News by Subject Atmospheric Science

In Mexicali, Mexico, an uncontrolled epidemic of Rocky Mountain spotted fever, one of the deadliest tickborne diseases in the Americas, has affected more than 1,000 people since 2008. A binational team of researchers led by the University of California, Davis, has conducted the first comprehensive study to examine risk factors for the disease in Mexicali. Researchers examined dogs, ticks, and surveyed households in 200 neighborhoods.

Governments seeking to help their most vulnerable residents prepare for hurricanes and other disasters should create community-based information campaigns ahead of time, according to a Rutgers study of economically disadvantaged New Jerseyans in the areas hardest hit by Superstorm Sandy.

Anthropologists discovered a tool made out of high-quality translucent jadeite with an intact rosewood handle at a site where the ancient Maya processed salt in Belize. The discovery of these high-quality materials -- jadeite and rosewood -- used as utilitarian tools, demonstrates that salt workers played an important role in the Classic Maya marketplace economy more than 1,000 years ago.

Ivan Nekhaev, a postdoc at St. Petersburg University, studied snails of the genus Boreocingula -- tiny gastropods as small as half a centimeter -- and first discovered that Arctic micromolluscs can show signs of pseudohermaphroditism. Boreocingula martyni adult females grow underdeveloped male genital organs.

A seemingly counterintuitive approach -- converting one greenhouse gas into another -- holds promise for returning the atmosphere to pre-industrial concentrations of methane, a powerful driver of global warming.

Scientists have developed a new approach to describe the behaviors of microscopic marine larvae, which will improve future predictions of how they disperse and distribute.