New study maps rate of New Orleans sinking
New Orleans and surrounding areas continue to sink at highly variable rates due to a combination of natural geologic and human-induced processes, finds a new NASA/university study using NASA airborne...
View ArticleNew study calls for old methods of coastal management
Almost 90 years ago, the Mississippi River showed the world its power for destruction with the Great Flood of 1927. Now the river's power is once again on display, this time as a stabilizing force to...
View ArticleUnfertilized cover crop may reduce nutrient losses from Tennessee fields
Using what is known as a Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT), scientists with the University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture have modeled what would happen if Tennessee soybean and corn farmers...
View ArticleResearch shows perennials would reduce nutrient runoff to the Gulf of...
A new study from an Iowa State University agronomist shows that an increase in perennial bioenergy grasses throughout the Corn Belt would lead to a significant reduction in nitrogen moving down the...
View ArticleUpstream trenches, downstream nitrogen
Water quality scientist Laura Christianson is working on a solution to the "dead zone"—an area with dangerously low levels of oxygen— in the Gulf of Mexico. Christianson lives over a thousand miles...
View ArticleRoute 66 becoming green with charging stations, solar panels
Route 66, the historic U.S. highway made famous for attracting gas-guzzling Chevrolet Bel Airs and 1957 Cadillacs traveling from Chicago to Los Angeles, is turning green.
View ArticleScientists release recommendations for building land in coastal Louisiana
Today, a team of leading scientists and community experts with decades of experience released key recommendations to maintain and build land in coastal Louisiana. Their recommendations focus on...
View ArticleLouisiana pols go to court blaming Big Oil for coastal ruin
The oil industry has left a big footprint along the Gulf Coast, where a Delaware-sized stretch of Louisiana has disappeared.
View ArticleCommon US snake actually three different species
New research reveals that a snake found across a huge swath of the Eastern United States is actually three different species. Published in the journal Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, analyses of...
View ArticleMississippi River could leave farmland stranded
If the Mississippi River continues to go unchecked, the farmland on Dogtooth Bend peninsula may be only accessible by boat. According to a University of Illinois study, each successive flood carves a...
View Article$1M dead zone contest: 5 finalists from AUS, Calif, Ill, NY
Teams from Australia, New York and California are among five finalists in Tulane University's $1 million contest to find ways to fight "dead zones" where water holds too little oxygen to support life....
View ArticleClimate change drove population decline in New World before Europeans arrived
What caused the rapid disappearance of a vibrant Native American agrarian culture that lived in urban settlements from the Ohio River Valley to the Mississippi River Valley in the two centuries...
View ArticleStudy rewrites the history of corn in corn country
A new study contradicts decades of thought, research and teaching on the history of corn cultivation in the American Bottom, a floodplain of the Mississippi River in Illinois. The study refutes the...
View ArticleBee decline threatens US crop production
The first-ever study to map U.S. wild bees suggests they are disappearing in the country's most important farmlands—from California's Central Valley to the Midwest's corn belt and the Mississippi River...
View ArticleWill naming the Anthropocene lead to acceptance of our planet-level impact?
"What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet." This phrase—from William Shakespeare's tragic play Romeo & Juliet—is among the most famous acknowledgements in...
View ArticleChicago waterways—still flowing after over 100 years
As the city of Chicago has grown in population and industry since it was established more than 180 years ago, so has its need for clean water. Meeting that growing need has presented many challenges....
View ArticleResearch sheds new light on forces that threaten sensitive coastlines
Wind-driven expansion of marsh ponds on the Mississippi River Delta is a significant factor in the loss of crucial land in the Delta region, according to research published by scientists at Indiana...
View ArticleRare tooth find reveals horned dinosaurs in eastern North America
A chance discovery in Mississippi provides the first evidence of an animal closely related to Triceratops in eastern North America. The fossil, a tooth from rocks between 68 and 66 million years old,...
View Article'Big Muddy' Missouri river needs a plan
As the Missouri River flows across the Great Plains to where it meets the Mississippi River at St. Louis, it accumulates such a large sediment load that it has earned the nickname "Big Muddy." A recent...
View ArticleMississippi mud may hold hope for Louisiana coast
Many studies say capturing Mississippi River sand through diversions is key to rebuilding Louisiana's vanishing coast. But a new study in the open-access journal Earth Surface Dynamics of an old levee...
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