Drains and clearing used in Agriculture that lower water tables and regulate salinity are impacting waterways in one of the most botanically significant and largest regions in Australia, according to new research from The University of Western Australia.

Regions investigated of acid groundwater were around the Dalyup River, Lake Gore waterways system and the Jacup-Cameron Creek in the Fitzgerald River National Park. Rising acid groundwater tables were flowing into waterways as a result of agricultural clearing by landholders who didn't realize the impact of their activities. The study also found that agricultural drains installed by farmers to lower water tables in a bid to manage salinity had inadvertently increased the acidification.

The research found that more than 100 kilometers of waterways in the in the Dalyup catchment headwaters were already permanently acidified. The work follows research by the UWA Centre of Excellence in Natural Resource Management into the ecological impacts of deep drains across the Wheatbelt which found that the loss of stream and wetland invertebrates could impact other organisms such as frogs and fish that feed on them.

According to a new study, the air we breathe is killing 3.3 million people a year worldwide, and farming emissions play a huge role in the number. If trends don’t change on this front, the study projected annual deaths will double by 2050. Currently, air pollution kills more than HIV and malaria combined.

The study, published Wednesday in the journal Nature, used health statistics and computer models. About three quarters of the deaths are from strokes and heart attacks. The findings are similar to other less detailed pollution death estimates. With nearly 1.4 million deaths a year, China has the most air pollution fatalities, followed by India with 645,000 and Pakistan with 110,000.

The United States, with 54,905 deaths in 2010 from soot and smog, ranks seventh highest for air pollution deaths. According to the study, agriculture is the number one cause of these deaths in the U.S. Northeast, all of Europe, Russia, Japan and South Korea. Worldwide, agriculture is the No. 2 cause with 664,100 deaths, behind the more than 1 million deaths from in-home heating and cooking done with wood and other biofuels in developing world.

The problem with farms is ammonia from fertilizer and animal waste. That ammonia then combines with sulfates from coal-fired power plants and nitrates from car exhaust to form the soot particles that are the big air pollution killers, he said. In London, for example, the pollution from traffic takes time to be converted into soot, and then it is mixed with ammonia and transported downwind to the next city. Agricultural emissions are becoming increasingly important but are not regulated.

A theorized, but previously undetected magnetic wave has been discovered through photos by a team of physicists from NYU, Stanford, and the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. The research appears in the journal Physical Review Letters.

“This is an exciting discovery because it shows that small magnetic waves—known as spin-waves—can add up to a large one in a magnet, a wave that can maintain its shape as it moves,” explains Andrew Kent, a professor of physics at NYU and the study’s senior author. “A specialized x-ray method that can focus on particular magnetic elements with very high spatial resolution enabled this discovery and should enable many more insights into this behavior.”

“Magnetism has been used for navigation for thousands of years and more recently to build generators, motors, and data storage devices,” adds co-author Hendrik Ohldag, a scientist at the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory (SSRL), where the soliton was discovered. “However, magnetic elements were mostly viewed as static and uniform. To push the limits of energy efficiency in the future we need to understand better how magnetic devices behave on fast timescales at the nanoscale, which is why we are using this dedicated ultrafast x-ray microscope.”

These magnetic waves are known as solitons—for solitary waves—and were theorized to occur in magnets in the 1970s. They form because of a delicate balance of magnetic forces—much like water waves can form a tsunami. However, these magnetic waves are not destructive; they could potentially be harnessed to transmit data in magnetic circuits in a way that is far more energy efficient than current methods that involve moving electrical charge.

This is because solitons are stable objects that overcome resistance, or friction, as they move. By contrast, electrons, used to move data today, do generate heat as they travel, due to resistance and thus requiring additional energy, such as from a battery, as they transport data to its destination.

In their search, the scientists deployed x-ray microscopy at the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource —using a method akin to the way x-rays are used to image the human body—in order to image the behavior of specific magnetic atoms in materials. The technique offers extraordinarily high spatial resolution and temporal resolution. The scientists created a condition in magnetic materials where the sought-after solitons should exist by injecting an electrical current into a magnetic material to excite spin-waves.

They observed an abrupt onset of magnetic waves with a well-defined spatial profile that matched the predicted form of a solitary magnetic wave—i.e., a magnetic soliton.

