news 2010

Environmental Sciences - Earth Sciences - 16.05
Research focused on underground solution to greenhouse gas challenges
While many are focusing on atmospheric solutions to reduce greenhouse gases, some researchers are setting their sights on the ground - deep underground. Li Li , an assistant professor of energy and mineral engineering at Penn State, is investigating geologic carbon sequestration (storing carbon dioxide deep beneath the surface of the Earth) as a way to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Earth Sciences - Physics/Astronomy - 10.05
Researchers Gain Greater Insight into Earthquake Cycles
For those who study earthquakes, one major challenge has been trying to understand all the physics of a fault—both during an earthquake and at times of "rest"—in order to know more about how a particular region may behave in the future.

Earth Sciences - Life Sciences - 8.05
Plastic Trash Altering Ocean Habitats, Scripps Study Shows
SEAPLEX researchers collected an alarming amount of small bits of broken down plastic floating across thousands of miles of open ocean. Photo credit: Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego A 100-fold upsurge in human-produced plastic garbage in the ocean is altering habitats in the marine environment, according to a new study led by a graduate student researcher at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego.

Earth Sciences - Chemistry - 18.04
Evidence for a geologic trigger of the Cambrian explosion
The oceans teemed with life 600 million years ago, but the simple, soft-bodied creatures would have been hardly recognizable as the ancestors of nearly all animals on Earth today. Then something happened.

Earth Sciences - Life Sciences - 8.03
Iridescent, Feathered Dinosaur Offers Fresh Evidence That Feathers Evolved to Attract Mates
AUSTIN, Texas — A team of American and Chinese researchers has revealed the detailed feather pattern and color of Microraptor , a pigeon-sized, four-winged dinosaur that lived about 120 million years ago.

Earth Sciences - Environmental Sciences - 5.03
Study Links Dust to Increased Glacial Melting
— Coral Gables — A University of Miami-led study has established a link between large dust storms on Iceland and glacial melting. The dust is both accelerating glacial melting and contributing important nutrients to the surrounding North Atlantic Ocean.

Earth Sciences - Environmental Sciences - 2.03
Oceans May Be Growing More Acidic at Unprecedented Rate
James Zachos, a paleoceanographer at University of California, Santa Cruz, with a core of sediment from some 56 million years ago, when the oceans underwent acidification that could be an analog to ocean changes today.

Environmental Sciences - Earth Sciences - 6.02
Researchers Uncover a Mechanism to Explain Dune Field Patterns
In a study of the harsh but beautiful White Sands National Monument in New Mexico, University of Pennsylvania researchers have uncovered a unifying mechanism to explain dune patterns. The new work represents a contribution to basic science, but the findings may also hold implications for identifying when dune landscapes like those in Nebraska's Sand Hills may reach a "tipping point" under climate change, going from valuable grazing land to barren desert.

Physics/Astronomy - Earth Sciences - 25.01
A galactic magnetic field in a lab bolsters astrophysical theory
ANN ARBOR, Mich. - Why is the universe magnetized? It's a question scientists have been asking for decades. Now, an international team of researchers including a University of Michigan professor have demonstrated that it could have happened spontaneously, as the prevailing theory suggests.

Chemistry - Earth Sciences - 18.01
Study Confirms Estimates of Gulf Oil Spill Rate
— Coral Gables — By combining detailed chemical measurements in the ocean, oil slick, and air, scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the University of Miami, and elsewhere have independently estimated how fast gases and oil were leaking during the BP Deepwater Horizon Gulf oil spill in 2010.

Life Sciences - Earth Sciences - 9.01
Tortoise species thought to be extinct still lives, genetic analysis reveals
Dozens of giant tortoises of a species believed extinct for 150 years may still be living at a remote location in the Galápagos Islands, a genetic analysis conducted by Yale University researchers reveals.

Physics/Astronomy - Earth Sciences - 9.12.2011
Rover’s discovery shows water flowed underground on Mars
NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity has found a bright vein of a mineral, apparently gypsum, deposited by water. Analysis of the vein will help researchers better understand the history of wet environments on Mars.

Earth Sciences - Physics/Astronomy - 30.11.2011
Earthquake Friction Effect at the Nanoscale
Earthquakes are some of the most daunting natural disasters that scientists try to analyze. Though the earth's major fault lines are well known, there is little scientists can do to predict when an earthquake will occur or how strong it will be.

Physics/Astronomy - Earth Sciences - 16.11.2011
Evidence for “Great Lake” on Europa and Potential New Habitat for Life
AUSTIN, Texas — In a significant finding in the search for life beyond Earth, scientists from The University of Texas at Austin and elsewhere have discovered what appears to be a body of liquid water the volume of the North American Great Lakes locked inside the icy shell of Jupiter's moon Europa.

Earth Sciences - 10.11.2011
Evidence of Ancient Lake in California’s Eel River Emerges
Caltech-led team documents ecological changes that may explain the two different populations of once-related steelhead trout found today in the river A catastrophic landslide 22,500 years ago dammed the upper reaches of northern California's Eel River, forming a 30-mile-long lake—which has since disappeared—and leaving a living le