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Environment - Earth Sciences - 15.10.2021

Social media and AI can measure the aesthetic quality of landscapes
To measure an ecosystem's beauty and the well-being it produces for people can help inform public environmental policy. Scientists at EPFL and Wageningen University in the Netherlands have developed a novel modeling approach for ecosystem assessments based on deep learning and millions of Flickr photos.

Environment - Earth Sciences - 13.10.2021

Climate model shows that Venus could never have had oceans
Whether Venus, one of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets, ever had oceans remains an unsolved puzzle. Although an American study hypothesized involving in particular scientists from the CNRS and University of Versailles-Saint Quentin-en-Yvelines 1 (UVSQ). Using a state-of-the-art climate model, the research team has come up with an alternative scenario to the American study.

Earth Sciences - 11.10.2021

How to better identify dangerous volcanoes
The more water is dissolved in the magma, the greater the risk that a volcano will explode. A new ETH study now shows that this simple rule is only partially true. Paradoxically, high water content significantly reduces the risk of explosion. Volcanologists have long been troubled by two questions: When exactly will a volcano erupt next?

Paleontology - Earth Sciences - 11.10.2021

Oldest footprints of pre-humans identified in Crete
The oldest known footprints of pre-humans were found on the Mediterranean island of Crete and are at least six million years old, says an international team of researchers from Germany, Sweden, Greece, Egypt and England, led by Tübingen scientists Uwe Kirscher and Madelaine Böhme of the Senckenberg Center for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment at the University of Tübingen.

Astronomy / Space Science - Earth Sciences - 08.10.2021

Youngest ever lavas dated from the Moon
Researchers at The University of Manchester, have been involved in an international collaboration to analyse the age and history of some of the Moon's youngest lava flows. The rock samples were collected by the Chinese National Space Agency during the robotic Chang'e-5 mission, which marked the first time any nation had collected rocks from the Moon since 1976.

Astronomy / Space Science - Earth Sciences - 07.10.2021

Mars: first results from the Perseverance rover
Images from Perseverance's French-American instrument SuperCam show that the crater where the rover landed once contained a lake. The SuperCam observations also identified strata containing boulders, related to a major change in the hydrological regime. This study, led by a French researcher, will facilitate selection of the most suitable areas for Perseverance to collect samples.

Earth Sciences - Environment - 05.10.2021

The colonization of the Azores began seven hundred years before the arrival of the Portuguese
The first settlers in the Azores Islands arrived seven hundred years ago before the first Portuguese arrived there in the 15th century as stated in the official historiography. This is one of the main conclusions of a study carried out by an international and multidisciplinary team in which the experts Alberto Sáez and Olga Margalef, from the Department of Earth and Ocean Dynamics of the Faculty of Earth Sciences of the UB, -have taken part.

Environment - Earth Sciences - 04.10.2021

Atmospheric rivers are stable for now - but change is on the way
Yale researchers are charting the course of mighty "rivers" in the sky that are holding steady in the face of climate change - for now. In future decades, however, climate-induced changes to these atmospheric rivers could drastically increase extreme precipitation events in some parts of the world, they report in a new study published Climate Change.

Astronomy / Space Science - Earth Sciences - 30.09.2021

Bombardment of Planets in the Early Solar System
Studies of the asteroid Vesta provide new findings on the formation of Earth-like planets The largest asteroid in our Solar System - Vesta - was exposed to an extensive series of impacts by large rocky bodies much earlier than previously assumed. Researchers of an international collaboration, including earth scientists from Heidelberg University and Freie Universität Berlin, reached this conclusion based on analyses of Vesta meteorites, numerical simulations, and observations carried out with the space probe Dawn in 2011 and 2012.

Environment - Earth Sciences - 28.09.2021

Climate change warning from collapsed ancient cities
Why did some ancient Khmer and Mesoamerican cities collapse between 900-1500CE while their rural surrounds continued to prosper? Intentional adaptation to climate changed conditions may be the answer, suggests a new study, which offers lessons for today. Cities and their hinterlands must build resilience to survive climate stress; this is the grave warning emanating from a study of ancient civilisations and climate change.

