science wire

Transported by water or wind, sediments have a significant impact on the environment, and we cannot really quantify the magnitude of these events.

Press release issued: 22 May 2014 New techniques for visualizing fossils are transforming our understanding of evolutionary history according to a paper published by leading palaeontologists at the University of Bristol. Palaeontology has traditionally proceeded slowly, with individual scientists labouring for years or even decades over the interpretation of single fossils which they have gradually recovered from entombing rock, sand grain by sand grain, using all manner of dental drills and needles.

California's winter tule fog - hated by drivers, but needed by fruit and nut trees - has declined dramatically over the past three decades, raising a red flag for the state's multibillion dollar agricultural industry, according to researchers at UC Berkeley.

The University of Wisconsin-Madison, home of pioneering ecologists who studied lakes, forests, wetlands and prairies, is playing a key role in the next wave of ecological research: large teams of scientists confronting the dilemma of a changing climate on a shrinking planet.

16 May 2014 After eight years in orbit, ESA's Venus Express has completed routine science observations and is preparing for a daring plunge into the planet's hostile atmosphere.

Views of Venus day and night side This sequence of images was taken by the Ultraviolet/Visible/Near-Infrared spectrometer (VIRTIS) on board ESA's Venus Express spacecraft between 12 and 19 April 2006, during the first orbit (capture orbit) around the planet.

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The National Geographic Society has selected University of Chicago paleontologist Nizar Ibrahim to its 2014 class of Emerging Explorers.

The latitude at which tropical cyclones reach their greatest intensity is gradually shifting from the tropics toward the poles at rates of about 33 to 39 miles per decade, according to a study published today (May 14, 2014) . The intensity of tropical cyclones is shifting poleward, meaning that some areas, including densely populated coastal cities, could see a greater risk of large storms.

Under-appreciated marine life and landforms are enjoying a rare moment in the spotlight thanks to a new education project from the University of Glasgow.

Winter rains and summer groundwater pumping in California's Central Valley make the Sierra Nevada and Coast Ranges sink and rise by a few millimeters each year, creating stress on the state's earthquake faults that could increase the risk of a quake.

AUSTIN, Texas — A new method of measuring the interaction of surface water and groundwater along the length of the Mississippi River network adds fresh evidence that the network's natural ability to chemically filter out nitrates is being overwhelmed.

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Another step in the wrong direction Scientists look beyond alarming milestone in carbon dioxide levels T he world made a down payment on decades of dangerous weather last month, reaching an average atmospheric carbon dioxide level above 400 parts per million.

Study of a unique rock collection - and its astonishingly beautiful microscopic crystal structures - could change our understanding of how the Earth works. The rocks we are interested in are igneous - the frozen remains of magma formed at depths of 100 km or more from the mantle and then spewed out of volcanoes John Maclennan If it was possible for us to drill to the centre of the Earth, about 6,500 km below the thin crust on which we live, the largest part to traverse would be the mantle.

A community led research project released today (Tuesday 6 May), and authored by a Queen Mary University of London student, analyses the imminent housing crisis in Tower Hamlets and its effect on local citizens.

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A conference taking place today in the Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic is the first step in an ambitious graduate-led project to create an online database of the diverse and often confound

University of Washington By hightailing it to nearby ponds and shallow waterways, frogs and salamanders have - until now - had a way to evade exotic trout introduced to the West's high-mountain lakes for recreational fishing.

University of California, Berkeley, geologist William Dietrich pioneered the application of airborne LIDAR - light detection and ranging - to map mountainous terrain, stripping away the vegetation to see the underlying ground surface. But that didn't take him deep enough. He still couldn't see what was under the surface: the depth of the soil, the underlying weathered rock and the deep bedrock.

A citizen science project to assess the effects of global warming has reported a small but statistically significant increase in the probability of extremely wet winters in southern England. Following preliminary assessments from the Met Office, Oxford University researchers undertook the first scientific experiment to analyse whether the risk of extreme rainfall has changed owing to climate change after the winter deluge between December 2013 and February 2014.

The effects of human activity on geologic, biologic and atmospheric processes are now larger than at any point in Earth's history.

