science wire

The Quake-Catcher Network, a web of sensors plugged into the computers of 2,000 volunteers, detected the shaking of an earthquake this week in less time than it took the motion to travel about 45 mile

I have discovered that sediments from these areas contain millions of tiny faecal pellets that have been produced by burrowing invertebrates (worms)" —Matthew Kuo Under the Microscope is a collection of videos that show glimpses of the natural and man-made world in stunning close-up. They are released every Monday and Thursday and you can see them here: io9.com.

Current rates of ocean acidification are unparalleled in Earth's history, according to new research from an international team of scientists which compiled all the evidence of global warming and acidifying oceans from the past 300 million years.

At Geocentrum researchers keep tabs on the Earth’s protective magnetic field.Their areas of study include whether the magnetic field is showing signs of switching poles – something which has already happened many times in the history of the planet.

ANN ARBOR, Mich.-Fifty million years ago, India slammed into Eurasia, a collision that gave rise to the tallest landforms on the planet, the Himalaya Mountains and the Tibetan Plateau. India and Eurasia continue to converge today, though at an ever-slowing pace. University of Michigan geomorphologist and geophysicist Marin Clark wanted to know when this motion will end and why.

A year-long study by Yale University paleontologists concludes that two related horned dinosaurs are different animals and not adult and juvenile versions of the same.

Over the past few years, the genre of 'nature writing' has seen a new sense of urgency, fostered by a growing awareness of a natural world under pressure.

An environmental disaster that occurred in Hungary in 2010 could lead to a new way of removing carbon dioxide emissions from the atmosphere. In October 2010 around 1 million cubic metres of highly caustic 'red mud' sludge was released from a waste containment facility near the Hungarian town of Ajka when a retaining wall failed.

Washington shipyard chosen to construct new 'ocean class' ship to support a mix of vital areas of research and education AGOR 28, owned by the Office of Naval Research and operated by Scripps, will be launched in 2015.

A University of Glasgow academic is flying to Japan to visit the Fukushima Prefecture, where three nuclear reactors were seriously damaged in the earthquake and subsequent tsunami of March 2011.

Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego received a string of major private donations in early 2012 that exceeded $5.2 million. $3.5 million from the David Delacour estate $1 million from the W.M. Keck Foundation $680,000 from the Waitt Foundation $300,000 from the Lowe Family Foundation The gifts will help ensure the future excellence of the institution for many years ahead: $3.

Scripps researchers, NOAA and TE SubCom agree to pursue science ports on transcontinental fiber optic cable lines to help monitor earthquakes, tsunamis and other forces Marine scientists and a commer

Human activity is likely a greater threat to coastal groundwater used for drinking water supplies than rising sea levels from climate change, according to a study conducted by geoscientists from the University of Saskatchewan and McGill University in Montreal.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. Geologists are hoping to learn a great deal about geologic carbon sequestration from injecting 1 million metric tons of carbon dioxide into sandstone 7,000 feet beneath Decatur, Ill.

Inventiveness in the naming of babies in the United States suddenly increased in the late 1980s, having changed little during the previous hundred years. A new study from the Universities of Bristol and Durham considers what this tells us about the competing forces at work in popular culture: globalization and local innovation.

Climate warming caused by greenhouse gases is very likely to increase the variability of summertime temperatures around the world by the end of this century, a University of Washington climate scientist said Friday. The findings have major implications for food production. Current climate models do not adequately reflect feedbacks from the relationship between the atmosphere and soil, which causes them to underestimate the increase of variability in summertime temperatures, said David Battisti, a UW professor of atmospheric sciences.

VANCOUVER, British Columbia — Hydraulic fracturing of shale formations to extract natural gas has no direct connection to reports of groundwater contamination, based on evidence reviewed in a study released Thursday by the Energy Institute at The University of Texas at Austin. The study, released at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Vancouver, British Columbia, found that many problems ascribed to hydraulic fracturing are related to processes common to all oil and gas drilling operations, such as casing failures or poor cement jobs.

A new model by Scripps researchers details a rupture inside the Farallon slab that caused a magma flow now known as Columbia River flood basalt in the Western U.S. Like a stream of air shooting out of an airplane's broken window to relieve cabin pressure, scientists at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego say lava formations in eastern Oregon are the result of an outpouring of magma forced out of a breach in a massive slab of Earth.

Fieldwork in Peru's Andes Mountains is demanding, especially when it involves hauling heavy equipment to remote sites that are accessible only by traversing the region's rugged terrain. But the task of collecting insects for the study of vector-borne diseases and other purposes has become a little less onerous since a Yale School of Public Health researcher and colleagues designed a lighter - and perhaps better - trap.

The University of Glasgow unveiled an ambitious space technology research programme today (Monday 13 February) at an event attended by the Minister of State for Universities and Science, the Rt Hon David Willetts MP.

He took over the role at the annual general meeting of the society on Thursday 9 February, from The Earl of Lindsay who had been in post since 2005.

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa.

— The University of Miami's Rosenstiel School of Marine & Atmospheric Science announced that it has received a challenge grant for $700,000 from the Miami-based Batchelor Foundation to support its exploration research efforts.

