science wire

Savannas and grasslands in drier climates around the world store more carbon than scientists previously thought and are helping to slow the rate of climate warming, according to a new study. Because drier savannas are more sensitive to changes in fires, the decreases in burned area in those ecosystems has resulted in soils storing more carbon than they are releasing Adam Pellegrini The study estimates that soils in savanna-grassland regions worldwide have gained 640 million metric tons of stored carbon over the past two decades.

Richard Binzel describes how asteroid dirt and dust delivered by OSIRIS-Rex, with help from MIT, may reveal clues to the solar system's origins. On Sunday morning, a capsule the size of a mini-fridge dropped from the skies over western Utah, carrying a first-of-its-kind package: about 250 grams of dirt and dust plucked from the surface of an asteroid.

It wasn't a glitzy or dung-free task by any stretch of the imagination.

Believed to be a remnant of powerful ancient debris flows, Gediz Vallis Ridge is a destination long sought by the rover's science team.

Increase in storm frequency and magnitude would make it difficult for the dunes to recover As we approach the first anniversary of hurricane Fiona, hurricane Lee is tracking to hit the Atlantic coast.

This past spring, the Amaryllis-Amagas mission took place off the coast of Brazil, aboard the legendary Marion Dufresne, the largest ship of the French oceanographic fleet.

The University of Washington is a lead partner on a new multi-institution earthquake research center based at the University of Oregon that the National Science Foundation announced Sept.

EPA eliminates protections for U.S. wetlands, a major setback for water quality As much as half of the nation's wetlands were recently removed from federal regulations that protected th

It's the perfect fuel for storms: warm ocean water, at least 80 degrees Fahrenheit. Without it, powerful storms like Andrew, Katrina, and Ian would never have formed.

Like the 60,000 miles of arteries and veins that course throughout the human body, ocean currents are the lifeblood of our planet-some flowing short distances, others circling the globe, but all playing a critical role in regulating climate. One of the most complex system of currents, the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, or AMOC, is a global conveyor belt, distributing heat throughout the Atlantic by carrying warmer waters north and cooler waters south.

Freshwater ecosystems account for half of global emissions of methane, a potent greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming. Rivers and streams, especially, are thought to emit a substantial amount of that methane, but the rates and patterns of these emissions at global scales remain largely undocumented.

Joseph Prospero scaled the 55-foot tower at Ragged Point so many times during his decades-long stint overseeing a specialized University of Miami laboratory on the east coast of Barbados that he lost count.

By Falko Schoklitsch The effects of solar storms on the Earth's atmosphere can cause satellites to crash.

In the blockbuster 1996 movie Twister , meteorologists successfully deployed small weather sensors into the heart of an active tornado to collect data and revolutionize severe weather safety.

Streets and other built surfaces in the region absorbed and retained heat long after sunset and grew hotter over many days of persistent high temperatures.

Shortly before the rover's 11th anniversary on the Red Planet, its team helped guide it up a steep, slippery slope to examine meteor craters.

Ancient rocks from the Isle of Rum in northwest Scotland are playing an important role in an international space mission to discover more about Mars. It's amazing to think that somewhere right here in the UK might be able to tell us something about the geology of a different planet Helen Williams A group of scientists, including from the University of Cambridge, have this week been collecting samples of rock from the NatureScot National Nature Reserve (NNR) as part of the NASA and European Space Agency (ESA)-s Mars Sample Return Program.

Ancient rocks from the Isle of Rum are playing an important role in an international space mission to discover more about Mars.

The spinning, solar-powered spacecraft will take another look of the fiery Jovian moon on July 30. When NASA's Juno mission flies by Jupiter's fiery moon Io on Sunday, July 30, the spacecraft will be making its closest approach yet, coming within 13,700 miles (22,000 kilometers) of it.

Georges Beaudoin's Agnico Eagle-Eldorado Research Chair in Mineral Exploration (AEM-ELD) has been renewed for a third five-year term.

