science wire

Catastrophic events and mass extinctions are the stuff of Hollywood films and dystopian Young Adult novels.

Watch a replay of the 3 June 2013 webcast marking the 10th anniversary of the launch of ESA's Mars Express.

The dramatic geological events that created opal, Australia's national gemstone, have been described for the first time by a University of Sydney researcher. The explanation underlines how the geology of Australia's Red Centre is the most similar on Earth to the geology of Mars, to the extent it could yield valuable information on that planet for a fraction of the cost of a space mission.

Scripps' armada of research vessels provides platform for addressing critical scientific challenges facing planet Christina Frieder is a graduate student at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego who studies the effects of acidic and low-oxygen seawater on marine life.

The earliest known cousin of Triceratops and Torosaurus - the best-known horned dinosaurs - has been identified based on fossils from north central Montana, further underscoring the diversity of large, plant-eating horned dinosaurs among the fauna of western North America 66 to 80 million years ago.

AUSTIN, Texas — An international team of 34 scientists sets sail today aboard the scientific ocean drilling vessel JOIDES Resolution to collect sediments in the Gulf of Alaska and investigate t

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22 May 2013 University of Manchester scientists have produced stunning new 3D images of a butterfly developing inside the chrysalis using high-tech imaging techniques. The unique pictures were taken using a computed tomography (CT) scanner and show in amazing detail nine Vanessa cardui pupas (the life stage after the caterpillar) as they underwent metamorphosis into painted lady butterflies inside a hard outer shell.

A new half-hour documentary, " Down to the Volcano ,” that explores the ocean depths off the Washington coast, airs Wednesday at 9:30 p.m. The video tells the story of the Visions '11 cruise and gives viewers a taste for what to expect from an expedition this summer.

A new study led by Oxford University concludes that the latest observations of the climate system's response to rising greenhouse gas levels are consistent with conventional estimates of the long-term 'climate sensitivity', despite a "warming pause" over the past decade.

ANN ARBOR-Earthquakes Canada reported that a magnitude 5.2 earthquake occurred at 9:43 a.m. ET today northwest of Ottawa, Canada, and was followed 10 minutes later by an aftershock of magnitude 4.

In a talk on Monday (20 May 2013) Dr Simon Nightingale will explore how painterly interpretations of the countryside were embedded into the literature of agricultural improvement in a way that might surprise modern readers.

Vivianne Schnitzer, U-M News Service, (734) 763-0368, vsh [a] umich (p) edu or Caroline Braun, National Geographic, (202) 862-8281, cbraun [a] ngs (p) org ANN ARBOR-Jason De León, assistant professor

A scientist has discovered an ancient extinct creature with scissor hand-like claws in fossil records and named it in honour of movie star. The 505 million year old fossil called Kooteninchela deppi (pronounced Koo-ten-ee-che-la depp-eye), which is a distant ancestor of lobsters and scorpions, was named after the actor Johnny Depp for his starring role as Edward Scissorhands - a movie about an artificial man named Edward, an unfinished creation, who has scissors for hands.

It's hard to know what Dr Ian Garthwaite is more excited about: relaying his volcano adventures from around the world, or the new research environment being created by the 'hub' for the Charles Perkins Centre.

A team of scientists from the University of Toronto and Manchester University in the United Kingdom have gone three kilometres beneath the surface of the Canadian Shield to find some of the oldest fluids in our planet's history. The waters are rich in clues about lives lived without sunlight on Earth and possibly on Mars.

Temperatures in central China are 10 to 14 degrees Fahrenheit hotter today than they were 20,000 years ago, during the last ice age, UCLA researchers report — an increase two to four times greater than many scientists previously thought.

In 1700, a massive earthquake struck the west coast of North America. Though it was powerful enough to cause a tsunami as far as Japan, a lack of local documentation has made studying this historic event challenging.

The fin whale is the second-largest animal ever to live on Earth. It is also, paradoxically, one of the least understood. The animal's huge size and global range make its movements and behavior hard to study. A carcass that washed up on a Seattle-area beach this spring provided a reminder that sleek fin whales, nicknamed "greyhounds of the sea,” are vulnerable to collision when they strike fast-moving ships.

Deep in the ocean, hot springs spew plumes of black "smoke" filled with flecks of gold, silver, copper and more.

Breakthrough resurrects research done more than 70 years ago on armour-plated ankylosaurs. Just when dinosaur researchers thought they had a thorough knowledge of ankylosaurs, a family of squat, armour-plated plant-eaters, along comes University of Alberta graduate student Victoria Arbour. Arbour visited dinosaur fossil collections from Alberta to the U.K., examining skull armour and comparing those head details with other features of the fossilized ankylosaur remains.

Oxford University has announced that Shell International Exploration and Production B.V. (Shell) has contributed a £5.9m boost to research into natural energy resources at the Un

Hard-engineered sea walls have a limited life span. Could saltmarshes and mangroves offer a different approach to buffering against storm surges and coastal erosion? Do we really want to lose these buffers and face increasing costs of sea wall maintenance? Iris Moller Flooding, landslides, crop failure, water shortages.