One of India’s poorest and food-desolate states is Jharkhand, with over 45% of the population living below the poverty line. Even though more than 75% of Jharkhand’s citizens rely on farming for their livelihood, agriculture accounts for only 15% of GDP. Groundwater depletion and periodic drought compound the state’s difficulties and low agricultural productivity, even as a changing climate threatens to make the situation worse.

To help address these challenges, the Centers for International Projects Trust, the Columbia Water Center’s India affiliate, has teamed up with Birsa Agricultural University to develop a Sustainable Agriculture and Farmers’ Livelihood Villages Program in Jharkhand.

The aim of this program is to transform village economies and farmer livelihoods by promoting the use of modern inputs such as improved seeds and fertilizers, teaching rain-water storage for crop irrigation, building agricultural information networks in the villages, encouraging climate resilience, and developing value chains for crops for enhancing the farm incomes.

The program will pilot-test a series of interventions at 10 villages of the Angara block in the Ranchi district in Jharkhand, benefitting around 700 farmers and putting them on a path toward long-term agricultural and livelihood sustainability.

The team’s preliminary assessment of the target villages revealed that farmers had poor access to improved seeds, fertilizers and irrigation, which in turn leads to poor production and low yields. This gap, coupled with an overall lack of access to markets, severely limits farmer income.

To address each of these problems, the team organized a suite of interventions for the participating farmers. These included the introduction of modern, high-yielding varieties of maize and rice (depending on farmer preference). In the end, 320 farmers opted to pursue rice cultivation and 310 were selected for maize. Seeds were distributed and farmers trained on the potential benefits of the introduced crop varieties, how to raise and transplant seedlings, and how to make use of weather-based advisories. The farmers were also trained on the standard operating practices and techniques to realize the full potential yield from the introduced crop varieties. But while these interventions were important, none of them would work well without improved water use.

The Jharkand region receives significant rainfall each year–nearly 1400 mm, (55 inches), more than much of the East Coast of the United States. However, the sporadic pattern of precipitation leads to frequent agricultural drought. The state’s irrigation potential is a meager 12%, which makes harvesting and reusing every drop of rainwater absolutely essential for life-saving crop watering during dry spells.

To address the water challenge, the researchers identified 20 sites (two in each village) to construct small water-harvesting ponds with the help of earth-movers. Construction was preceded by outreach and education of farmers in the respective villages.

The researchers devised a simple system address a crucial information gap: weather and climate forecasting. For farmers, weather- and climate- related information play a critical role before and during the cropping season. Reliable forecasts that are provided at the appropriate time can help farmers time their planting, irrigation and other activities in ways that can greatly enhance production. Farmers in Jharkhand, however, have limited access to reliable agro-advisory services for weather forecasts.

In order to provide real-time weather information, the project research team installed wooden display boards in each of the villages to provide weekly weather information to farmers. Weather-based advisory bulletins prepared by the Birsa Agricultural University will be displayed on the boards twice a week. The bulletin contains weather forecasts for the next five days, along with relevant farming advice on best practices for the given conditions. In addition, farmers will receive daily mobile phone SMS advisories.

The research team plans to implement the suite of interventions over the next two years, along with additional measures as appropriate. The team will regularly monitor and document the entire process and results, and will use these results to advocate for broader policy changes to help farmers throughout the state.

Demand for wind and solar energy as has been steadily increasing over the years, and the need to reduce the cost and extend the life of renewable energy storage batteries becomes even greater.

Thomas Beck, a professor of chemistry at the University of Cincinnati, looked at how water and other molecules influence and align ionic distribution on the surface of water. As part of his research titled "Computational Studies of Specific Ion effects in Water and Ion Channels," he leveraged the technical resources of the Ohio Supercomputer Center to improve methods for calculating the thermodynamics of ion hydration. He found a much more efficient way to quantify the electrical voltage at the surface of water and other liquids like ethylene carbonate and propylene carbonate.

Beck has developed basic methods using quantum calculations to show that older, more traditional methods for gauging water's electrical surface charge often over-estimate the polarization state of ions, which is at the center of the electrical processes. Ultimately, Beck feels that progress is being made in wind and solar renewable energy but may not be fast enough for the crisis that is expected. Given the trajectory that energy is being used at present rates, he predicts that future energy demands may likely double in the next 50 years, in part because of the growth of developing countries.

For more on this study, click here.

Having a cornfield with a more diverse insect population leads to fewer problems with pests, according to a study done by U.S. Department of Agriculture and South Dakota State University.

