Earth

Stocks of Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar), which have been steadily declining for the past few decades, are facing new challenges in the Gulf of Maine, where changing spring wind patterns, warming sea surface temperatures and new predators along altered migration routes are affecting their survival.

Extinct animals hide their secrets well, but an exceptionally well-preserved fossil of an aquatic reptile, with traces of soft tissue present, is providing scientists a new window into the behavior of these ancient swimmers.

The birth of the Gamburtsev Subglacial Mountains buried beneath the vast East Antarctic Ice Sheet – a puzzle mystifying scientists since their first discovery in 1958 – is finally solved. The remarkably long geological history explains the formation of the mountain range in the least explored frontier on Earth and where the Antarctic Ice Sheet first formed. The findings are published this week in the journal Nature.

In a significant finding in the search for life beyond Earth, scientists from The University of Texas at Austin and elsewhere have discovered what appears to be a body of liquid water the volume of the North American Great Lakes locked inside the icy shell of Jupiter's moon Europa.

The water could represent a potential habitat for life, and many more such lakes might exist throughout the shallow regions of Europa's shell, lead author Britney Schmidt, a postdoctoral fellow at The University of Texas at Austin's Institute for Geophysics, writes in the journal Nature.

DURHAM, New Hampshire, November 16, 2011 –A study that will be published in Nature on Thursday, Nov. 17, concludes that forests influence temperature, and their influence largely depends on latitude.

COPENHAGEN (16 November 2011) — In the lead up to UN global climate talks in Durban, South Africa later this month, an independent global commission of eminent scientists today released a set of concrete recommendations to policy makers on how to achieve food security in the face of climate change. Based on a thorough review of existing research, the commissioners urged immediate, coordinated action toward transforming the food system to meet current and future threats to food security and environmental sustainability.

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.