Ecology, The Environment and Conservation

Can genetically engineered cottonwood trees clean up a site contaminated with toxic mercury? A team of researchers from the University of Georgia – in the first such field test ever done with trees – is about to find out.

The results could make clearer the future of phytoremediation – a technique of using trees, grasses and other plants to remove hazardous materials from the soil. UGA scientists and city officials in Danbury, Conn., planted on July 16 some 60 cottonwoods with a special gene

Potent, environmentally friendly catalysts called Fe-TAML® activators, developed by scientists at Carnegie Mellon University, can destroy colored pollutants and toxic compounds resulting from paper and wood pulp processing.

The results of extensive field trials conducted by Carnegie Mellon University, Forest Research of New Zealand and the University of Auckland are being presented by Dr. L. James Wright of the University of Auckland on Wed., Sept. 10, in New York City at the 226th annual m

Scientists looking for ways to clean up a common, persistent type of organic pollutant have developed an approach that not only restores the power of a naturally occurring pollution buster but also boosts it to levels of effectiveness that they can’t currently explain.

“It’s safe to say that we don’t fully understand why this approach works so well, but we’ll take it and develop it and figure out the details as we go,” Gerald Meyer, professor of chemistry in the Krieger

Goal is to create better filters

Virginia Tech researchers are using a modified form of atomic force microscopy (AFM) to observe at subatomic levels the efficiency of the attachment of bacteria to silica surfaces.

The geological scientists are simulating environments similar to ground water in sandy soils. Sticking efficiency of bacteria has not been previously measured experimentally using the AFM.

Graduate student Tracy Cail will report the research results at th

Tiny organisms living in the oceans could be playing a significant role in human health, an audience at this year’s BA Festival of Science will hear today (8 September).

Professor Peter Liss of the University of East Anglia (UEA) School of Environmental Sciences will talk about how microscopic marine organisms called plankton produces gases that can travel in the atmosphere until they ultimately get deposited on land. Here they can become important in supplying micronutrients to human diets,

New study shows parasitic flatworms take destiny by the tail

In the research article “Larval swimming overpowers turbulent mixing and facilitates transmission of a marine parasite,” appearing in the September issue of the Ecological Society of America’s journal Ecology, Jonathan Fingerut of the University of California-Los Angeles and colleagues describe the results of the first study to examine larval behavior versus passive-transport processes under natural and simulated water