The project assessed insect populations in cornfields on 53 farms in eastern South Dakota. It is the first to use social network analysis to study insect communities in the corn production system to understand how large groups of organisms interact from an applied angle. The research gives farmers a metric whereby they can assess their corn production system, and that use of no-till and a diverse crop rotation plan can improve insect diversity. Also, a balanced ecosystem can then lead to reduced costs associated with insecticides.

The research indicates that it’s not the number of species, but rather the balance of species within the insect communities that are responsible for pest suppression. Farmers that adopt a diverse cropping system can reduce the need for insecticides and thus lower their input costs. Additionally, a more diverse cropping system also decreases the revenue variability in farm production.

A study led by Dartmouth College and the University of Colorado-Boulder shows that bees that are infected with parasites self-medicate from nectar containing nicotine and other natural chemicals in plants, and significantly reduced the number of parasites, but the new study shows parasitized bees already are taking advantage of natural chemicals in the wild.

Colony collapse disorder among bees has drawn much attention in recent years, but parasites are a common natural cause of disease in bumblebees and honeybees, both of which play a vital role in agriculture and plant pollination. The intestinal parasite the researchers looked at can strongly affect their survival, reproduction and foraging behavior.

The researchers studied the effects of a group of plant secondary metabolites found naturally in floral nectar—iridoid glycosides—on bumblebee foraging and plant reproduction. Iridoid glycosides can deter deer and other herbivores, but the researchers' earlier studies showed the compounds have a medicinal effect on parasitized bees by reducing their parasite load.

In the new study, the researchers looked at concentrations of two iridoid glycoside compounds, aucubin and catalpol, in nectar and pollen in four populations of turtlehead, a bee-pollinated wetland plant found throughout eastern North America. They then manipulated concentrations of the chemicals in those flowers to study their effects on bee foraging.

The results showed that relative to healthy bees, those infected with the intestinal parasite greatly preferred visiting flowers with the highest iridoid glycoside concentrations. Bees attacked by a second antagonist, a parasitoid fly, did not respond in this way to nectar chemistry. The researchers also found that flowers with the highest concentrations of nectar iridoid glycosides donated significantly more pollen to other flowers following bee visits, showing that nectar chemistry can affect plant reproductive success.

More wind turbines are popping up across landscapes in the U.S. and abroad more than ever before. Wind energy accounted for 3.3% of electricity generation in the United States in 2011, while globally, that number was 2.9% for the same year.

But as wind turbines increase dramatically, researchers at the University of Kansas are looking at how these forests of turbines affect the wind itself. What happens to the wind when a larger number of wind turbines removes more and more of the energy of atmospheric motion?

A new study just published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences evaluated the effects of large wind farms on atmospheric flow and its implications for how much renewable energy the turbines can generate. Wind turbines generate electricity by removing energy from the wind, so a larger number of wind turbines should result in a slowdown of the winds in the lower atmosphere.

The team found that a slowdown effect triggered by wind turbines is substantial for large wind farms and results in proportionally less renewable energy generated for each turbine versus the energy that would be generated from an isolated wind turbine. While the researchers stress that no current or planned wind farm approaches the size or concentration that would cause the slowdown effect, their results suggest the phenomenon tied to large wind farms needs to be accounted for in future planning of wind energy.

When just a few wind turbines are installed, each additional turbine results in a similar increase in electricity generated. However, when a substantial number of turbines are installed over a small area, the amount of electricity generated is no longer governed by simple multiplication. Instead, because the turbines extract energy from the wind, additional turbines will each generate less and less electricity.

The team’s simulations estimate this slowdown effect results in a practical upper limit of 1 megawatt per square kilometer that can be generated—far less than previous estimates not accounting for the effect. Current wind farms are operating well below this generation limit, but the authors found that this slowdown effect needs to be accounted for, particularly when comparing different sources of renewable energy.

Various types of stink bugs have long been a problem on soybean crops, but when sweeps of fields in southeast Texas netted 65% red-banded stink bugs, entomologists realized this particular bug had become the predominant pest problem, according to Dr. Mo Way, an entomologist at the Texas A&M AgriLife Research and Extension Center in Beaumont.

The problem was no one in the U.S. knew much about the red-banded stink bug and how it had been able to overcome the previously predominant southern green stink bug, green stink bug and brown stink bug. An insect's life cycle and biology have to be understood before scientists can figure out ways to control it.

