science wire

South America's sombrero uplift In the central Andes mountains, satellites have detected ground deformation under way above a major subterranean magma body. The Altiplano-Puna volcanic province is part of an active volcanic arc in South America's central Andes. Extending through Peru, southwestern Bolivia, Chile and northwestern Argentina, it is home to a number of large calderas formed following catastrophic eruptions.

World's largest magma system forcing protrusion in the Andes, possibly providing clues into the birth of 'super volcanoes' Scientists at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego have used 20 years of satellite data to reveal a geological oddity unlike any seen on Earth. At the border of Argentina, Bolivia and Chile sits the Altiplano-Puna plateau in the central Andes region, home to the largest active magma body in Earth's continental crust and known for a long history of massive volcanic eruptions.

Tube users can visualise deprivation at stations across London thanks to a new version of the iconic underground map created by a geography expert from the University of Sheffield. Unmistakeable to the millions of people who travel on the service each year, the iconic Transport for London tube map has been transformed to illustrate inequality and show the social divides across all of the city's underground stations.

Britain's recent summer washout could become a regular occurrence warns a University of Sheffield climate expert who is part of an international team which has revealed climate change has shifted Arctic winds causing our extreme weather.

Working with humanitarian organisations in Haiti, Cambridge researchers have found that an information system they designed to track how regions recovered from disasters can also be used to support preparedness, planning and project management. —Dr Emily So Benjamin Franklin famously advised fire-threatened Philadelphians in 1736 that "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." Clearly, preventing fires is better than fighting them, but to what extent can we protect ourselves from natural disasters?

Longtime Yale employees Kumpati and Barbara Narendra have established an endowed fund at the University to support the Peabody Museum of Natural History's Mineral and Meteorite Collections.

A book by Cambridge University geographer Emma Mawdsley provides a major analysis of the ways in which the 'rising powers' of the BRICS and others are changing the development landscape.

On 8 June, the high-resolution stereo camera on Mars Express captured a region within the 1800 km-wide and 5 km-deep Argyre basin, which was created by a gigantic impact in the planet's early history. After Hellas, the Argyre impact basin is the second largest on the Red Planet. The name stems from the Greek word 'argyros' (silver) and Argyre was an 'island of silver' in Greek and Roman mythology.

A new species of plant-eating dinosaur with tiny, 1-inch-long jaws has come to light in South African rocks dating to the early dinosaur era, some 200 million years ago.

Research on volcanic eruptions and on the structure of abstract graphs have resulted in two Columbia professors being named MacArthur Fellows, the "genius" awards given to individuals who have shown "extraordinary originality and dedication in their creative pursuits.

A team of scientists concluded that in the warmer and drier Southwest of the near future, widespread tree mortality will cause forest and species distributions to change substantially.

Metop-B delivers first data from polar orbit PR 31 2012 - Four of the instruments on the Metop-B weather satellite (AMSU-A, ASCAT, MHS, GRAS) have been activated this week and are delivering data.

Thanks to assistance from the Berkeley Seismological Laboratory, the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system can now automatically brake trains when earthquakes threaten to rattle the Bay

Speaking at the Third International Symposium on the Ocean in a High-CO2 World this week in Monterey, California, Daniela Schmidt, a geologist from the University of Bristol, warned that current rates of ocean acidification are unparalleled in Earth history.

A map of the earthquakes triggered around the globe within a week of the April 2012 earthquake off the coast of Sumatra (white star).

Minnesota River Basin will serve as the test bed for research MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL (09/26/2012) —The University of Minnesota announced today that it has received a $4.3 million Water Sustainability and Climate grant over five years from the National Science Foundation to lead a study on the interactions between climate, water and land-use systems.

UC San Diego researchers have improved a software tool that can calculate fluctuation in the solar grid caused by changes in the cloud cover.

Radar altimetry gains altitude in Venice Scientists have gathered in the 'floating city' this week to talk about radar altimetry - measuring the heights of the global sea surface, freshwater bodies, land and ice using spaceborne sensors. Held every five years, the '20 Years of Progress in Radar Altimetry Symposium' gives participants the opportunity to focus on the challenges overcome to develop our current understanding of Earth's surface variations observed by altimetry.

Microorganisms that crashed to Earth embedded in the fragments of distant planets might have been the sprouts of life on this one, according to new research from Princeton University, the University of Arizona and the Centro de Astrobiología (CAB) in Spain.

Being able to examine rocks and fossils without having to break them up could be worth its weight in gold for geologists.

ESA hands over control of the Metop-B weather satellite to EUMETSAT PR 30 2012 - Yesterday, at 18:30 local time EUMETSAT took control of Metop-B operations, following the three-day Launch and Early O

Cavenauts return to Earth The international team of astronauts taking part in ESA's caving adventure have returned to Earth after spending six days underground.

Sussex astronomer probes "dark energy" mystery as captured on camera A University of Sussex astronomer has described seeing the first images captured by the world's most powerful sky-mapping camera as a "punching-the-air moment". Kathy Romer is among Sussex researchers involved in analysing data produced by the new Dark Energy Camera, an instrument capable of surveying 300 million galaxies up to eight billion light years away.

