ScienceDaily: Earth & Climate News

Researchers are attempting to create a better diagnostic test for radiation exposure that potentially could save thousands of lives.

Living at higher latitudes, where there is also less sunlight, could result in a higher prevalence rate of obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), according to new research.

An international team of researchers has developed a comprehensive set of criteria to help the International Seabed Authority (ISA) protect local biodiversity from deep-sea mining activities. These guidelines should help identify areas of particular environmental importance where no mining should occur. The new ecological framework is a set of 18 quantitative metrics to assess whether the number, shapes, sizes and locations of proposed zones will be sufficient to protect threatened habitats and species.

Scientists have tracked the presence of a class of synthetic flame retardants called polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs), which were once a popular additive to increase fire resistance in consumer products such as electronics, textiles, and plastics.

Asian car drivers are exposed to nine times more pollution than their European and American counterparts, a comprehensive study has found.

If you can predict the path of the jet stream, the upper atmosphere's undulating river of wind, then you can predict weather -- not just for a week or two, but for an entire season. A new study moves toward that level of foresight by revealing a physical link between the speed and location of the jet stream and the strength of the polar vortex, a swirl of air that usually hovers over the Arctic.

Biologists show that evolutionary outcomes can be predicted.

A new explanation for the Heinrich 1 event, where temperatures over Antarctica rose 5C in less than a century, suggests strengthening westerlies around the Antarctic led to a substantial increase in atmospheric carbon. Today, human-caused climate change is causing these same westerly winds to contract towards Antarctica and strengthen, suggesting an unexpected spike in carbon dioxide could occur again.

Researchers have connected a graphene layer with two other atomic layers (molybdenum diselenide and tungsten disulfide) thereby extending the lifetime of excited electrons in graphene by several hundred times. The work may speed development of ultrathin and flexible solar cells with high efficiency.

A new study reveals a previously unrecognized threat to monarch butterflies: Mounting levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide reduce the medicinal properties of milkweed plants that protect the iconic insects from disease.

A study has found that increased drought and wildfire risk make grasslands and rangelands a more reliable carbon sink than trees in 21st century California. As such, the study indicates they should be given opportunities in the state's cap-and-and trade market, which is designed to reduce California's greenhouse gas emissions to 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030.