Not only did the research team find insect numbers at economically damaging levels in Texas but also determined that the red-banded stink bug was becoming resistant to the organophosphate chemical that previously had provided effective control. Researchers also had an inkling the red-banded stink bug was responsible for what is known as delayed maturity syndrome in which the soybean plant does not grow at its normal rate. They tested this theory by subjecting a controlled growth of soybeans to different densities of red-banded stink bugs and found that the insect is directly connected to the disorder.

Finding that the insect is becoming resistant to the common insecticide used as well as the fact that more frequent doses were required to control them was a significant point in the research. The team is also hoping to continue research with other control possibilities such as using a trap crop planted near soybeans to attract the insects away or developing red-banded stink bug-resistant soybean varieties.

Barley possesses a large and highly repetitive genome that is difficult to fully sequence, but scientists at the University of California, Riverside have reached a new milestone on sequencing its work. The researchers have sequenced large portions of the genome that together contain nearly two-thirds of all barley genes.

The new information, published in The Plant Journal, will not only expand geneticists’ knowledge of barley’s DNA but will also help in the understanding, at the genetic level, of wheat and other sources of food. It also has applications in plant breeding by increasing the precision of markers for traits such as malting quality or stem rust.

Prior to this work, a long-held view was that the distribution of genes in the genomes of barley, wheat and their relatives is such that the gene-dense regions are only out near the ends of chromosomes where there is also a high rate of recombination. The work revealed clear exceptions, identifying deviant regions that are gene-rich but low recombination.

Recombination refers to the formation of new combinations of genes naturally during meiosis, which is a stage of the cell cycle where chromosomes pair up and undergo exchange. Close explained that plant breeders rely on meiotic recombination to introduce favorable forms of genes for malting quality, stem rust or any number of traits into cultivated varieties. Crosses are made and progeny plants are screened for desirable new combinations of traits. When a favorable form of a gene lies within a gene-dense, low recombination region it requires much more work to bring that favorable allele into an existing variety without also dragging in neighboring genes that may exist in undesirable forms.

To read the full report, click here.

The drought currently being fought in California is having a huge effect on the economy in the area, squeezing about 30% more workers and cropland out of production than in 2014. In 2015, the state’s agricultural economy will lose about $1.84 billion and 10,100 seasonal jobs because of the drought, with the Central Valley hardest hit. Analysis has also forecasted how the industry will fare if the drought persists through 2017.

Currently, the industry overall remains robust. The agricultural economy continues to grow in the fourth year of a severe drought, thanks mostly to California’s vast but declining reserves of groundwater, which will offset about 70% of the surface water shortage this year.

California is the world’s richest food-producing region. Continued strong global demand and prices for many of its fruits, nuts and vegetables has helped sustain the farm economy along with intrastate water transfers and shifts in growing locations.

The heavy reliance on groundwater comes at ever-increasing energy costs as farmers pump deeper and drill more wells. Some of the heavy pumping is in basins already in severe overdraft, where groundwater use greatly exceeds replenishment of aquifers. This invites further land subsidence, water quality problems and diminishing reserves needed for future droughts. Further, several small rural communities continue to suffer from high unemployment and drying up of domestic wells because of the drought, particularly in the Tulare Basin.

The UC Davis team that conducted the research used computer models and the latest estimates of surface water availability from state and federal water projects and local water districts. They forecast several drought-related impacts in the state’s major agricultural regions for the current growing season, including:

The direct costs of drought to agriculture will be $1.84 billion for 2015. The total impact to all economic sectors is an estimated $2.74 billion, compared with $2.2 billion in 2014. The state’s farmers and ranchers currently receive more than $46 billion annually in gross revenues, a small fraction of California’s $1.9 trillion-a-year economy.

The loss of about 10,100 seasonal jobs directly related to farm production, compared with the researchers’ 2014 drought estimate of 7,500 jobs. When considering the spillover effects of the farm losses on all other economic sectors, the employment impact of the 2015 drought more than doubles to 21,000 lost jobs.

Surface water shortages will reach nearly 8.7 million acre-feet, which will be offset mostly by increased groundwater pumping of 6 million acre-feet. Net water shortages of 2.7 million acre-feet will cause roughly 542,000 acres to be idled—114,000 more acres than the researchers’ 2014 drought estimate. Most idled land is in the Tulare Basin.