7 May 2013 Concordia research station in the heart of Antarctica witnessed its last sunset for over three months last Sunday.

This week, the rusty but reliable Research Vessel Clifford A. Barnes will head out for the 1000 th time as a University of Washington research boat, carrying scientists and students to explore what happens beneath the blue surface of Puget Sound.

Adding omega-3 fatty acids did not improve a combination of nutritional supplements commonly recommended for treating age-related macular degeneration (AMD), a major cause of vision loss among older Americans, according to a study from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The plant-derived antioxidants lutein and zeaxanthin also had no overall effect on AMD when added to the combination; however, they were safer than the related antioxidant beta-carotene, according to the study published online May 5 in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

2 May 2013 Giant landslides, lava flows and tectonic forces are behind this dynamic scene captured recently by ESA's Mars Express of a region scarred by the Solar System's largest volcano, Olympus Mons.

A recently identified feathered dinosaur found deep in West Texas reinforces an emerging view that creatures like it were more diverse and widespread in North America than previously thought, according to a new study. The species - a turkey-sized herbivore called Leptorhynchos gaddisi - belongs to a broader group of bird-like dinosaurs characterized by toothless beaks and long, slender claws, said researchers, who analyzed fossils found near Big Bend National Park at a site dating to about 75 million years ago.

In spring a person's thoughts turn to important matters, like how best to keep your drink cold on a hot day.

Fueled by industrial greenhouse gas emissions, Earth's climate warmed more between 1971 and 2000 than during any other three-decade interval in the last 1,400 years, according to new regional temperature reconstructions covering all seven continents.

An object that fell through the roof of a house in Wolcott on April 19 was confirmed to be a meteorite by Stefan Nicolescu, mineralogy collections manager at the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History.

Levels of the greenhouse gas are approaching 400 parts per million; Scripps offering daily Twitter feed, news and analysis of climate indicators For the first time in human history, concentrations of

Researchers find strong correlation between summer monsoon and the climate pattern that preceded it For much of Asia, the pace of life is tuned to rhythms of monsoons. The summer rainy season is especially important for securing the water and food supplies for more than a billion people. Its variations can mean the difference between drought and flood.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. A new global-scale modeling study that takes into account nitrogen - a key nutrient for plants - estimates that carbon emissions from human activities on land were 40 percent higher in the 1990s than in studies that did not account for nitrogen.

Scripps researcher spreads word about a potential short-term win against climate change to variety of audiences A push to curb air pollution as a means of slowing the pace of climate change is gaining momentum as a Scripps Institution of Oceanography researcher takes his message to new audiences.

Ship will be operated by Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego U.S. Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus announced the nation's newest research vessel will be named R/V Sally Rid

The Lamont-Doherty Core Repository holds one of the world's most unique and important collections of scientific samples from the deep sea—approximately 72,000 meters of sediment cores from every major ocean and sea.

Ship will be operated by Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego U.S. Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus announced the nation's newest research vessel will be named R/V Sally Rid

Richard Black appointed Pro-Director of SOAS Professor Richard Black, Head of the School of Global Studies, has been appointed Pro-Director (Research and Enterprise) of SOAS, University of London.

Dr Katharine Giles was tragically killed in a cycling accident on Monday 8 April. Here, her colleagues in UCL Earth Sciences pay tribute.

8 April 2013 The structural model of the Entry, Descent and Landing Demonstrator Module, or EDM, of ESA's 2016 ExoMars mission has been subjected to a series of intense shaker tests to simulate the rigours of launching into space. EDM will be launched to Mars together with the Trace Gas Orbiter and will test key landing technologies in preparation for the 2018 ExoMars rover mission and subsequent missions to Mars.

Scientists examining evidence across the world from New Jersey to North Africa say they have linked the abrupt disappearance of half of earth's species 200 million years ago to a precisely dated set of gigantic volcanic eruptions. The eruptions may have caused climate changes so sudden that many creatures were unable to adapt—possibly on a pace similar to that of human-influenced climate warming today.

Warming patterns during Earth's last period of prolonged global warmth differed dramatically from modern temperature patterns, according to new research by a Yale University scientist and colleagues. Cloud feedbacks, ocean mixing, or other dynamic factors must have played a greater role in Pliocene warming than commonly recognized, the scientists argue, and these must be accounted for in order to make meaningful predictions about Earth's future climate.

Engineering 'quake-proof' homes could save lives, say Imperial academics. New techniques that enable people in rural communities in Central and South America to build their own earthquake resistant, low-cost housing are being developed by academics from Imperial College London. Since 1980, 18,300 people worldwide have died in homes that have collapsed because they were not engineered to be earthquake-proof.

Predicting floods, droughts and contamination in UK will be easier, thanks to models developed at Imperial.

One often ignored consequence of global climate change is that the Northern Hemisphere is becoming warmer than the Southern Hemisphere, which could significantly alter tropical precipitation patterns

The image shows a snapshot of ground motion of the 2008 magnitude-5. Chino Hills earthquake in an east-to-west direction; the red-yellow and green-blue colors depict the amplitude of shaking.