ScienceDaily: Earth & Climate News

When electric grids go down, there's no way to restore them -- 'blackstart' them -- with power from wind turbines. A team is now working to develop strategies and controllers that would reenergize power grids dominated by wind power. In Iowa, wind turbines now produce 55% of the state's electricity.

A new study in mice reveals how exposure to traffic-related air pollutants causes cellular changes in the placenta that can lead to pregnancy complications and affect the health of both mother and offspring.

Thanks to a unique combination of biology and ecology, the guppies have provided researchers with insights into evolution for decades. Evans and Fitzpatrick have pushed those insights a step further, showing the guppies' potential to help probe big questions about how microbes living in host organisms contribute to health, survival and quality of life.

Chemical dispersants are some of the best tools to clean up after an oil spill. However, scientists do not fully understand how well they work. A new study validated their efficacy in order to better prepare for the next disaster.

Researchers present a comparative analysis of urban magnetic fields between two U.S. cities: Berkeley, California, and the Brooklyn borough of New York City. They explore what kinds of information can be extracted using data from magnetic field sensors to understand the working of cities and provide insights that may be crucial for preventative studies.

Researchers outline a computer simulation model addressing the challenge of solar power's inherent intermittency by adding biomass as another renewable energy source to advance a reliable, affordable heating solution while reducing carbon dioxide emissions. The proposed solar-biomass hybrid system is based on distributed multi-generation technology that integrates photovoltaic-thermal and biomass power sources.

A new technique uses artificial intelligence to efficiently update the vegetation maps that are relied on by wildfire computer models to accurately predict fire behavior and spread.

Lake Cahuilla went through many cycles of filling and drying out over thousands of years. A new study by a San Diego State University researcher and colleagues used radiocarbon dating to determine the timing of the last seven periods of filling during the Late Holocene. The research sheds light on both the history of human occupation in the area and its seismic past.

Large floods will sometimes force a river to jump course and forge a new path across the landscape, in rare and catastrophic events known as river avulsions. Scientists have now published a global compilation of river avulsions. The study corroborates roughly a decade of theoretical and experimental work by the group, which fleshed out avulsions from what had been an understudied curiosity.

Scientists have revealed the significant roles of anthropogenic low-volatility organic vapors on the secondary organic aerosols (SOA) formation in four megacities in China, providing new insights for effectively mitigating the urban air pollution issues.