Although scientists have been ringing bells for more than 100 years about the decline of crop diversity in agriculture, questions about the magnitude, causes, and significance of this loss remain unanswered.

E-cigarette use did not help smokers quit and may make smokers more likely to relapse, according to a study by Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health and Human Longevity Science at University of California San Diego and Moores Cancer Center.

Nitrous oxide (N2O) is a potent greenhouse gas, with 300 times the warming ability of carbon dioxide. Due to fertilizer runoff from farm fields, an increasing load of nitrogen is washing into rivers and streams, where nitrogen-breathing microbes break some of the fertilizer down into N2O, which the river releases into the atmosphere as it tumbles toward the ocean. But, until now, scientists haven’t had a clear picture of how the process works, what fraction of the runoff winds up as N2O or what steps might be taken to mitigate N2O emissions.

Worldwide, lake temperatures are rising and seasonal ice cover is shorter and thiner. This effects lake ecosystems, drinking water supply and fishing. International research led by Luke Grant, Inne Vanderkelen and Prof Wim Thiery of Vrije Universiteit Brussel now - for the first time - shows that these global changes in lake temperature and ice cover are not due to natural climate variability. They can only be explained by massive greenhouse gas emissions since the Industrial Revolution. To prove this, the team has developed multiple computer simulations with models of lakes on a global scale, on which they ran a series of climate models. The researchers found clear similarities between the observed changes in lakes and model simulations of lakes in a climate influenced by greenhouse gas emissions. Besides measuring the historical impact of climate change, the team also analysed various future climate scenarios.