Every day, millions of microorganisms come flying to Spain from the Sahara Desert and the Sahel region. Louis Pasteur showed in 1861 that microbes can move through the air, but only recently discovered that bacteria, fungi and viruses can travel thousands of miles trapped dust particles. The satellite images show clouds of dust particles that class sizes very similar to that of the Iberian Peninsula.

For the first time, the international project team has analyzed these microorganisms Ecosensor travelers using molecular biology techniques. In addition to identifying the species, researchers have found that these organisms colonize in mountain lakes at high altitudes, such as in Sierra Nevada and the Pyrenees. They have also found that the phenomenon is increasing because of global climate change. (more…)

Using images taken from satellites hundreds of kilometers above the earth’s surface, a team of researchers are exploring the risks of flooding in some of the largest regions in the world. It is expected that the data used may be freely available for use in every task undertaken to provide more immediate responses to natural disasters. (more…)

Global warming may be threatening to the plant and animal life even in areas rich in biodiversity and that until now were thought to be less vulnerable to climate change, as is the case of Madagascar. (more…)

The largest antimony mine in the world has also become the world’s largest laboratory for studying the environmental consequences of releases of antimony, an element which biological and environmental properties are still largely unknown.

A team of scientists from Indiana University in Bloomington, the University of Alberta and the Chinese Academy of Sciences has found that the waters around the mine Xikuangshan, in southwestern China, contain levels of antimony from two to four orders of magnitude higher than normal (from 0.33 to 11.4 parts per million).

As stated by the researcher Faye Liu, antimony is an emerging contaminant has not been given enough attention.

Used in small amounts, antimony has a wide variety of applications ranging from malaria to harden the lead in bullets, through improving the functioning of batteries. (more…)

A new study that explores the growing global problem of nitrogen pollution from the land towards the sea shows that the overall proportions of nitrogen and carbon in the environment are inextricably linked, a finding that may lead to new strategies to help mitigate problems ranging from regional polluted waterways to health.

The study, by experts at the University of Colorado at Boulder, has revealed that the relationship between nitrates (which are a form of nitrogen that is present naturally in soil, rivers, lakes and oceans) and organic carbon is strongly governed by microbial processes that occur in almost all ecosystems. The consistent relationship between nitrogen and carbon detected in the study came as a surprise. (more…)

A high incidence of cancer that is currently registered in southeastern China may have been favored by a group of Siberian volcanoes scattered across the Earth ash 250 million years ago, according to a new study.

Nonsmoking women in Xuan Wei County, Yunnan Province, China, have the highest known rate in the world in incidence of lung cancer in this group, and researchers believe that the answer lies in coal than women this province used for heating and cooking. (more…)

Often, it is thought that fire is something you should always protect the trees, but a new study suggests that some may help themselves to the existence of forest fires in order to promote its own abundance at the expense of its competitors.

The study indicates that positive feedback loops between fire and trees associated with savannas may increase the chance of fire in these ecosystems. (more…)

Scientists who have calculated the amount of carbon that accumulates annually in the upper forests of the Midwest, they hope their findings will serve to accelerate the global debate on the strategy of managing forests to neutralize the emissions of greenhouse gases.

In an era in which there are differences on the exploitable land use, the researchers argue that forests help stabilize the climate and are abundant sources of other essential products and services, for example, purified air, fertile soils, and water purified. To quantify the amount of carbon that forests can remove from the atmosphere is a way to show the value of forest areas for policy decision makers on the energy sector. (more…)