The effects of continued drought through 2017 (assuming continued 2014 water supplies) will likely be 6 percent worse than in 2015, with the net water shortage increasing to 2.9 million acre-feet a year. Gradual decline in groundwater pumping capacity and water elevations will add to the incremental costs of a prolonged drought. The scientists noted that new state groundwater laws requiring local agencies to attain sustainable yields could eventually reverse the depletion of underground reserves.

Using highly efficient, light-emitting diodes (LED) could slash the world's electricity consumption in half, saving the nation $700 million annually in energy costs. LED’s are currently widely available, but widespread adoption of the technology has been hindered by high costs due to limited availability of raw materials and difficulties in achieving acceptable light quality. These obstacles have been overcome as a less expensive, more sustainable white LED has been developed.

To achieve the common, soft white light that consumers expect, current LED technologies typically use a single semiconductor chip to produce light, usually blue, and then rely on a yellow-emitting "phosphor" coating to shift the color to white. That's because LEDs do not emit a white light. The phosphor is made from materials, such as cerium-doped yttrium aluminum garnet, that are composed of rare-earth elements. These elements are expensive and in limited supply, since they are primarily available only from mining operations outside the U.S. Additionally, the light output of these phosphors tends to be harsh, "cold" colors.

Researchers are developing a hybrid of the phosphor-based technologies that are much more sustainable, efficient and low-cost. They combine common, earth-abundant metals with organic luminescent molecules to produce phosphors that emit a controllable white light from LEDs. By varying the metal and organic components, the researchers can systematically tune the color of the phosphors to regions of the visible light spectrum that are most acceptable to the human eye.

Many material combinations are possible, so a computational approach to initially sort through the possibilities and to predict what color of light the various metals and organics combinations will emit. The approach allows a systematic fine tuning of band gaps and optical emissions that cover the entire visible range, including yellow and white colors. As a result, their LEDs can be fine-tuned to create a warmer white light, similar to cheaper but inefficient incandescent lights. The approach shows significant promise for use in general lighting applications. Experiments with some materials have shown that the technology can cut LED costs by as much as 90% from current methods that rely on rare-earth elements. 

Two growth-promoting groups of substances, the “gibberellins” and the “brassinosteroids”, are used independently of each other for the breeding and production of crop plants. A team of scientists at Technical University of Munich (TUM) has now discovered that the two act in concert - without brassinosteroids, a plant is unable to produce gibberellins.

For their current investigations, a research group at the Technical University of Munich, supported by scientists from the Helmholtz Zentrum Munich and the TU Braunschweig used thale cress,a model research plant. Researchers wanted to examine the molecular mechanisms of brassinosteroids. Although it was well known how brassinosteroids are produced and how their signals are transmitted in plants, it was unclear how the growth promotion process is initiated.

The scientists used plants with mutations, which impaired the activity of brassinosteroids. They thereby discovered that these plants produced less gibberellin. As a result, the plants' germination was impaired, their growth inhibited and their flowering delayed. The scientists were able to show that transcription factors are responsible for this mechanism. Transcription factors are proteins that regulate gene expression. Once activated by brassinosteroids, they initiate the production of gibberellin.

Dwarf cultivars, such as balcony varieties of vegetables like tomatoes and cucumbers, as well as grain varieties were specifically selected for impaired brassinosteroid metabolism. These short cultivars are called semi-dwarf varieties. They were bred as early as the 1950’s and 1960’s when the primary aim was to improve yields. Coupled with intensified farming methods, these new crop varieties increased yields fivefold, preventing famines in Mexico and later China.

The central issue in ecology is “Why are some species of plants and animals vary more in number than others?” Swedish researchers at Linnaeus University and the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) have found an important finding to answer this question: Individual differences have a positive and stabilizing effect on the number of moths. Species with varying color drawing are generally more numerous and fluctuate less in number from year to year. This could help to explain why some insect species in some years are very abundant pests and cause substantial damage in agriculture and forestry.

A research team led by Professor Anders Forsman at Linnaeus University has highlighted the issue through over a period of 11 years collecting moths at a site in southern Sweden with a light trap. The 115,000 captured were represented by 246 different species of moths. The researchers then counted how many butterflies of each species they captured in the different years. The species were divided into three different groups depending on how much color artwork varies between individuals within each species.

