news 2010

Analyzing the isotope ratios of ancient raindrops preserved in soils and lake sediments, Stanford researchers have shown that a wave of mountain building began in British Columbia, Canada, about 49 million years ago and rolled south to Mexico. The finding helps put to rest the idea that there was once a Tibet-like plateau across the western United States that collapsed and eroded into the mountains we see today.

PASADENA, Calif. New technologies developed by NASA and other agencies are revealing surprising insights into a major earthquake that rocked parts of the American Southwest and Mexico in April, including increased potential for more large earthquakes in Southern California. At the fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco, scientists from NASA and other agencies presented the latest research on the magnitude 7.

Catch a falling star and find out where it came from Second meteorite in Australian desert revealed by 'star gazing' cameras ? News Tuesday 13 December 2010 by Colin Smith Scientists are celebrating the discovery of a second meteorite in the Western Australian desert using 'star gazing' cameras. The images from the cameras will reveal the space rock's original orbit in the Solar System.

Iron furnaces that once dotted central Pennsylvania may have left a legacy of manganese enriched soils, according to Penn State geoscientists. This manganese can be toxic to trees, especially sugar maples, and other vegetation. The research, which quantified the amounts of manganese in soil core samples, was part of work done at the Shale Hills Critical Zone Observatory, located in Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania.

BERKELEY — The Berkeley Seismological Laboratory will begin early next year to install earthquake detectors on the southern San Andreas Fault near the town of Cholame to study mysterious tremors discovered beneath the area. Tremors from deep underground have been detected in the area of Cholame, 32 kilometers southeast of Parkfield.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. A group of researchers at MIT, Cornell University and University College London have used one of the world's largest databases of telecommunications records to redraw the map of Great Britain. The research, which will be published in the journal PLoS ONE on Dec. 8, is based on the analysis of 12 billion anonymized records representing more than 95 percent of Great Britain's residential and business landlines.

PASADENA, Calif. Astronomers have discovered that a huge, searing-hot planet orbiting another star is loaded with an unusual amount of carbon. The planet, a gas giant named WASP-12b, is the first carbon-rich world ever observed. The discovery was made using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, along with previously published ground-based observations.

Artist concept of the extremely hot exoplanet WASP-12b and the host star. Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/R. Hurt (SSC) To receive a high-resolution image, please e-mail whitney.b.clavin [a] jpl.nasa (p) gov CAMBRIDGE, Mass. A team led by a former postdoctoral researcher in MIT's Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences and the MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics, recently measured the first-ever planetary atmosphere that is substantially enriched in carbon.

Paper: "Coupled Ocean'Acoustic Prediction of Transmission Loss in a Continental Shelfbreak Region: Predictive Skill, Uncertainty Quantification, and Dynamical Sensitivities" Ocean variability - the perpetual changing of currents, temperatures, salinity and the contours of the seafloor - alters the way sound travels through the water.

When German archaeologists discovered bones in the tomb of Queen Eadgyth in Magdeburg Cathedral, they looked to Bristol to provide the crucial scientific evidence that the remains were indeed those of the English royal. Dr Alistair Pike in the Department of Archaeology and Anthropology tells Hannah Johnson how tiny samples of tooth enamel proved the identity of a Saxon queen.

— A new study led by scientists at the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science suggests that over the next century recruitment of new corals could drop by 73 percent, as rising CO2 levels turn the oceans more acidic. The research findings reveal a new danger to the already threatened Caribbean and Florida reef Elkhorn corals.

CHAMPAIGN, lll. According to a popular hypothesis, grasses such as maize, sugar cane, millet and sorghum got their evolutionary start as a result of a steep drop in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels during the Oligocene epoch, more than 23 million years ago. A new study overturns that hypothesis, presenting the first geological evidence that the ancestors of these and other C4 grasses emerged millions of years earlier than previously established.

Innsbruck climatologists demand a differentiated discussion Glaciers of large mountain regions contribute, to some extent considerably, to the water supply of certain populated areas. However, in a recent study conducted by Innsbruck glaciologists and climatologists it has been shown that there are important regional differences.

On a research ship in the Gulf of Mexico on Tuesday, Nov. 2, seven miles south-west of the site of the Deep Water Horizon oil-spill, a team of scientists discovered a community of corals that includes many recently dead colonies and others that clearly are dying. "We discovered a community of coral that has been impacted fairly recently by something very toxic," said the chief scientist on the cruise, Charles Fisher, who is a professor of biology at Penn State and a member of the research team that selected the site for study.

October 31, 2010 PASADENA, Calif. Light-colored mounds of a mineral deposited on a volcanic cone more than three billion years ago may preserve evidence of one of the most recent habitable microenvironments on Mars. Observations by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter enabled researchers to identify the mineral as hydrated silica and to see its volcanic context.

October 28, 2010 PASADENA, Calif. A research team led by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), both in Pasadena, Calif., has fully characterized a key chemical reaction that affects the formation of pollutants in smoggy air in the world's urban areas.

Team says current models may underestimate ozone levels; findings made by characterizing rates of key chemical reactions PASADENA, Calif.—A team of scientists led by researchers from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) have fully characterized a key chemical reaction that affects the formation of pollutants in smoggy air.

October 19, 2010 PASADENA, Calif. Observations from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope reveal a distant planet with a warm spot in the wrong place. The gas-giant planet, named upsilon Andromedae b, orbits tightly around its star, with one face perpetually boiling under the star's heat. It belongs to a class of planets termed hot Jupiters, so called for their scorching temperatures and large, gaseous constitutions.

Science 07 Oct 10 Oxford University scientists have discovered the explanation for why the world's explosive volcanoes are confined to bands only a few tens of kilometres wide, such as those along the Pacific 'Ring of Fire'. Most of the molten rock that comes out of these volcanoes is rich in water, but the Oxford team has shown that the volcanoes are aligned above narrow regions in the mantle where water-free melting can take place.

AUSTIN, Texas — Paleontologists have unearthed the first extinct penguin with preserved evidence of scales and feathers. The 36-million-year-old fossil from Peru shows the new giant penguin's feathers were reddish brown and grey, distinct from the black tuxedoed look of living penguins. The new species, Inkayacu paracasensis , or Water King, was nearly five feet tall or about twice the size of an Emperor penguin, the largest living penguin today.