Earth Sciences - Environment - 27.09.2021

Dinosaurs’ ascent driven by volcanoes powering climate change
The rise of dinosaurs coincided with environmental changes driven by major volcanic eruptions over 230 million years ago, a new study reveals. The Late Triassic Carnian Pluvial Episode (CPE) saw an increase in global temperature and humidity - creating a major impact on the development of animal and plant life, coinciding with the establishment of modern conifers.

Environment - Earth Sciences - 27.09.2021

Geologically vibrant continents produce higher biodiversity
Using a new mechanistic model of evolution on Earth, researchers at ETH Zurich can now better explain why the rainforests of Africa are home to fewer species than the tropical forests of South America and Southeast Asia. The key to high species diversity lies in how dynamically the continents have evolved over time.

Earth Sciences - 22.09.2021

Continental growth is not a continuous process
One of Earth's unique features is that it has continents. Contrary to many theories, the continents have always been rich in silica (which is found in quartz for example). The continents did not form continuously over time but result from episodic events throughout Earth's history. The continents, a specific feature of our planet, still hold many secrets.

Earth Sciences - Environment - 17.09.2021

Extreme volcanism did not cause the massive extinction of species in the late Cretaceous
A study published in the journal Geology rules out that extreme volcanic episodes or peaks in the eccentricity of the Earth's orbit around the sun had any influence on the massive extinction of species in the late Cretaceous. The results confirm the hypothesis that it was a giant meteorite impact what caused the great biological crisis that ended up with the dinosaur lineages and other marine and terrestrial organisms 66 million years ago.

Environment - Earth Sciences - 16.09.2021

Good for groundwater - bad for crops? Plastic particles release pollutants in upper soil layers
Study shows that microplastics do not contribute to the mobility of organic pollutants in agricultural soils In agriculture, large quantities of nanoand microplastics end up in the soil through compost, sewage sludge and the use of mulching foils. The plastic particles always carry various pollutants with them.

Physics - Earth Sciences - 10.09.2021

Acoustic illusions
Researchers have devised an ingenious method of using acoustics to conceal and simulate objects. When listening to music, we don't just hear the notes produced by the instruments, we are also immersed in its echoes from our surroundings. Sound waves bounce back off the walls and objects around us, forming a characteristic sound effect - a specific acoustic field.

Environment - Earth Sciences - 09.09.2021

Ancient sea ice core sheds light on modern climate change
A 170 m record of marine sediment cores extracted from Adélie Land in Antarctica by the Integrated Ocean Drilling Programme is yielding new insights into the complicated relationship between sea ice and climate change. In a new study published , researchers at the University of Birmingham, have collaborated in an international project to identify how fluctuations in sea ice levels have interconnected with both algae blooms and weather events linked to El Nino over the past 12,000 years.

Environment - Earth Sciences - 07.09.2021

Nature’s archive reveals Atlantic tempests through time
Paleo storm hunters at Rice need data to refine the record of history's hurricanes Atlantic hurricanes don't just come and go. They leave clues to their passage through the landscape that last centuries or more. Rice scientists are using these natural archives to find signs of storms hundreds of years before satellites allowed us to watch them in real time.

Astronomy / Space Science - Earth Sciences - 30.08.2021

The forecast for Mars? Otherworldly weather predictions
As scientists prepare for crewed research missions to nearby planets and moons, they've identified a need for something beyond rovers and rockets. They need accurate weather forecasts. Without them, any trip to the surface may be one dust storm away from disaster. A new Yale study helps lay the foundation for more accurate, otherworldly forecasts by taking a phenomenon related to Earth's jet stream and applying it to weather patterns on Mars and Titan, Saturn's largest moon.

Earth Sciences - Environment - 26.08.2021

The cost of coal: Identifying the movement of mercury emissions into nearby waterways
Researchers from Monash University and Australian National University (ANU) have assessed the impact of high levels of mercury in the sediments of Lake Macquarie in New South Wales due to nearby coal-fired power plants. Many estuaries across Australia are at risk of increasing levels of metal contamination, particularly mercury (Hg) contamination from nearby coal-fired power plants and their associated ash dams.