On December 11, USDA Forest Service (FS) scientists from the FS Southern Research Station (SRS) unit in Research Triangle Park, NC, along with colleagues from Duke University, published two papers in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS) that provide a more precise understanding of how forests respond to increasing atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2), the major greenhouse gas driving climate change.

Mosquitoes don't mind morning breath. They use the carbon dioxide people exhale as a way to identify a potential food source. But when they bite, they can pass on a number of dangerous infectious diseases, such as malaria, yellow fever, and West Nile encephalitis.

MIT scientists have engineered yeast that can improve the speed and efficiency of ethanol production, a key component to making biofuels a significant part of the U.S. energy supply.

Imagine a poor farmer cutting down a hectare of rainforest, rich in biodiversity, to create a pasture worth US$300. The trees, cleared and burned, release 500 tons of heat-trapping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, contributing to global warming.

New research shows the rate of increase in carbon dioxide emissions more than doubled since the 1990s.

According to the co-Chair of the Global Carbon Project, CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research scientist Dr Mike Raupach, 7.9 billion tonnes of carbon were emitted into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide in 2005 and the rate of increase is accelerating.