Earth

Dinosaur tracks, once neglected, are now considered a key source of scientific information on dinosaur behavior and ecology.

US and Mexican conservation efforts may have boosted the number of marine turtles visiting UK waters, according to University of Exeter biologists.

New research by the University of Exeter and Marine Environmental Monitoring, published this week in Marine Biology (3 May 2007), analyses 100 years of data. It shows an increase in the number of loggerhead and Kemp’s ridley turtles in UK and French waters in the last twenty years. The research team believes this is most likely the result of protective measures put in place in the United States and Mexico.

A study in Nature suggested that terrestrial plants may be a global source of the potent greenhouse gas methane, making plants substantial contributors to the annual global methane budget.

With gold nanoparticles, DNA and some smart chemistry as their tools, scientists at Northwestern University have developed a simple "litmus test" for mercury that eventually could be used for on-the-spot environmental monitoring of bodies of water, such as rivers, streams, lakes and oceans, to evaluate their safety as food and drinking water sources.

An article detailing the colorimetric screening technology and its success detecting mercury will be published online April 27 by Angewandte Chemie, the prestigious European journal of applied chemistry.

Tiny pores within plant cells may hold promise for green fuels.

A major study has shed new light on the dim layer of the ocean called the "twilight zone"—where mysterious processes affect the ocean's ability to absorb and store carbon dioxide accumulating in our atmosphere.

A team of scientists announced today confirmation of a link between massive volcanic eruptions along the east coast of Greenland and in the western British Isles about 55 million years ago and a period of global warming that raised sea surface temperatures by five degrees (Celsius) in the tropics and more than six degrees in the Arctic.

The characteristics of the vegetation that inhabited Earth 21 million years ago can be vital to get to know climatic evolution in the last million years and the causes for these changes.

Samples of the sedimentary bowls of the geographic section from the south of Spain to Turkey give researchers cause to theorize that 14 million years ago there were glaciations in the south pole that changed the ruling subtropical climate into warm and transformed the characteristic vegetation of this area.

As the national repository for geological material from the Southern Ocean, the Antarctic Marine Geology Research Facility at Florida State University houses the premier collection of Antarctic sediment cores -- and a hot new acquisition will offer an international team of scientists meeting there May 1-4 its best look yet at the impact of global warming on oceans worldwide.

A Georgia Tech research team has discovered that water exhibits very different properties when it is confined to channels less than two nanometers wide – behaving much like a viscous fluid with a viscosity approaching that of molasses. Determining the properties of water on the nanoscale may prove important for biological and pharmaceutical research as well as nanotechnology.

A spectacular fossilised forest has transformed our understanding of the ecology of the Earth’s first rainforests. It is 300 million years old.

University of Colorado at Boulder researchers are forecasting a one in three chance that the 2007 minimum extent of sea ice across the Arctic region will set an all-time record low.

Yes, a television broadcast on global warming is going to highlight the one section of the planet that is not warming.

Stephen Padin, the South Pole station science leader, will be featured on the ABC broadcast "Planet Earth 2007: Seven Ways to Help Save the World." Padin is spending the southern winter at the world's most remote scientific observatory.

The global search for a sustainable energy supply is making significant strides at Wake Forest University as researchers at the university's Center for Nanotechnology and Molecular Materials have announced that they have pushed the efficiency of plastic solar cells to more than 6 percent.

An international research team has found evidence of the Earth's earliest forest trees, dating back 385 million years.

Upright stumps of fossilised trees were uncovered after a flash flood in Gilboa, upstate New York, more than a century ago. However, until now, no-one has known what the entire trees looked like.

Two years ago, two fossils were found near Gilboa of trees which had fallen sideways, with their trunk, branches, twigs and crown still intact.