Climate change could strengthen African easterly waves, which could in turn have consequences for rainfall in the Sahel region of northern Africa, formation of Atlantic hurricanes and dust transport across the Atlantic Ocean.

28 April 2014 Pilots using a satellite service can now receive inflight updates on weather hazards and warn other aircraft of storms they see ahead.

U of'T alumna Katharine Hayhoe was named to the 2014 TIME 100 list of the world's most influential people for her work on climate change.

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Research will simulate the destructive effects of waves on buildings and coastal defences Results will produce engineering guidelines to mitigate future impact of tsunami UCL and HR Wallingford, the

Press release issued: 24 April 2014 A major reassessment of the ideas of Thomas Robert Malthus by Professor Robert Mayhew of the School of Geographical Sciences will be published in May.

Press release issued: 24 April 2014 The crucial effect of two key factors in the escalation of extreme mega-heatwave temperatures is explored in a new study from the University of Bristol, just published. The 2003 Western European heatwave broke temperature records all across Europe, with temperatures reaching 48°C in parts of Portugal and consistently over 40°C in cities like Paris.

Scientists at Yale University have clarified how carbon dioxide escapes minerals deep inside Earth and seeps into the planet's atmosphere, a significant step in the planet's natural carbon cycle. Deeper insight into the cycle helps scientists more accurately assess how humans are altering carbon's movement and affecting the planet's climate.

Stanford faculty and staff recently participated in an educational tour of the San Francisquito Creek that emphasized the complexity of shared challenges created by human intervention in the historic waterway and suggested the need for coordinated solutions.

University of Washington The headwaters for Puget Sound's famously rich waters lie far below the surface, in a submarine canyon that draws nutrient-rich water up from the deep ocean. New measurements may explain how the Pacific Northwest's inland waters are able to support so many shellfish, salmon runs and even the occasional pod of whales.

Two Yale faculty members - Jun Korenaga and Steven Pincus - and 10 alumni have been named 2014 Guggenheim Fellows "on the basis of prior achievement and exceptional promise for future accomplishment.

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10 April 2014 Beautiful streamlined islands and narrow gorges were carved by fast-flowing water pounding through a small, plateau region near the southeastern margin of the vast Vallis Marineris canyon system.

Press release issued: 9 April 2014 Security barriers in national parks on the US/Mexican border which aim to deter illegal migrants are affecting the movements of some native animal species while not necessarily restricting the movement of humans, according to new research from the University of Bristol, published today in PLoS ONE.

ANN ARBOR-Male characters on television used to hold onto traditional ideas of masculinity tighter than viewers maintained their grip on remote controls.

The SCD instrument is a neutron single crystal diffractometer used to determine the periodic atomic arrangement or crystal structure of single crystals, both natural and synthetic.

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. The recent slowdown in the warming rate of the Northern Hemisphere may be a result of internal variability of the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation - a natural phenomenon related to sea surface temperatures, according to Penn State researchers. "Some researchers have in the past attributed a portion of Northern Hemispheric warming to a warm phase of the AMO," said Michael E. Mann , Distinguished Professor of Meteorology.

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The amount of snow needed to trigger an avalanche in the Himalayans can be up to four times smaller than in the Alps, according to a new model from a materials scientist at Queen Mary University of London.

A newly constructed family tree of the hummingbirds, published today in the journal Current Biology , tells a story of a unique group of birds that originated in Europe, passed through Asia and North America, and ultimately found its Garden of Eden in South America 22 million years ago.

New research by Yale University scientists challenges a long-standing paradigm for temperature variability in the Pacific Ocean, casting doubt on the existence of a past period of "permanent" El Niño-like conditions and suggesting that the tropics could grow markedly hotter. "There's good news and bad news about future global warming," said Mark Pagani, professor of geology and geophysics at Yale and an author of the research, published April 4 .

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Research at the University of Liverpool has found that the magnitude of earthquakes is a result of trapped water under pressure (or fluid pressure) in the fault plane between two tectonic plates. Researchers from the University of Liverpool and the German Research Centre for Geosciences re-analyzed data recorded prior to the Chile earthquake of 2010, the sixth largest earthquake recorded, using novel high-resolution 3-D seismic imaging techniques, GPS observations and detailed numerical modeling.