More moths varied greatly in color drawing, compared to species where moths were more similar to each other. Additionally the number of moths fluctuated strongly between different years for species that had little or no color variation. The relationship between color variation and stability was independent of activity period or host plant range, since the more stable species with large variation in color drawing were not restricted in their activity to a shorter part of the year or to a narrower range of host plants. It was concluded that there is variation in color artwork which affects the dynamics of moth populations.

The population fluctuations were not synchronized among the different species. This suggests that the changes were caused by biological processes rather than by abiotic differences in, for example weather conditions. The results may be partly explained by the assumption that variation in coloration makes predators less effective that hunt by sight. The individual differences contribute to increased stability of the moths which confirms conclusions from previous studies of frogs, lizards and snakes that color variation is a key to success in the wild. Information on animal color drawings can be used in conservation biology to identify which species are particularly threatened and in need of protective measures.

Under typical offshore conditions, a single new turbine can generate 32 million kilowatt hours of electricity in a year, enough to supply up to 7,000 homes. A new, Siemens model wind turbine (SWT-7.0-154) has the same rotor diameter of 154 meters as the predecessor model, but delivers a nearly 10% higher energy yield.

Since 2010, Siemens has relied on gearless technology for its offshore wind turbines. A synchronous generator with permanent magnets converts the rotor motion directly into electrical energy without the use of a gearbox which normally steps up the low speed of the wind rotor to high speed for generating electricity. With the new technology, the entire drive train operates with significantly fewer components, making it lighter, more compact and less prone to wear. The new wind turbine is thus the lightest wind turbine in its performance class. The gearless turbine also delivers more power. Since the use of permanent magnets for exciting the generator obviates the need for electrical power or for the corresponding control system or slip rings, a high level of efficiency is achieved even at low wind speeds.

The latest increase in performance has been attained through optimization measures to the generator and the associated electrical components. The key modifications are more powerful permanent magnets in the rotor and suitably strengthened generator segments. In addition, the converter and transformer that transform the electrical energy produced by the generator for feeding into the supply grid have been re-engineered for the higher power output. The electrical systems are also optimized with respect to reactive power compensation, a function that is important for the stability of the power supply grid. The prototype now installed is designed to test the operation of the more powerful generator and the upgraded electrical components.

All in all, the Siemens engineers have succeeded in increasing the output of the turbine without basically altering its essential components. The proven technology and reliability of its predecessor have been retained and the new system can be brought to production maturity more quickly. The start of series production is planned for the beginning of 2017.

Researchers from Colorado State University have completed a historical analysis of greenhouse gas emissions from the U.S. Great Plains that demonstrates the potential to completely eliminate agricultural greenhouse gas emissions from the region.

The research article found here, uses historical agricultural census data and ecosystem models to estimate the magnitude of annual greenhouse gas emissions from all agricultural sources in the Great Plains from the years 1870 to 2000.

The analysis further demonstrated that adoption of best management practices could substantially mitigate agricultural greenhouse gas fluxes. If just 25% of agricultural producers in the region adopted these practices, an estimated 34% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions would occur. If 75% of agricultural producers adopted the practices, they could be completely eliminated. These reductions in greenhouse gas fluxes would occur without any reduction in food production and are primarily a result of no-tillage cultivation practices.

As farmers replaced human and animal labor with mechanized equipment and expanded herds of cattle to meet consumer demand for meat, emissions from these sources overwhelmed the otherwise beneficial effects of other agricultural changes, such as increased irrigation and a reduction in the extent of land in crop production.

Using historical data, the research showed that climatic factors mediate these emissions, with cool and wet weather promoting carbon sequestration, and hot and dry weather increasing greenhouse gas releases. Potential future increases in hot and dry weather conditions could greatly enhance greenhouse gas fluxes from the Great Plains. A 25% reduction in harvested cropland and increases in the conservation reserve program have resulted in major reductions in greenhouse gas emissions from the Great Plains during the last 40 years. Potential expansion of cropland in the Great Plains due to high crop prices could greatly increase future greenhouse gas fluxes.

Cultural and economic barriers to the extensive adoption of such best management practices, including higher costs for slow release fertilizer, new equipment, and training are required for conversion to a “no tillage agriculture.”

Engineers from the University of Colorado Boulder have developed an innovative wastewater treatment process that not only mitigates carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, but actively captures greenhouse gases as well.