Researchers in Japan and Poland will get the keys to help unlock the mysteries of our origins thanks to a machine developed by The Australian National University The Polish Geological Institute and t

As sea ice in the Arctic continues to shrink during this century, more than two thirds of the area with sufficient snow cover for ringed seals to reproduce also will disappear, challenging their survival, scientists report in a new study.

A project which aims to understand why adults choose to go missing has launched a call for people to volunteer their direct experience or stories of their 'missing journeys' via a new website.

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. Across the Appalachian Plateau in Pennsylvania, 50 to 70 percent of shale-gas pads are being developed on slopes that could be prone to erosion and sedimentation problems, according to researchers in Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences.

British team set to embark on ambitious Antarctic mission to sample ancient buried lake After 16 years of planning the countdown is on for one of the most ambitious scientific missions to Antarctica and Durham University experts are awaiting the results with great interest.

A specially created animation will show how Sheffield is connected to the rest of the world more today than it has ever been, as part of the Festival of the Mind in the city this month.

A larger-scale approach to sustainable farming could be more beneficial for wildlife than our current system of farm-based payments, according to University of Leeds researchers.

A new survey suggests that the chamber of molten rock beneath Santorini's volcano expanded 10-20 million cubic metres - up to 15 times the size of London's Olympic Stadium - between January 2011 and April 2012.

The chamber of molten rock beneath Santorini's volcano expanded 10-20 million cubic metres - up to 15 times the size of London's Olympic Stadium - between January 2011 and April 2012, according to a new survey carried out by an international team led by Oxford University and including a scientist from the University of Bristol.

Weather satellite to be delivered in orbit to Eumetsat Later this month, Europe's newest meteorology satellite, MetOp-B, will blast into space from Baikonur Cosmodrome.

After 16 years of planning the countdown is on for one of the most ambitious scientific missions to Antarctica.

Rust - iron oxide - is a poor conductor of electricity, which is why an electronic device with a rusted battery usually won't work. Despite this poor conductivity, an electron transferred to a particle of rust will use thermal energy to continually move or "hop" from one atom of iron to the next. Electron mobility in iron oxide can hold huge significance for a broad range of environment- and energy-related reactions, including reactions pertaining to uranium in groundwater and reactions pertaining to low-cost solar energy devices.

ESA observatory breaks world quantum teleportation record An international research team using ESA's Optical Ground Station in the Canary Islands has set a new distance world record in 'quantum teleportation' by reproducing the characteristics of a light particle across 143 km of open air.

Smelling Grímsvötn While piloting a commercial transatlantic flight last year, Captain Klaus Sievers and his crew got a whiff of an unusual odour.

Today, September 5, marks the 35th anniversary of the launch of Voyager 1, which lifted off in 1977 on a Titan III-Centaur launch system just 16 days after its twin, Voyager 2.

The most-studied mass extinction in Earth history happened 65 million years ago and is widely thought to have wiped out the dinosaurs. New University of Washington research indicates that a separate extinction came shortly before that, triggered by volcanic eruptions that warmed the planet and killed life on the ocean floor.

On the morning of 3 September 2006, a brief flash illuminated the Moon's 'Lake of Excellence' as ESA's SMART-1 mission met its fate on the dusty surface.

by Colin Smith Technology for detecting "Marsquakes" will be developed by an Imperial engineer as part of NASA's next unmanned mission to the red planet, it was announced in August 2012.

California is an island. Always has been. Always will be. A new Stanford Libraries acquisition of 800 maps from one of the nation's top map collectors, Glen McLaughlin, bolsters the claim: California was portrayed as an island on maps for well over a century.

Parts of Arctic Siberia are releasing ten times more carbon into the atmosphere than previously thought, a University of Manchester scientist and an international team of researchers have found. Writing in Nature , the scientists, led by Stockholm University , discovered that much more greenhouse gas is being released into the atmosphere than previously calculated, from and ancient an large carbon pool held in a permafrost along the 7,000 km desolate coast of northernmost Siberian Arctic - dramatically increasing global warming.

The Antarctic Ice Sheet could be an overlooked but important source of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, according to research published today in Nature and conducted by an international team led by Professor Jemma Wadham from the University of Bristol's School of Geographical Sciences.

Commencing this week, the fourteenth Summer Paralympic Games will see King's students, alumni and staff take part in the world's second largest sporting competition.

Laura Lessnau, University of Michigan, (734) 647-1851, llessnau [a] umich (p) edu; Matthew Wright, Consortium for Ocean Leadership, (202) 448-1254, mwright [a] oceanleadership (p) org; Albert Gerdes, MARUM, University of Bremen, Germany, +49-421-218-65540, ANN ARBOR, Mich.-A study in the Aug. 30 issue of Nature provides, in unprecedented detail, the history of a crucial indicator of the relationship between the Earth's carbon cycle and climate processes over the past 55 million years.