science wire

A leading Infrastructure academic believes an assessment needs to be made of the level of "very rare" earthquake that needs to be considered in structural design, perhaps one with a 10,000 year retur

A reconstruction of plants' productivity and the amount of carbon stored in the ocean and terrestrial biosphere at the last ice age is published today. The research by an international team of scientists greatly increases our understanding of natural carbon cycle dynamics. A reconstruction of plants' productivity and the amount of carbon stored in the ocean and terrestrial biosphere at the last ice age is published today.

It was an era of massive construction projects - dams, roads, and bridges - and many felt there was a need to better understand and control the behavior of the soil and rock underpinnings of all these infrastructures.

It was an era of massive construction projects - dams, roads, and bridges - and many felt there was a need to better understand and control the behavior of the soil and rock underpinnings of all these infrastructures.

Family businesses have been more resilient in meeting the economic challenges created by the current recession, a study has shown.

by Morgan Kelly The first climate study to focus on variations in daily weather conditions has found that day-to-day weather has grown increasingly erratic and extreme, with significant fluctuations in sunshine and rainfall affecting more than a third of the planet. Princeton University researchers recently reported in the Journal of Climate that extremely sunny or cloudy days are more common than in the early 1980s, and that swings from thunderstorms to dry days rose considerably since the late 1990s.

Visitors to the Ashmolean Museum can explore an unconventional side to artist Claude Lorrain this winter.

CHAMPAIGN, lll. An analysis of the remains of ancient midges - tiny non-biting insects closely related to mosquitoes - opens a new window on the past with a detailed view of the surprising regional variability that accompanied climate warming during the early Holocene epoch, 10,000 to 5,500 years ago.

Scientists in Alaska are using data from a worldwide lightning monitoring program at the University of Washington to keep tabs on a remote volcano that rumbled to life recently but is not equipped with monitors.

In the remote waters of the Indian Ocean, west of Perth, scientists have just discovered two sunken islands, almost the size of Tasmania, which were once part of the supercontinent Gondwana. "The data collected on the voyage could significantly change our understanding of the way in which India, Australia and Antarctica broke off from Gondwana," said Joanne Whittaker , a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Sydney's School of Geosciences.

Brazil joins the International Charter 'Space and Major Disasters' In the year that severe flooding and landslides claimed over 800 lives in Brazil's Rio de Janeiro state, Brazil has joined the inter

The Mars Science Laboratory Spacecraft, inside its payload fairing, is hoisted onto its Atlas V launch vehicle (left).

Kawasaki Disease (KD) is a severe childhood disease that many parents, even some doctors, mistake for an inconsequential viral infection. In fact, if not diagnosed or treated in time, it can lead to irreversible heart damage. After 50 years of research, including genetic studies, scientists have been unable to pinpoint the cause of the disease.

FORT WORTH, Texas — Preliminary findings from a study on the use of hydraulic fracturing in shale gas development suggest no direct link to reports of groundwater contamination, the project leader at The University of Texas at Austin's Energy Institute said Wednesday. "From what we've seen so far, many of the problems appear to be related to other aspects of drilling operations, such as poor casing or cement jobs, rather than to hydraulic fracturing, per se," said Charles 'Chip' Groat , a university geology professor and Energy Institute associate director who is leading the project.

Battered Tharsis Tholus volcano on Mars The latest image released from Mars Express reveals a large extinct volcano that has been battered and deformed over the aeons.

Pollution is making Arabian Sea cyclones more intense, according to a multi-institutional study that included scientists at UCSD's Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Traditionally, prevailing wind shear patterns prohibit cyclones in the Arabian Sea from becoming major storms. A paper appearing in the Nov.

Every fall, students in Restoration Ecology (HORT 4400) take on a real-world project in the local community, working together to gather data, analyze the issues and report their findings.

MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL (11/07/2011) —Can a single biofuel production system reduce water and nutrient runoff from farm fields, cut down on soil erosion and turn a profit for the farmers who grow it?

AUSTIN, Texas — Explorer Robert Ballard, who discovered the wreck of the R.M.S. Titanic in 1985, is partnering with scientists from The University of Texas at Austin and other institutions to webcast a live scientific expedition to the eastern Mediterranean Nov.

The quest to reduce carbon emissions is coming to Big Sky country.

A new supercomputer designed to run weather prediction models is now the most powerful computer of its kind on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus, where researchers will help make those models more accurate. The National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration approached UW-Madison's Space Science and Engineering Center with a $1 million grant to design and install the Supercomputer for Satellite Simulations and Data Assimilation Studies (known as S4).

Thursday 27 October 2011 By Colin Smith Determining if water usage patterns in northern India over the last 50 years are affecting the climate is the focus of new international £1.1 million collaboration announced today. Researchers from Imperial College London are part of a UK and Indian academic consortium that is developing the most comprehensive computer models yet of the water cycle in the Ganges River Basin, which is one of the most heavily populated and farmed river basins in the world.

