science wire

50-year model suggests regional pollution obscured a global trend : Caroline Perry , (617) 496-1351 Climate scientists at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) have discovered that particulate pollution in the late 20th century created a "warming hole" over the eastern United States-that is, a cold patch where the effects of global warming were temporarily obscured.

South-East Asian nations surrounding the Lower Mekong Basin should put construction of hydro-electric dams on the Mekong River on hold if they want to avoid a human security disaster more reminiscent

Fracking requires a minimum distance of at least 0.6 kilometres from sensitive rock strata The chances of rogue fractures due to shale gas fracking operations extending beyond 0.6 kilometres from the injection source is a fraction of one percent, according to new research led by Durham University.

What happens when you put a fully equipped five-story building, which includes two hospital floors, computer servers , fire barriers and even a working elevator, through a series of high-intensity earthquakes? Structural engineers at the University of California, San Diego began to get some answers last week, when they launched a series of tests conducted on the world's largest outdoor shake table at the Englekirk Structural Engineering Center.

A display of material from the Sedgwick Museum records archive, on view to the public from tomorrow, offers a rare glimpse into the daily lives of the scientists who changed the way we think about the world around us.

Space technology landing in Hanover at largest trade fair Propelling the Ariane 5 rocket into space, the Vulcain engine truly reflects Europe's impressive aerospace achievements.

As part of James Cameron's "Deepsea Challenge," Scripps engineer Kevin Hardy (center, with hook) deploys a deep ocean vehicle (DOV), or "lander" that he developed to explore the mysteries of the world's deepest points.

THE University is playing a role in the development of tidal technology that could eventually provide 20% of the UK's electricity.

A three part series starting on BBC2 next Tuesday explores what life in Ancient Rome was really like for normal citizens living in the world's first city of one million people.

Climate scientist aims to understand the convective forces driving El Niño and the South Asian monsoons Harvard President Drew Faust has approved Zhiming Kuang for promotion to the role of full professor with tenure.

Series of tests to assess earthquake and fire readiness of elevators, fire systems, medical equipment, computer servers and other components An overall shot of the five-story building that will be tested at the Englekirk Center at UC San Diego starting April 16.

The past few months have seen a spate of solar flares - bringing spectacular views of the northern lights as far south as Seattle - along with media speculation that the electrical activity could disrupt power grids, satellites or ground airplanes.

Tonight Cambridge vertebrate palaeontologist Professor Jenny Clack is the subject of BBC Four's Beautiful Minds series. The programme looks at her contribution to our understanding of early tetrapods - the first four-legged creatures to walk on earth. One of the most intriguing aspects of the fish-tetrapod transition is the development of limbs that made walking on land possible." Cast your mind back 400 million years.

The second-largest mass extinction in Earth's history coincided with a short but intense ice age during which enormous glaciers grew and sea levels dropped. Although it has long been agreed that the so-called Late Ordovician mass extinction—which occurred about 450 million years ago—was related to climate change, exactly how the climate change produced the extinction has not been known.

In the second report of our Egg Cetera series on egg-related research, let's begin with the age-old question: which came first, the chicken or the egg? Armed with knowledge of evolution, the answer is straightforward. Eggs came first. Next time you crack open an egg, think of its many unusual features, and the hundreds of millions of years of evolution that preceded its appearance." Dinosaurs, the animal group that includes birds and their ancestors, laid eggs.

The latest images released from ESA's Mars Express reveal a series of 'pit-chains' on the flanks of one of the largest volcanoes in the Solar System.

A whale of an app is about to make a splash on iPhones and iPads, providing a hand-held tool for those who need to know if right whales are swimming through their shipping lanes and what to do in such an event.

Professor Mary Fowler, currently Dean of Science and Professor of Geophysics at Royal Holloway, University of London will become the sixth Master of Darwin College on 1st October, succeeding Professor William Brown.

Geothermal experts from the University of Melbourne are working with Department of Primary Industries to demonstrate the efficiency of a form of renewable energy that will play an important role in the energy mix of Victoria's Future.

Columbia University President Lee C. Bollinger and Provost John H. Coatsworth have named Sean C. Solomon, a leading geophysicist whose research has combined studies of the deep e

New head of migration centre starts work The new director of the Sussex Centre for Migration Research, one of the UK's leading research centres on migration, starts work next week (1 April).

Coral off Tahiti has linked the collapse of massive ice sheets 14,600 years ago to a dramatic and rapid rise in global sea-levels of around 14 metres. Previous research could not accurately date the sea-level rise but now an Aix-Marseille University-led team, including Oxford University scientists Alex Thomas and Gideon Henderson, has confirmed that the event occurred 14,650-14,310 years ago at the same time as a period of rapid climate change known as the Bølling warming.

In ancient Earth history, the sun burned as much as 30 percent dimmer than it does now. Theoretically that should have encased the planet in ice, but there is geologic evidence for rivers and ocean sediments between 2 billion and 4 billion years ago. Scientists have speculated that temperatures warm enough to maintain liquid water were the result of a much thicker atmosphere, high concentrations of greenhouse gases or a combination of the two.