The mid-latitude storms would sometimes come like beads on a string, one right after another, stalling the research team's efforts to deploy the critical ocean-monitoring instruments that sat secured on the deck of the 273-foot Roger Revelle. But despite the barrage of cyclonic storms, science prevailed.

Officially, we are currently living in the geological epoch known as the Holocene. But the profound impact of human activities on the Earth's systems has triggered discussions regarding a new era: the Anthropocene.

From the top of a hill on Long Island, Bahamas, Paloma Cartwright looked down into a valley and watched as everything she owned literally got swept away.

The Grand Départ is scheduled for 1 July, but the preparations for this year's Tour de France started more than 400 million years ago, when the rocks of the Central Massif and the Vosges Mountains were formed.

Using applied mathematics, Yunan Yang finds solutions to the inverse problems that arise in seismology, weather forecasts, and machine learning.

University of Oxford researchers are looking forward to engaging thousands of members of the public with their leading research on volcanic eruptions, plus the health and environmental impacts of meat consumption.

Professor, Department of Earth Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar (IITGN) Affiliated Professor 2022-24 - (June 2022) June 19 to July 17, 2023 (stay planned in 2024) Inviting Researcher: Hervé Piégay Prof. Vikrant Jain is a river scientist with basic training in geosciences.

With the waves inside the 49-foot-long Air-Sea Interaction Saltwater Tank (ASIST) looking like small ripples rushing to a shoreline, University of Miami doctoral candidate Katie Simi stood on a small step ladder and dropped a clump of sargassum seaweed into the current.

This summer's Chesapeake Bay "dead zone” is expected to be significantly smaller than the long-term average, according to a forecast released today by researchers from the University of Michigan, Chesapeake Bay Program, University of Maryland and U.S. Geological Survey.

Caribbean seagrasses provide services worth $255B annually, including vast carbon storage, study shows Study: The natural capital of seagrass beds in the Caribbean: evaluating their ecosystem service

As climate change brings devastating storms and rising tides to California, many coastal communities face another threat, one that's hidden and trickling up from below.

MIT's Senseable City Lab popularized visual tools that show how cities work. A new book reflects on the promise of dynamic urban maps. There are many ways to map New York City, including street maps of Manhattan's famous grid, the brightly colored subway map, and souvenir maps of skyscrapers. Those are all static maps of long-term features, however.

Climatologist Otto Klemm and his students research clouds with ground contact Up on Mount Lulin in Taiwan, at an altitude of 2,862 metres, Robin Achtstetter und Madeleine Falkowski did everything they could to avoid missing the gathering fog.

Maria A. Rodrigo and Francesc Mesquita, researchers at the Cavanilles Institute of Biodiversity and Evolutionary Biology (ICBiBE) of the University of Valencia, have participated in the discove

Heavier rain, longer droughts, melting glaciers: climate change has a dramatic impact on the global water cycle.

In his presentation, "Indigenous Cartography and Cartography of the Indigenous,” data scientist Timothy Norris highlighted the cultural discourse and indigeneity tensions that mapmaking has generated, especially over the past three centuries.

A team of scientists including a University of Michigan aquatic ecologist is forecasting a summer "dead zone” in the Gulf of Mexico that will cover an estimated 4,155 square miles, which is below the 5,364-square-mile average over the 36-year history of dead zone measurements in the region.

20 Years of the Mars Express Spacecraft: Planetologists at Freie Universität Berlin Publish Global Color Mosaic of Mars with Never Before Seen Details Exactly 20 years ago, the European space probe ,,Mars Express" was launched to Earth's "red" neighboring planet.

Twenty-year anniversary of the Mars Express: Planetary researchers at Freie Universität Berlin publish color mosaic of Mars with never before seen details Twenty years ago to the day, the European space probe Mars Express began its journey to Earth's "red" neighbor.

One of the first signs that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration would predict a quiet Atlantic hurricane season emerged in early March, when the agency announced that the La Niña

One thing is certain: life on Earth emerged very early in the history of planet Earth. There are few concrete answers to the questions of how and where the first organic molecules were formed.