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Earth Sciences - Environment - 16.12.2011
Remote wilderness polluted by humans
Nitrogen from human activity has been polluting lakes in the northern hemisphere since the late 19th century. The clear signs of industrialisation can be found even in very remote lakes, thousands of kilometres from the nearest city. This is shown in new research findings published today, Friday, in the journal "Science".

Physics - Earth Sciences - 12.12.2011
Water on Mars: maybe martian microbes
Water on Mars: maybe martian microbes
Scientists from The Australian National University have found that extensive regions of the sub-surface of Mars could contain water and be at comfortable temperatures for terrestrial - and potentially martian - microbes. In a paper published today, researchers from the ANU Planetary Science Institute modelled Mars to evaluate its potential for harbouring inhabitable water.

Physics - Earth Sciences - 09.12.2011
Rover's discovery shows water flowed underground on Mars
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. "This tells a slam-dunk story that water flowed through underground fractures in the rock," said Steve Squyres, Cornell's Goldwin Smith Professor of Astronomy and principal scientific investigator for Opportunity.

Physics - Earth Sciences - 08.12.2011
Ageing stars are slow on the outside but fast on the inside
Ageing stars are slow on the outside but fast on the inside
Scientists have made a new discovery about how old stars called 'red giants' rotate, giving an insight into what our sun will look like in five billion years. The international team of scientists, including University of Sydney astronomers Professor Tim Bedding and Dennis Stello, has discovered red giants have slowed down on the outside, while their cores spin at least 10 times faster than their outer layers.

Environment - Earth Sciences - 07.12.2011
Global sea surface temperature dataset provides new measure of climate sensitivity over the last half million years
Global sea surface temperature dataset provides new measure of climate sensitivity over the last half million years
Scientists at the Universities of Bristol and Southampton have developed important new insight into climate sensitivity - the sensitivity of global temperature to changes in the Earth's radiation balance - over the last half million years. Climate sensitivity is a key parameter for understanding past natural climate changes as well as potential future climate change.

Environment - Earth Sciences - 01.12.2011
CO2 levels plunged as Antarctica froze
A Yale University-led research team has found evidence that carbon dioxide levels in Earth's atmosphere plunged prior to and during the initial icing of Antarctica, about 34 million years ago. The new findings provide further evidence of atmospheric carbon dioxide's role as a major trigger of global climate change.

Earth Sciences - Physics - 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. And, though earthquakes involve millions of tons of rock, a team of University of Pennsylvania and Brown University researchers has helped discover an aspect of friction on the nanoscale that may lead to a better understanding of the disasters.

Physics - Earth Sciences - 28.11.2011
'Star wars' laser offers new insight into Earth's atmosphere
’Star wars’ laser offers new insight into Earth’s atmosphere
'Star wars' laser offers new insight into Earth's atmosphere With the need to understand global change one of today's most pressing scientific challenges, ESA is exploring novel techniques for future space missions. Firing laser pulses between satellites is promising a step up in tracking greenhouse gases.

Earth Sciences - Environment - 26.11.2011
Discoveries provide evidence of a celestial procession at Stonehenge
Discoveries provide evidence of a celestial procession at Stonehenge
Archaeologists have discovered evidence of two huge pits positioned on celestial alignment at Stonehenge. Shedding new light on the significant association of the monument with the sun, these pits may have contained tall stones, wooden posts or even fires to mark its rising and setting and could have defined a processional route used by agriculturalists to celebrate the passage of the sun across the sky at the summer solstice.

Earth Sciences - Environment - 17.11.2011
Massive volcanoes, meteorite impacts delivered one-two death punch to dinosaurs
Massive volcanoes, meteorite impacts delivered one-two death punch to dinosaurs
by Morgan Kelly A cosmic one-two punch of colossal volcanic eruptions and meteorite strikes likely caused the mass-extinction event at the end of the Cretaceous period that is famous for killing the dinosaurs 65 million years ago, according to two Princeton University reports that reject the prevailing theory that the extinction was caused by a single large meteorite.

Physics - Earth Sciences - 16.11.2011
Evidence for
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.

Physics - Earth Sciences - 15.11.2011
Ancient moth's true colors
Ancient moth’s true colors
A research team led by Yale University scientists has for the first time determined the original colors of an ancient moth, based on nearly 50 million-year-old fossils from Germany. The discovery could help scientists learn the colors of a wide variety of long-extinct creatures, including birds, fishes, and other insects, and shed light on color's function and evolution.

Earth Sciences - 10.11.2011
Evidence of Ancient Lake in California's Eel River Emerges
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 legacy found today in the genes of the region's steelhead trout, according to scientists at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and the University of Oregon.

Earth Sciences - 08.11.2011
Plate shapes may hold secrets to earthquakes
Plate shapes may hold secrets to earthquakes
A new study from The Australian National University has brought scientists a step closer to finding out how earthquakes happen. Giampiero Iaffaldano from the ANU Research School of Earth Sciences and colleagues in Italy and Germany used simple but innovative laboratory models to examine the forces behind the movement of plates in the Earth's thick outer shell.

Environment - Earth Sciences - 04.11.2011
Climate engineers weigh the risks of
Climate engineers weigh the risks of "planet hacking" projects
Research investigates how well solar radiation management would combat climate change November 3, 2011 - Let there be no doubt: sun blockers and cloud-seeding machines exist only in the future, in hypotheticals and backup plans. But the threat of damaging climate change is near enough that geoengineering experts are starting to quantitatively weigh the options.

Earth Sciences - 01.11.2011
Where does India end and Eurasia begin?
Where does India end and Eurasia begin?
New research from The Australian National University, the University of Kashmir and the University of Delhi has provided evidence that disputes the widely accepted theory of how India and Eurasia came together. Lloyd White from the Research School of Earth Sciences said the team used the ANU-designed Sensitive High Resolution Ion Microprobe (SHRIMP) to date zircon crystals from north of the ancient plate boundary between India and Eurasia, and found they were the same age as those from the south.

Environment - Earth Sciences - 21.10.2011
No simultaneous warming of northern and southern hemispheres
New study shows no simultaneous warming of northern and southern hemispheres as a result of climate change for 20 000 years. A common argument against global warming is that the climate has always varied. Temperatures rise sometimes and this is perfectly natural is the usual line.

Earth Sciences - Physics - 19.10.2011
Impact study: Princeton model shows fallout of a giant meteorite strike
Impact study: Princeton model shows fallout of a giant meteorite strike
by Morgan Kelly Seeking to better understand the level of death and destruction that would result from a large meteorite striking the Earth, Princeton University researchers have developed a new model that can not only more accurately simulate the seismic fallout of such an impact, but also help reveal new information about the surface and interior of planets based on past collisions.

Earth Sciences - 12.10.2011
Microdots spot on for wasp study
Microdots spot on for wasp study
New research by scientists at The Australian National University will see wasps being tracked in the same way as stolen cars - using specialist microdot technology. The Research School of Biology researchers published a paper in the latest edition of Agricultural and Forest Entomology outlining a successful new tracking technique, which allows them to study insects that were previously too small to track individually.

Physics - Earth Sciences - 12.10.2011
Wet and Mild: Caltech Researchers Take the Temperature of Mars's Past
Wet and Mild: Caltech Researchers Take the Temperature of Mars’s Past
Researchers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have directly determined the surface temperature of early Mars for the first time, providing evidence that's consistent with a warmer and wetter Martian past. By analyzing carbonate minerals in a four-billion-year-old meteorite that originated near the surface of Mars, the scientists determined that the minerals formed at about 18 degrees Celsius (64 degrees Fahrenheit).
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