The agricultural development of the Lower Yangtze River Basin around Nanjing and Shanghai is ecologically unsustainable and actions are needed soon to reverse its decline, according to a new study.

The region has been in environmental decline since it passed a tipping point in the late 1970s, which further found that:

* the relatively stable pre-1970s 'agriculture-ecology' system in the region reached a tipping point at the end of the 1970s, as reforms in China allowed farmers to grow surplus crops with more fertilizers and pesticides.

* economic development has created a 'trade-off' between gains in agricultural productivity and increasing environmental degradation, with losses of ecosystem services, such as good water quality and stable soils.

Winter floods are important natural 'disturbances' for maintaining species-rich riparian zones along northern watercourses. Movies like The Day After Tomorrow and An Inconvenient Truth exaggerated some of the big effects of a climate gone crazy but less attention is given to smaller, realistic scenarios, like a disturbance in existing winter floods.

Riparian forests are important as they supply habitat, store carbon, provide shading, and filter water. Ice formation and winter floods are significant factors for vegetation and wildlife in northern regions.  According to Ph.D. candidate Lovisa Lind at Umeå universitet, during cold winter days, frazil ice (tiny ice particles) forms in the super-cooled water of open turbulent stream reaches.

Contrary to common belief, politicians are not in the pocket of highly-paid environmental, corporate or union lobbyists. They certainly do what lobbyists want, as long as it isn't getting too much attention, but government gets a lot more responsive when publicity is attached.

Plumes that reached over 100 miles above the surface of Mars, reported by citizen scientist astronomers in March and April 2012, continue to puzzle scientists. In the past, similar events had been seen, but only up to around 50 miles.  

The features developed in less than 10 hours, covering an area of up to 1000 x 500 kilometers, and remained visible for around 10 days, changing their structure from day to day. None of the spacecraft orbiting Mars saw the features because of their viewing geometries and illumination conditions at the time but citizen scientists and their telescopes did. 

Protecting privacy in an age of online big data is difficult and social network data adds its own challenges, something that has been a concern since Science 2.0 began in 2006, when genomic data was really beginning its ascent. 

Youth may be idealized but that doesn't mean older people aren't getting busy - they just don't take pictures on their cell phones and post them to Instagram. A new survey found that people in the early years of marriage have sex more frequently, and sexual activity tapers off over time, but then a rebound occurs after 50 years.