Cass Sunstein and the office he heads, the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) within the White House Office of Management and Budget, have more to do with the enactment of federal regulations than any other participant in the process.
A team of international scientists, including a researcher from The University of Western Australia, has found that soil erosion, land degradation and climate change pose a mounting threat to coastal reefs and their ecosystems in the western Indian Ocean.
Researchers have taken a new look at an old, but seldom-used technique developed by the petroleum industry to recover oil, and learned more about why it works, how it could be improved, and how it might be able to make a comeback not only in oil recovery but also environmental cleanup.
Many simple models of plant response to warming climates predict vegetation to find cooler and/or wetter locations, generally moving upslope from their current positions. However, the mechanisms explaining species-specific responses to changes in temperature and water availability are most likely much more complex, according to researchers at Texas Tech University and the United States Geological Survey.
A study published in the journal Nature shows that tropical vegetation, including palms and relatives of today’s tropical Baobab trees, was growing on the coast of Antarctica 52 million years ago.
Most of the world's population will be subject to degraded air quality in 2050 if human-made emissions continue as usual.
Led by Sri Narayan, professor of chemistry at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, the team developed an air-breathing battery that uses the chemical energy generated by the oxidation of iron plates that are exposed to the oxygen in the air – a process similar to rusting.
Widespread skin cancer has been identified for the first time in wild marine fish populations, new research has shown.
About half of the aerosol particles in North America come from foreign sources, and most are just from naturally occurring dust rather than from burning coal or other fossil fuels, said the research published in the journal Science.
Earth's oceans, forests and other ecosystems continue to soak up about half the carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere by human activities, even as those emissions have increased, according to a study by University of Colorado and NOAA scientists published August 1 in the journal Nature.
General Motors is unveiling Cadillac Urban Gardens on Merritt, a community project where 250 shipping crates from Orion Assembly — home of the Buick Verano and Chevrolet Sonic — are converted into raised garden beds.
Scuba-diver scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey are returning to the mouth of Washington’s Elwha River this week to explore and catalogue the effect of released sediment on marine life following the nation’s largest dam removal effort.
In its quest to identify possible substitutes for a toxic flame retardant chemical known as decabromodiphenyl ether (decaBDE), the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has released a draft report on alternatives.
David Hausman, an antiques dealer in Manhattan, pleaded guilty today in Manhattan federal court to obstruction of justice and creating false records, in relation to illegal rhinoceros horn trafficking.
Rapid rates of coral reef growth have been identified in sediment-laden marine environments, conditions previously believed to be detrimental to reef growth. A new study has established that Middle Reef -- part of Australia's iconic Great Barrier Reef -- has grown more rapidly than many other reefs in areas with lower levels of sediment stress.
Bloomberg and TradeWinds News reported July 30 that two judges on India’s Supreme Court have allowed the ship once named the Exxon Valdez to be scrapped at a yard in Alang on the country’s western coast.
According to a new Berkeley Earth study released July 29, 2012, the average temperature of Earth's land has risen by 1.5 °C over the past 250 years. The good match between the new temperature record and historical carbon dioxide records suggests that the most straightforward explanation for this warming is human greenhouse gas emissions.
The observations could have important implications for modelling global climate change and predicting air quality conditions. The tiny particles, which form part of an airborne chemical mix above cities, play a role in pollution by providing a surface for chemical reactions and in climate by reflecting and absorbing solar radiation and by acting as seed surfaces for water condensation and cloud formation.
In the years after Columbus' voyage, burning of New World forests and fields diminished significantly -- a phenomenon some have attributed to decimation of native populations by European diseases. But a new University of Utah-led study suggests global cooling resulted in fewer fires because both preceded Columbus in many regions worldwide.
The temperature in the inner urban areas of Hong Kong is predicted to rise by 2 to 3 Celsius degree in 30 years' time, according to the latest scientific study by researchers at the Department of Land Surveying and Geo-Informatics of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University.