Just what was life like in the ancient world? Michael Scott, Affiliated Lecturer in the Faculty of Classics and Research Associate at Darwin College, shares some of his thoughts as he prepares to talk this Friday on 'Life in the Ancient World' as part of the Darwin Lecture series 2012.

Geologists at Yale University have proposed a new theory to describe the formation of supercontinents, the epic process by which Earth's major continental blocks combine into a single vast landmass. The new model radically challenges the dominant theories of how supercontinents might take shape. In a paper published Feb.

From prediction of algal blooms that could poison seafood to identification of subseafloor oil deposits to an effort for the military to borrow camouflage techniques from octopi, the cross-section of research presented at Scripps Institution of Oceanography Jan. 19 ran the gamut from practical to fantastical.

— Coral Gables — In a study published in the journal Geology, scientists at the University of Miami suggest that significant changes in the carbon isotopic composition of carbonates, which occurred prior to the major climatic event (Snowball Earth) of more than 500 million years ago, are unrelated to worldwide glacial events.

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. Some climate cooling caused by past volcanic eruptions may not be evident in tree-ring reconstructions of temperature change, because large enough temperature drops lead to greatly shortened or even absent growing seasons, according to climate researchers who compared tree-ring temperature reconstructions with model simulations of past temperature changes.

A new study shows that land-cover changes, in particular deforestation, in the vicinity of glaciers do not have an impact on glacier loss. However, the study, in which Innsbruck climate researcher were directly involved, also shows that deforestation decreases precipitation in mid elevation zones, which affects the quality of life of the population living in the surrounding areas.

Mars Express reveals wind-blown deposits on Mars New images from ESA's Mars Express show the Syrtis Major region on Mars. Once thought to be a sea of water, the region is now known to be a volcanic province dating back billions of years. Syrtis Major can be spotted from Earth even with relatively small telescopes - the near-circular dark area on the planet stretches over 1300 x 1500 km.

In a first for the UK, a new map detailing Scotland's wild areas is being published today by Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH). Some of the country's wildest landscapes are already identified and protected if they fall within national parks or national scenic areas. But many other wild areas are not identified in any way.

Why did Renaissance shoppers fill their baskets with rosaries, crucifixes, Christ-dolls and devotional paintings? A new study by historian Mary Laven investigates the significance of Catholic clutter, as she explains.

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. Michael Mann and David Pollard, both scientists in Penn State's College of Earth and Mineral Sciences, have been elected as Fellows of the American Geophysical Union for exceptional contributions in original research in climate change.

Geological evidence of earthquakes and tsunamis aids in anticipating the timing and magnitude of future events.

A collection of images currently displayed in Rockefeller Memorial Chapel tells two stories—a story of devastation and another about the resiliency of the people of Japan.

Voyage to the most isolated base on Earth Alexander Kumar, the next ESA-sponsored crewmember to stay in Concordia, has arrived safely at the research base in Antarctica.

Verner Suomi's career — even his life — may not have been as long and illustrious had he not been an inveterate problem solver.

Death Valley's half-mile-wide Ubehebe Crater turns out to have been created 800 years ago—far more recently than generally thought.

The CFI awards more than $1 million to seven McGill researchers The Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) has announced it has awarded $1,072,471 to McGill University under its Leaders of Opportunity Fund (LOF).

An excavation at a site in South Africa has unearthed the 190-million-year-old dinosaur nesting site of the prosauropod dinosaur Massospondylus-revealing significant clues about the evolution of complex reproductive behaviour in early dinosaurs. The newly unearthed dinosaur nesting ground predates previously known nesting sites by 100 million years, according to study authors.

The two faces of Titan's dunes A new analysis of radar data from the international Cassini spacecraft has revealed regional variations amongst Titan's sand dunes. The result yields new clues to the giant moon's climatic and geological history. Dune fields are common on Titan, the largest moon of Saturn, second only to the seemingly uniform plains that cover most of the surface.

The seat of the Khmer Empire in Cambodia mysteriously collapsed in the 15th century. Now a University of Cambridge Gates Scholar has pieced together its climate history and put forward a compelling new theory to explain its demise. There is a lot we can learn from studying how climate change affected populations in the past which could help us to devise ways of coping in the future." —Mary Beth Day What caused the collapse of the Cambodian city of Angkor, the largest preindustrial city in the world, 600 years ago?

Mary Anning's fossil discoveries revealed an 'ancient Dorset', and were influential contributions to the blossoming science of palaeontology during the early 19th century.

marks the 100th anniversary of the first British team reaching the South Pole. Founded as a memorial to Captain Scott and his four companions, the Scott Polar Research Institute (SPRI) is marking the occasion with two days of celebrations.

A University-led project to explore a subglacial lake in Antarctica has concluded its first phase.

Without human carbon dioxide emissions the next ice age would be imminent, according to a Nature Geoscience study led by a UCL scientist.

A demonstration project on the southeastern tip of Australia has helped to verify that depleted natural gas reservoirs can be repurposed for geologic carbon sequestration, which is a climate change mitigation strategy that involves pumping CO2 deep underground for permanent storage. The project, which includes scientists from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), also demonstrated that depleted gas fields have enough CO2 storage capacity to make a significant contribution to reducing global emissions.