news 2010

Ancient blob-like creature of the deep revealed by scientists 3D model breathes new life into extinct ancient creature of the deep A unique blob-like creature that lived in the ocean approximately 425 million years ago is revealed in a 3D computer model in research published today in the journal Biology Letters.

A fossil found more than 100 years ago in a cave in Switzerland may belong to the oldest domestic dog in the world.

History is set to be rewritten after an archaeology team led by the University of Birmingham and the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Archaeological Prospection and Virtual Archaeology in Austria discovered a major ceremonial monument less than one kilometre away from the iconic Stonehenge. The incredible find has been hailed by Professor Vince Gaffney, from the University's IBM Visual and Spatial Technology Centre | , as one of the most significant yet for those researching the UK's most important prehistoric structure.

PASADENA, Calif.-That dry, dusty moon overhead? Seems it isn't quite as dry as it's long been thought to be. Although you won't find oceans, lakes, or even a shallow puddle on its surface, a team of geologists at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), working with colleagues at the University of Tennessee, has found structurally bound hydroxyl groups (i.e., water) in a mineral in a lunar rock returned to Earth by the Apollo program.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. Understanding the processes that cause volcanic eruptions can help scientists predict how often and how violently a volcano will erupt. Although scientists have a general idea of how these processes work - the melting of magma below the volcano causes liquid magma and gases to force their way to Earth's surface ' eruptions happen so rarely, and often with little warning, that it can be difficult to study them in detail.

WASHINGTON - The first spacecraft designed by NASA to orbit Mercury is giving scientists a new perspective on the planet's atmosphere and evolution. Launched in August 2004, the Mercury Surface, Space Environment, Geochemistry and Ranging spacecraft, known as MESSENGER, conducted a third and final flyby of Mercury in September 2009.

ANN ARBOR, Mich.—When paleontologist Iyad Zalmout went looking for fossil whales and dinosaurs in Saudi Arabia, he never expected to come face-to-face with a significant, early primate fossil. But the skull he stumbled upon provides new insights into what the last common ancestor of apes and monkeys may have looked like and when the two lineages went their separate ways.

Excavations of a hill fort located near one of the largest burial mounds in Eastern France have been carried out by an archaeologist from the University of Bristol. Among the many finds is a bronze brooch: a masterpiece of early Celtic art with a duck's head motif, its eyes inlaid with Mediterranean coral.

AUSTIN, Texas — An international team of geoscientists has uncovered geological differences between two segments of an earthquake fault that may explain why the 2004 Sumatra Boxing Day Tsunami was so much more devastating than a second earthquake generated tsunami three months later. This could help solve what was a lingering mystery for earthquake researchers.

A major conference, organised by scientists at The University of Manchester to showcase vital work on the effect of geographic chemicals begins today. The 'Geographic Chemicals in Groundwaters and Soils' event will showcase the work of researchers in the AquaTRAIN Marie Curie Research Training Network.

That's what Juliet Biggs, of Oxford University's Department of Earth Sciences , and colleagues have been doing by using satellites to investigate volcanic rifts in intimate detail. I asked Juliet about how satellite radar images are giving insights into what's happening beneath our feet, and could even help us to tap geothermal energy from inside the planet.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. World hunger is often seen as the result of overpopulation, bad geography or natural or human-made disasters. But a new book, 'The Atlas of World Hunger,' reveals that the contours and causes of hunger are more complex - and in some ways more easily addressed - than those old assumptions suggest.

Sea ice in the North Atlantic may have reorganized Earth's winds, spreading warmth from the northern hemisphere to south at the end of the last ice age. Credit: NASA. Scientists still puzzle over how Earth emerged from its last ice age, an event that ushered in a warmer climate and the birth of human civilization.

29 June 2010 The first global gravity model based on GOCE satellite data has been presented at ESA's Living Planet Symposium. ESA launched GOCE in March 2009 to map Earth's gravity with unprecedented accuracy and resolution. The model, based on only two months of data, from November and December 2009, shows the excellent capability of the satellite to map tiny variations in Earth's gravity.

Was Venus once a habitable planet? _M.jpg" width="200" height="150" border="0" alt="Artist's concept of lightning on Venus" title="Artist's concept of lightning on Venus" One difference stands out: Venus has very little water. Were the contents of Earth's oceans to be spread evenly across the world, they would create a layer 3 km deep.

ANN ARBOR, Mich.—California's San Andreas fault is notorious for repeatedly generating major earthquakes and for being on the brink of producing the next "big one" in a heavily populated area. But the famously violent fault also has quieter sections, where rocks easily slide against each other without giving rise to damaging quakes.

PASADENA, Calif. NASA has released the first-ever airborne radar images of the deformation in Earth's surface caused by a major earthquake - the magnitude 7.2 temblor that rocked Mexico's state of Baja California and parts of the American Southwest on April 4. The data reveal that in the area studied, the quake moved the Calexico, Calif., region in a downward and southerly direction up to 80 centimeters (31 inches).

Satellite tracking has shown that the Pine Island Glacier, one of Antarctica's largest ice streams, is accelerating and thus contributing a growing share of the melt water raising sea levels worldwide. A team of scientists visiting the region last year discovered one reason for the speed-up: warm ocean water eating away at the glacier's base has lifted the ice off a rocky underwater ridge that once slowed the glacier's advance into the sea.

Satellite tracking has shown that the Pine Island Glacier, one of Antarctica's largest ice streams, is accelerating and thus contributing a growing share of the melt water raising sea levels worldwide. A team of scientists visiting the region last year discovered one reason for the speed-up: warm ocean water eating away at the glacier's base has lifted the ice off a rocky underwater ridge that once slowed the glacier's advance into the sea.

The Princeton University scientists and others in the Borexino Collaboration have detected geoneutrinos at the Gran Sasso National Laboratory of the Italian Institute of Nuclear Physics. The discovery could explain how reactions taking place in the planet's deep interior affect events on the surface.