor, Puget Sound and San Francisco Bay, Tampa Bay had been pummeled by decades of dredging, development and disregard. The bay was so polluted that it was the subject of a 60 Minutes expose. At the time it entered the National Estuary Program, Tampa Bay already had a dedicated corps of scientists,...

Inter Press Service: Defence establishments around the world increasingly see climate change as posing potentially serious threats to national and international security, according to a review of high-level statements by the world's governments released here Thursday. The review, "The Global Security Defense Index on Climate Change: Preliminary Results," found that nearly three out of four governments for which relevant information is available view the possible effects of climate change as a serious national security...

Scientific American: Plankton, tiny marine organisms, are a good way of cleansing the atmosphere of one of the main greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide. To do this they need dissolved iron to help them to grow, and if they lack iron then they cannot do much to reduce CO2 levels. So the eruption in 2010 of an Icelandic volcano gave scientists a perfect opportunity to see how much the cataclysm helped the plankton by showering them with unexpected clouds of iron. Their verdict, published in the journal Geophysical Research...

RedOrbit: Despite the predictions of a popular theory, maintaining biodiversity in an ecosystem does not necessarily reduce the transmission of diseases from animals to humans, say researchers from the Stanford University Woods Institute for the Environment. Writing in the journal Ecology Letters, co-authors James Holland Jones and Dan Salkeld challenge what is known as the dilution effect – a widely held hypothesis claiming that the risk of human illness resulting from animal pathogens decreases as the...

ScienceDaily: A chromosome study of the endemic Portuguese fish Squalius aradensis and S. torgalensis draws attention to their current status of highly endangered species. Rapid habitat loss in combination with ongoing geographic confinement and a poor genetic bank of the two species requires the fast application of specific conservation measures to preserve the integrity of their genomes. The two endangered fish species, Squalius aradensis and S. torgalensis, most generally belong to the Cyprinidae, or the...

Reuters: Five protesters scaled a landmark Jerusalem bridge on Thursday and hoisted a banner urging visiting U.S. President Barack Obama to halt Arctic oil exploration. The protest by environmental group Greenpeace was staged a short distance from a conference hall where Obama was later due to deliver a keynote speech to Israeli students. Defying tight security, the environmentalists used climbing gear to clamber up the cables of the 118 meter-high (390 feet) suspension bridge and unfurled a yellow...

Reuters: Five protesters scaled a landmark Jerusalem bridge on Thursday and hoisted a banner urging visiting U.S. President Barack Obama to halt Arctic oil exploration. The protest by environmental group Greenpeace was staged a short distance from a conference hall where Obama was later due to deliver a keynote speech to Israeli students. Defying tight security, the environmentalists used climbing gear to clamber up the cables of the 118 meter-high (390 feet) suspension bridge and unfurled a yellow...

Reuters: Five protesters scaled a landmark Jerusalem bridge on Thursday and hoisted a banner urging visiting U.S. President Barack Obama to halt Arctic oil exploration. The protest by environmental group Greenpeace was staged a short distance from a conference hall where Obama was later due to deliver a keynote speech to Israeli students. Defying tight security, the environmentalists used climbing gear to clamber up the cables of the 118 meter-high (390 feet) suspension bridge and unfurled a yellow...

Reuters: Five protesters scaled a landmark Jerusalem bridge on Thursday and hoisted a banner urging visiting U.S. President Barack Obama to halt Arctic oil exploration. The protest by environmental group Greenpeace was staged a short distance from a conference hall where Obama was later due to deliver a keynote speech to Israeli students. Defying tight security, the environmentalists used climbing gear to clamber up the cables of the 118 meter-high (390 feet) suspension bridge and unfurled a yellow...

Reuters: Five protesters scaled a landmark Jerusalem bridge on Thursday and hoisted a banner urging visiting U.S. President Barack Obama to halt Arctic oil exploration. The protest by environmental group Greenpeace was staged a short distance from a conference hall where Obama was later due to deliver a keynote speech to Israeli students. Defying tight security, the environmentalists used climbing gear to clamber up the cables of the 118 meter-high (390 feet) suspension bridge and unfurled a yellow...

Reuters: Five protesters scaled a landmark Jerusalem bridge on Thursday and hoisted a banner urging visiting U.S. President Barack Obama to halt Arctic oil exploration. The protest by environmental group Greenpeace was staged a short distance from a conference hall where Obama was later due to deliver a keynote speech to Israeli students. Defying tight security, the environmentalists used climbing gear to clamber up the cables of the 118 meter-high (390 feet) suspension bridge and unfurled a yellow...

Reuters: Five protesters scaled a landmark Jerusalem bridge on Thursday and hoisted a banner urging visiting U.S. President Barack Obama to halt Arctic oil exploration. The protest by environmental group Greenpeace was staged a short distance from a conference hall where Obama was later due to deliver a keynote speech to Israeli students. Defying tight security, the environmentalists used climbing gear to clamber up the cables of the 118 meter-high (390 feet) suspension bridge and unfurled a yellow...