- Frank Witte
Recent Mars missions have produced compelling evidence for what was once a wet world, where life could well have flourished. Now scientists are about to embark on a mission with the best chances yet of finding it. Touching down near the Martian north pole, the Phoenix lander will begin looking for the chemical hallmarks of life past and present. But what do we already know about our near planetary neighbour? Frank Witte finds out...
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- Robinson Fulweiler
Equivalent in land area to 14 Isle of Mans, or Rhode Island State twice over, the Louisiana Wetlands are one of the most important acquatic ecological sites in the world. But now they're disappearing, fast - an area the size of a tennis court slips into the sea every thirteen seconds. But what is this wilderness and what can be done to save it...?
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- Anne Hinton
International Polar Years commenced in 1882-3, as the inspiration of Austrian explorer and naval officer Lieutenant Karl Weyprecht. They act as a means of bringing together scientists from around the world in a concentrated effort to further studies of the Arctic and Antarctic regions. The third such 'year' runs from 2007-9, but what are its aims this time?
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- Catherine Zentile
The buzz of a bumblebee is one of the quintessential sounds of summer time. But this ‘slender sound’ and ‘faint utterance’ that was so admired by Wordsworth is under threat because bumblebees are in crisis: of the 25 species native to Britain, three have already been declared extinct. But why are they suffering and what can we do to stem the problem...?
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- Helen Rogers
The European Parliament voted recently to include CO2 emissions from the aviation industry in its carbon trading scheme from 2011, but did they get it wrong by also including the impact of contrail formation and emissions of nitrogen oxides? What would happen, for instance, if Parliament adopted the same methodology for shipping? Helen Rogers explains why it's not all "plane" sailing…
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- Robinson Fulweiler
Climate change has been blamed with altering the environment – from animal migrations to sea level. Now it's also affecting nutrient cycling. Excess nitrogen discharged into estuaries used to be removed by a bacterial process in the sediments. But recent research shows a dramatic change...
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- Alex Thompson
What's the evidence that the world's becoming a warmer place, or are claims of climate change quite literally just hot air? Atmospheric scientist Alex Thompson puts the greenhouse effect under the spotlight...
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- Nick Heath
Mention plastics and most people think of polythenes, perspex and other oil-based nasties that never break down. But now there's a new breed of plastics; they're biodegradable and based on potatoes and other starchy crops...
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- Nick Heath
By now we’re familiar with apocalyptic visions of a scorched and flooded world ravished by global warming. But this gloomy prognosis is now set to take a nosedive beneath the ocean waves.
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- Lucy Sandbach
As the world focuses on carbon dioxide, are more dangerous agents of global warming creeping up unnoticed? Lucy Sandbach investigates the dark world of nitrogen and how this common element is causing havoc with the environment.
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