The engineers have employed a practice known as Microbial Electrolytic Carbon Capture (MECC), that purifies wastewater in an environmentally-friendly fashion by using an electrochemical reaction that absorbs more CO2 than it releases while creating renewable energy in the process.

Wastewater treatment typically produces CO2 emissions in two ways: decomposition of organic material within that wastewater, and the burning of fossil fuels to power the machinery. Plus, existing wastewater treatment technologies consume high amounts of energy. Public utilities in the US treat an estimated 12 trillion gallons of municipal wastewater each year and consume approximately 3% of the nation's grid energy.

Existing carbon capture technologies are energy-intensive and often entail costly transportation and storage procedures. MECC uses the natural conductivity of saline wastewater to facilitate an electrochemical reaction that is designed to absorb CO2 from both the water and the air. The process transforms CO2 into stable mineral carbonates and bicarbonates that can be used as raw materials by the construction industry, used as a chemical buffer in the wastewater treatment cycle itself or used to counter acidity downstream from the process such as in the ocean. The reaction also yields excess hydrogen gas, which can be stored and harnessed as energy in a fuel cell.

The findings offer the possibility that wastewater could be treated effectively on-site without the risks or costs typically associated with disposal. Further research is needed to determine the optimal MECC system design and assess the potential for scalability.

Power companies have many reasons to perk up at the possibility of a carbon-negative wastewater treatment solution. The Environmental Protection Agency's Clean Power Plan, expected to take full effect in the year 2020, will require power plants to comply with reduced CO2 emission levels.

The study may also have positive long-term implications for the world's oceans. Approximately 25% of CO2 emissions are subsequently absorbed by the sea, which lowers pH, alters ocean chemistry and hence threatens marine organisms, especially coral reefs and shellfish. Dissolved carbonates and bicarbonates produced via MECC, however, could act to chemically counter these effects if added to the ocean.

Research led by Professor Takao Komatsuda from the National Institute of Agrobiological Sciences, and the Okayama University Institute of Plant Science and Resources have unlocked the genetic key in barley that led to the start of cropping in human agriculture. Two genes (Btr1 and Btr2) have been discovered in wild barley that have allowed its domestication from a wild grass to what today is the world’s fourth most important cereal crop in both area of cultivation and in quantity of grain produced.

These ‘brittle rachis’ genes control the strength of the attachment point between maturing grains and the barley spike. In wild barley the maturing grain snaps off easily, facilitating seed dispersal and survival of the species but making the harvest of large amounts of grain virtually impossible.

The researchers identified the molecular genetic change by which this attachment point lost its brittle characteristic through isolated natural mutation events, resulting in mature grains remaining attached to the head. This was associated with a change in cell wall thickness at the point of attachment of the grain to the spike. Scientists at the ARC Centre of Excellence in Plant Cell Walls compared the compositions of cell walls at the attachment points.

The team also compared the DNA of these two newly discovered genes in a number of wild and cultivated barleys. The result showed that barley domestication occurred with two independent mutations, firstly in the area of southern Levant (modern Israel) about 10,000 years ago, and later in the area of northern Levant (modern northwest Syria and southeast Turkey).

California has accumulated a “rain debt” of about 20 inches of precipitation between the years 2012 and 2015—the average amount expected to fall in the state in a single year, according to a recent NASA study. The deficit was driven primarily by a lack of air currents moving inland from the Pacific Ocean that are rich in water vapor. In an average year, 20- 50% of California’s precipitation comes from relatively few, but extreme events called atmospheric rivers that move from over the Pacific Ocean to the California coast.

The NASA study’s lead author Andrey Savtchenko and colleagues examined data from 17 years of satellite observations and 36 years of combined observations and model data to understand how precipitation has varied in California since 1979. The results have been published in the Journal of Geophysical Research – Atmospheres, a journal of the American Geophysical Union.

California as a whole can expect an average of about 20 inches of precipitation each year, with regional differences. But, the total amount can vary as much as 30% from year to year.

In non-drought periods, wet years often alternate with dry years to balance out in the short term. However, from 2012 to 2014, California accumulated a deficit of almost 13 inches, and the 2014-2015 wet season increased the debt another seven inches, for a total 20 inches accumulated deficit during the course of three dry years. The majority of that precipitation loss is attributed to a high-pressure system in the atmosphere over the eastern Pacific Ocean that has interfered with the formation of atmospheric rivers since 2011.

