Forest ecology: Splinters of the Amazon

By Jeff Tollefson
Nature – Ecologist Thomas Lovejoy tucks his trousers into his socks with a casual warning about chiggers and then hikes off into the Amazon jungle. Shaded by a tall canopy and dense with ferns and underbrush, the old-growth forest looks healthy, but Lovejoy knows better. Three decades ago, the surrounding forest was mowed down and torched as part of a research project, and the effects have spread like a cancer deep into the uncut area. Large trees have perished. The spider monkeys have moved out, as have the army-ant colonies, and many of the birds that depend on them.

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Plant-powered planes show promise

BBC - To the eye, there was nothing remarkable about the aging Falcon 20 jet as it took off from Ottawa International airport in Canada at the end of October in 2012. But the twin-engined, 10-seater plane was in the process of making aviation history.

After a short flight that saw it climb to 30,000 ft (9,000m) over the capital city, the plane touched back down at the airport to secure its world first.

Renewable energy

By Vania de Souza Andrade
Biomassa & Bioenergia - The Rio +20 emphasized subject that has been much discussed recently by governments. With the inclusion on the agenda of the meeting the topic of renewable energy, the world is forced to discuss viable alternatives and implement effectively in practice initiatives to encourage the use of clean energy sources. The most recent example that has news was the Japan, which has approved a plan to encourage the production of clean energy investment that should result in at least $ 9.6 billion in new facilities with generating capacity of 3.2 gigawatts. Such policy incentives for the production of energy Renewable worldwide have been object of study by KPMG, which raised and compared information subsidies by 15 countries, such as feed-in tariff (mechanism of stimulating the production of renewable energy),

Brazil develops global climate change model

By Elton Alisson
Agência FAPESP – Few countries today play a leading role in scientific advances in climate modeling. Most of these countries – the United States, for example – are in the Northern Hemisphere. Australia was the only country in the Southern Hemisphere with this capacity. However, after developing its own climate models for 30 years, the country abandoned its efforts in the area, opting to import and help to improve a model developed by the Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research in Great Britain.

Now, Brazil has filled the void left by Australia, joining the select group of countries capable of developing a model, validating it and simulating global climate changes.

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Source and Photo: Agência FAPESP, 20th March, 2013
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Where agriculture and Climate Change Meet

The CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security’s (CCAFS) “Big Facts” site represents the latest and most authoritative research on topics at the intersection of climate change, agriculture and food security. Explore and share the data and graphics on topics ranging from undernourishment and population to fisheries and forestry. Find out why it’s impossible to address climate issues without including agriculture—and vice versa.

Source and Photo: CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security’s (CCAFS)
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The use of ethanol as fuel in Brazil will complete a century

Embrapa Agroenergy – It has long been used fuel produced by microorganisms in Brazil. Ethanol was first used in Otto cycle engines, about 50 years before the launch of Proalcool. Historical records show that in 1925, a 4-cylinder car brand Ford participated in a race of 230 km in the city of Rio de Janeiro, using 70% ethyl alcohol as fuel. Image of this car is immortalized in the book commemorating 80 years of the creation of the National Institute of Technology and is reproduced in Figure 1. Subsequently, the INT was itself made possible the production of anhydrous ethanol for blending with gasoline, allowing editing of Decree 19717 of February 20, 1931, which required importers of gasoline to blend 5% ethanol to fossil fuel.

Soot Is Warming the World, A Lot

Science – Soot is bad stuff all around, whether you’re breathing it into your lungs or it’s heating the atmosphere by absorbing more of the sun’s energy. But a new 4-year, 232-page assessment of soot’s role in climate finds that the combustion product could be warming the world twice as much as previously thought. The study points policymakers toward the best targets for reducing climate-warming soot emissions while at the same time improving the health of billions of people.

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Source and Photo: By Richard A. Kerr, Science, 15th January, 2013

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Global impacts of changes in land use to be studied

By Elton Alisson
Agência FAPESP - The availability of arable land and land suitable for cattle-raising is expected to decrease globally in coming decades at the same time that it will be necessary to increase food production to meet growing global demand and to improve conservation and the sustainability of non-renewable resources, which are essential to meeting this goal.

A group of researchers from different countries, including Brazil, will begin a series of collaborative studies aimed at increasing understanding and producing scientific knowledge needed to meet these three concurrent and interrelated global challenges……..

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Source and Photos: FAPESP, 23 January 2013

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Cleaner sugarcane fields

By Yuri Vasconcellos
FAPESP - Direct emissions of greenhouse gases from sugarcane plantations are much lower than had been estimated in international scientific literature. This is the main finding of a field study conducted in sugarcane plantations by a group of scientists from different national universities and research centers. The focus of the field study, published in the Global Change Biology Bioenergy journal, was the emission of nitrous acid (N2O), considered the most hazardous greenhouse gas, nearly 300 times more harmful to the environment than carbon dioxide (CO2). In addition, nitrous acid persists for a long time in the atmosphere. Nitrogen-based fertilizers used by farmers to spur the growth of sugarcane are the source of nitrous acid in sugarcane fields. The results of the field study are important because if nitrous acid emissions were to become too high, the environmental benefits of sugarcane ethanol would be questioned. Brazil is the world’s biggest sugarcane grower, with annual production of 596 million tons.

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Source and Photo: FAPESP, September 2012
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Unbeatable forests

By Dinorah Erenos
FAPESP - Suzano, a pioneer in the manufacturing of paper and pulp from eucalyptus, is investing in various research fronts simultaneously in its search for innovations. “In a partnership with a European university, we’ve developed a lignin-based polymer for different applications in the market,” says chemical engineer, Fábio Carucci Figliolino, 52, executive manager of Suzano’s industrial research area, who does not reveal all the details of the new discovery. Lignin is an organic polymer responsible for the rigidity of the cell wall of plants. With the University of Nova Lisboa, in Portugal, and the University of São Paulo (USP), in São Carlos, the company made a paper transistor for use in packaging. The State University of Campinas (Unicamp) is a partner in several projects, including the development of a new natural polymer-based film for packaging, which produces a fat barrier.

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Source and Photo: FAPESP, June 2012
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