AUSTIN, Texas — A new study examining nearly 40 years of satellite imagery has revealed that the floating ice shelves of a critical portion of West Antarctica are steadily losing their grip on adjacent bay walls, potentially amplifying an already accelerating loss of ice to the sea. Rifts along the northern shear margin of Pine Island Glacier (upper right of image).

A new chemical analysis of lunar material collected by Apollo astronauts in the 1970s conflicts with the widely held theory that a giant collision between Earth and a Mars-sized object gave birth to the moon 4.5 billion years ago.

A new project is being launched that will help forecast what the UK's coastline will look like in up to 100 years' time. The four-year £2.9m iCoast project brings together UCL scientists with researchers from a number of other UK universities, research laboratories and leading consultants, to develop new methods that will characterise and forecast long-term changes to coastal sediment systems.

Male and female Balearic Shearwaters may head for different migration hotspots over the summer period a new study suggests. The Balearic Shearwater is a frequent visitor to southern UK coastal waters, yet with just 3,200 estimated breeding pairs left in existence it is the only European seabird to be officially classified as Critically Endangered.

Cambridge, MA - Astronomers have begun to blast 3 million cubic feet of rock from a mountaintop in the Chilean Andes to make room for what will be the world's largest telescope when completed near the end of the decade.

An odd, previously unseen landform could provide a window into the geological history of Mars, according to new research by University of Washington geologists.

A superbly preserved 130-million-year-old crocodile skull, discovered at Swanage in Dorset in 2009, has been described as belonging to a species new to science in a paper by researchers at the University of Bristol. The specimen has been given the name Goniopholis kiplini after Rudyard Kipling, author of The Just So Stories , in recognition of his enthusiasm for the natural sciences.

The water flowing through Venice's famous canals laps at buildings a little higher every year - and not only because of a rising sea level. Although previous studies had found that Venice has stabilized, new measurements indicate that the historic city continues to slowly sink, and even to tilt slightly to the east.

Europe's next weather satellite gears up for launch Following the safe arrival of the MetOp-B weather satellite in Kazakhstan, the sophisticated craft is now being carefully assembled and tested before launch on 23 May.

Yale geophysicist Maureen D. Long has won a $106,108 grant from the National Science Foundation for her continuing study of the Earth's interior.

The growth rate of the Earth's continental crust was high during the first 1.5 billion years of the planet's history then decreased markedly for the next 3 billion years to the present day, according to new research from the University of Bristol, published today [16 March] in Science. This sharp decrease indicates a dramatic change in the way the continental crust was generated and preserved.

Conventional wisdom holds that during the Mesozoic Era, mammals were small creatures that held on at life's edges.

A team of internationally-renowned scientists studying the power of waves, and the effect they have upon gravel beaches and coastal erosion, are bracing themselves for a storm as part of their fieldwork on one of Cornwall’s most notorious and celebrated coastlines.

The first global high-resolution map of the boundary between Earth's crust and mantle - the Moho - has been produced based on data from ESA's GOCE gravity satellite. Understanding the Moho will offer new clues into the dynamics of Earth's interior. Earth's crust is the outermost solid shell of our planet.

Tsunami devestation in Japan's Miyagi prefecture (left). One year later in March 2012, a washed-up boat remains on shore.

It has been a year since a 9.0 magnitude earthquake rocked the northeast coast of Japan on March 11, 2011, generating a tsunami that caused tremendous devastation.

ANN ARBOR, Mich.-A year after the crisis at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, scientists and engineers remain largely in the dark when it comes to fundamental knowledge about how nuclear

The steering committee studying the future of Searsville Dam and Reservoir is preparing to engage consultants, while continuing discussions with local organizations and residents, as it begins sorting through the complicated issues governing the dam's fate.

Fancy making your own slime or chilling out with liquid nitrogen? How about discovering the microscopic world of magma or how plants keep us healthy? If you do then you're in luck as this month sees

These graphs show the amount of IBR, or "malware" activity - and the sharp drops related to the actions by the Egyptian government (top) and Libyan government (bottom) in response to the political demonstrations that occurred in early 2011. The data was observed by the UC San Diego Network Telescope in terms of packets per second, or basic messages.

Imagine the perfect storm. A series of severe volcanic eruptions engulf the globe, spewing ash and sulphur into the atmosphere, causing widespread chaos on our intricate global economy, impacting our ability to grow food and grounding trans-continental air travel.

Why are the UC San Diego name and logo prominently displayed across one of the most famous walls in Florence?

Many of us see a man in the moon—a human face smiling down at us from the lunar surface. The "face," of course, is just an illusion, shaped by the dark splotches of lunar maria (smooth plains formed from the lava of ancient volcanic eruptions).

Jody Bourgeois vividly recalls the great Japan earthquake and tsunami of 2011. She in a university office in Sapporo, Japan, and as the tragedy unfolded she soon became much in demand for reporters bringing the story to people in the United States.

Sunday marks the one-year anniversary of the great Tohoku earthquake and tsunami that devastated Japan, killing more than 16,000 people and causing billions of dollars in damage.