The imperial woodpecker - the largest woodpecker that ever lived -probably went extinct in the late 20th century in the high mountains of Mexico, without anyone ever capturing photos or film of the 2-foot-tall, flamboyantly crested bird.

Although the earthquake and subsequent tsunami in Japan have dropped off our main news screens, the fallout from the natural disaster is still being felt in surprising ways but the University of Warwick has stepped in to ensure that the academic work for two individuals has not been interrupted.

Today's cycads - plants famed as "living fossils" because they've survived since the last dinosaurs munched on them 65.5 million years ago - are really only a few million years old, according to a new study by University of California, Berkeley, scientists and their international team.

A good photographer needs agility. So it is with ESA microsatellite Proba-1, which turns in space to capture terrestrial targets.

Voyager to the Marian Trench Marine Biology Research Division Integrative Oceanography Division Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics Scripps Homepage ScrippsNews Home Prospective Students Re

The first scientists to witness exploding rock and molten lava from a deep sea volcano, seen during a 2009 expedition , report that the eruption was near a tear in the Earth's crust that is mimicking the birth of a subduction zone.

Mission accomplished: cave crew returns to Earth Take five astronauts and instead of sending them into space take them underground.

October 17, 2011 — Coral Gables — The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science has awarded nearly $1 million to the University of Miami

A new form of carbon that rivals diamonds in its hardness, but has an amorphous structure similar to glass, has been produced under ultrahigh pressure in laboratory experiments. The research team was led by Stanford mineral physicist Wendy Mao and graduate student Yu Lin. An amorphous diamond - one that lacks the crystalline structure of diamond, but is every bit as hard - has been created by a Stanford-led team of researchers.

The complex interplay between the earth's climate on global and local levels drives University of Wisconsin-Madison atmospheric and oceanic sciences professor Ankur Desai's research.

Engineering team heads to Antarctica to explore hidden lake Durham University is playing a key role on an extraordinary Antarctica project.

The subtropical Canary Islands off Africa's west coast are pictured in this Envisat image. The Canary Islands' favourable climate and beaches attract over 12 million visitors per year.

14 Oct 2011 The University of Melbourne has welcomed the new IBM Research and Development - Australia, which will help the community better prepare for and better cope with major natural disasters and lead to a more sustainable future.

October 12, 2011 Scientists with NASA's Dawn mission are sharing with other scientists and the public their early information about the southern hemisphere of the giant asteroid Vesta.

A team of leading international scientists has begun one of the most comprehensive studies on a sandy beach in the UK and will address the question ‘how many grains of sand move up and down the beach under different waves’.

Next week a British engineering team heads off to Antarctica for the first stage of an ambitious scientific mission to collect water and sediment samples from a lake buried beneath three kilometres of solid ice. This extraordinary research project, at the frontier of exploration, will yield new knowledge about the evolution of life on Earth and other planets, and will provide vital clues about the Earth's past climate.

October 10, 2011 A new image from NASA's Dawn spacecraft shows a mountain almost three times as high as Mt.

This year UCL's 'Your Universe' Festival of Astronmy is running in partnership with the London Science Festival 2011.

According to the conventional wisdom, drinking water taken from a deep aquifer protected by a semi-permeable layer of rock should be protected from many contaminants, including viruses. But the discovery of virus particles in many deep Madison water wells since 2003 has raised one key question: How do viruses, which should not survive more than two years underground, reach more than 700 feet deep, and penetrate this semi-permeable "aquitard?" In presentations to the Geological Society of America (Oct.

Movie industry computer graphics and the very latest digital marine technology have brought the world's oldest submerged city back to life in a BBC Two documentary due to be shown this Sunday (October 9) at 8pm. Just a few metres under the sea, off the southern coast of Greece, lies Pavlopetri — the oldest submerged city in the world.

A new study has shown that encouraging strips of wild plants at the edges of fields is important for supporting bees and other important pollinators. The research by academics at the University of Bristol has shown that enhancing the size of wild features in landscapes could be important for making sure that insect pollinators can exist within an agricultural landscape that faces increasing pressure for yield.

New NSF Grant Pairs Green Ocean Technology with Needed Earthquake Sensors Industry-academia collaboration will help address critical gaps in earthquake monitoring and tsunami warning systems Oct 6, 2

New study shows the agreements carry a high cost for many employees. CAMBRIDGE, Mass. Technology firms frequently require workers to sign non-compete agreements, which typically bar their employees from joining rival companies for one to two years.

Oct. Rising carbon dioxide levels at end of last ice age not tied to Pacific Ocean, as had been suspected ANN ARBOR, Mich.—After the last ice age peaked about 18,000 years ago, levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide rose about 30 percent. Scientists believe that the additional carbon dioxide—a heat-trapping greenhouse gas—played a key role in warming the planet and melting the continental ice sheets.

The manslaughter trial of six Italian seismologists highlights the need for scientists to put more effort into explaining their work to the public, says Stanford geophysicist Greg Beroza.

PASADENA, Calif. NASA's Dawn spacecraft has completed a gentle spiral into its new science orbit for an even closer view of the giant asteroid Vesta.