Atmospheric rivers occur all over the world. They are narrow, concentrated tendrils of water vapor that travel through the atmosphere similar to, and sometimes with, the winds of a jet stream. Like a jet stream, they typically travel from west to east. The ones destined for California originate over the tropical Pacific, where warm ocean water evaporates a lot of moisture into the air. The moisture-rich atmospheric rivers, informally known as the Pineapple Express, then break northward toward North America.

Earlier this year, a NASA research aircraft participated in the CalWater 2015 field campaign to improve understanding of when and how atmospheric rivers reach California.

Some of the water vapor rains out over the ocean, but the show really begins when an atmospheric river reaches land. Two reached California around Dec. 1 and 10, 2014, and brought more than three inches of rain, according to NASA’s Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM)’s multi-satellite dataset. The inland terrain, particularly mountains, force the moist air to higher altitudes where lower pressure causes it to expand and cool. The cooler air condenses the concentrated pool of water vapor into torrential rains, or snowfall as happens over the Sierra Nevada Mountains, where water is stored in the snowpack until the spring melt just before the growing season.

The current drought isn’t the first for California. Savtchenko and his colleagues recreated a climate record for 1979 to the present using the Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications, or MERRA. Their efforts show that a 27.5 inch deficit of rain and snow occurred in the state between 1986 and 1994.

The current drought has been notably severe because, since the late 1980s, California’s population, industry and agriculture have experienced tremendous growth, with a correlating growth in their demand for water. Human consumption has depleted California’s reservoirs and groundwater reserves, as shown by data from NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) mission, leading to mandatory water rationing.

According to climatologist Bill Patzert, this study added nuance to how scientists may interpret the atmospheric conditions that cause atmospheric rivers and an El Niño’s capacity to bust the drought. Since March, rising sea surface temperatures in the central equatorial Pacific have indicated the formation of El Niño conditions. El Niño conditions are often associated with higher rainfall to the western United States, but it’s not guaranteed.

Savtchenko and his colleagues show that El Niño contributes only six percent to California’s precipitation variability and is one factor among other, more random effects that influence how much rainfall the state receives. While it’s more likely El Niño increases precipitation in California, it’s still possible it will have no, or even a drying, effect. A strong El Niño that lasts through the rainy months, from November to March, is more likely to increase the amount of rain that reaches California, and Savtchenko noted the current El Niño is quickly strengthening.

What would the economic climate be if we switched all our cars over to electricity? The air would be cleaner, but what would be the impact on tax income, electricity demand, and employment? These questions were raised by Cihan Cavdarli’s Master Thesis in Energy Management.

His first conclusion: if all cars in Switzerland were electric, total electricity demand would rise by 19-24% depending on the scenario. Should this make us think twice? Not if we look at the bigger picture. To measure the impact of the widespread use of electric vehicles, Cihan took many other factors into account – economic, environmental, technological and tax-related. “The positive impact of switching to electricity generally outweighs the negative impact, apart from some extreme cases,” said Cihan in his thesis.

Anticipating the Switzerland’s phasing out of nuclear power, Cihan looked at two scenarios: one assumes a high carbon footprint, with nuclear energy replaced by gas. The other boasts a low carbon footprint, with renewable energies stepping into the nuclear breach. “This latter scenario is the best fit for electric cars,” added Cihan.

Cihan based his work on the scenarios drawn up by the research institute Prognose. He also used the Swiss-Energyscope calculator, developed by the Energy Center, to estimate marginal electricity generation. He took into account primary energy consumption (before transformation, storage and transport) for both internal-combustion and electric vehicles. Under the assumption that energy efficiency will improve, the consumption of primary energy by electric vehicles will decrease. Depending on the scenario, this decrease is expected to be 16-23% by 2035.

The environment also stands to gain. Private vehicles currently account for 25% of CO2 emissions. In the best case this figure would fall to 5% (with a second life for batteries); in the worst case, 10%. In addition, even if only a third of vehicles were electric, nitrogen oxide emissions would be cut in half.

When it comes to the impact on tax revenues, things get a little more complicated: taxes on fossil fuels currently account for 8% of Switzerland’s tax income. “Tax revenues will go down unless the tax on mineral oils is shifted to electric vehicles,” said Cihan. But the tax impact would be reduced. This is because internal-combustion engines are becoming increasingly efficient, which means that fuel consumption is on the decline. And the country will save money on fuel imports. The savings will be even higher since the energy will come from locally produced renewable energies.