A Kansas State University geologist and graduate student are finding that the most important tools in their fieldwork on groundwater arsenic pollution are women and children armed with pamphlets and testing kits.
"When going into a foreign land, you need the common people's help, support and understanding of the work you are doing," said Saugata Datta, a K-State assistant professor of geology.
DURHAM, N.C. –- An ancient Confucian philosopher once said, "I love the lotus because while growing from mud, it is unstained."
Now, almost one thousand years since Zhou Dunyi wrote these lines in China, scientists finally understand how the plant keeps itself clean and dry. It took an ultra high speed camera, a powerful microscope and an audio speaker to unlock a secret that has puzzled scientists for ages.
A team of researchers from Pompeu Fabra University (UPF) has developed a system to identify common patterns in versions of songs, which will help to quantify the similarity of musical pieces. The technique, which appears in the New Journal of Physics, could be applied to analyse time series of data in other fields, such as economy, biology or astronomy.
(Santa Barbara, Calif.) –– The fossil remains of some of the first animals with shells, ocean-dwelling creatures that measure a few centimeters in length and date to about 520 million years ago, provide a window on evolution at this time, according to scientists. Their research indicates that these animals were larger than previously thought.
The world's oldest known submerged town has been revealed through the discovery of late Neolithic pottery. The finds were made during an archaeological survey of Pavlopetri, off the southern Laconia coast of Greece.
Marine geo-archaeologist Dr Nic Flemming of the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton said: "The discovery of Neolithic pottery is incredible! It means that we are looking at a port city which may be 5000-6000 years old, with trade goods and wrecks nearby showing some of the very earliest days of seafaring trade in the Mediterranean."
Diverting sediment-rich water from the Mississippi River below New Orleans could generate new land in the river's delta in the next century.
The land would equal almost half the acreage otherwise expected to disappear during that period, a new study shows.
For decades, sea-level rise, land subsidence, and a decrease in river sediment have caused vast swaths of the Mississippi Delta to vanish into the sea.
Boulder, CO, USA - Seismologists have found a new way to piece together the history of hurricanes in the North Atlantic—by looking back through records of the planet's seismic noise. It's an entirely new way to tap into the rich trove of seismic records, and the strategy might help establish a link between global warming and the frequency or intensity of hurricanes.
"Looking for something like hurricane records in seismology doesn't occur to anybody," said Carl Ebeling, of Northwestern University in Evanston. "It's a strange and wondrous combination."
CLEMSON — Algae, not asteroids, were the key to the end of the dinosaurs, say two Clemson University researchers. Geologist James W. Castle and ecotoxicologist John H. Rodgers have published findings that toxin producing algae were a deadly factor in mass extinctions millions of years ago. The research not only provides new insights into the past but also offers a caution about the future. The scientists say that current environmental conditions show significant similarity to times when previous mass extinctions occurred.
Hugh S. Taylor, M.D., professor in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology & Reproductive Sciences at Yale, and colleagues have found that women without mutations of the HOXA13 gene do not need to be subjected to x-rays and other tests for a rare condition called hand-foot genital syndrome. The research is presented at the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) scientific meeting in Atlanta, Georgia, October 17-21.
Princeton, New Jersey. October 19th, 2009 ~Not that long ago – the blink of a geologic eye – global temperatures were so warm that ice on Greenland could have been hard to come by. Today, the largest island in the world is covered with ice 1.6 miles thick. Even so, Greenland has become a hot spot for climate scientists. Why? Because tiny bubbles trapped in the ice layers may help resolve a fundamental question about global warming: how fast and how much will ice sheets melt?
UPTON, NY — Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory have identified a novel enzyme responsible for the formation of suberin — the woody, waxy, cell-wall substance found in cork. While effective at keeping wine inside a bottle, suberin's most important function in plants is to control water and nutrient transportation and keep pathogens out. Adjusting the permeability of plant tissues by genetically manipulating the expression of this enzyme could lead to easier agricultural production of crops used for biofuels.
An analysis of sediment cores indicates that biological and chemical changes occurring at a remote Arctic lake are unprecedented over the past 200,000 years and likely are the result of human-caused climate change, according to a new study led by the University of Colorado at Boulder.
CORVALLIS, Ore. – Global warming in the next century could cause a significant increase in the productivity of high-elevation forests of the Pacific Northwest, a new study suggests. However, forests at lower elevations – which in recent years have accounted for more than 80 percent of the region's timber harvest – could face a decline in growth.
New ground measurements made by the West Antarctic GPS Network (WAGN) project, composed of researchers from The University of Texas at Austin, The Ohio State University, and The University of Memphis, suggest the rate of ice loss of the West Antarctic ice sheet has been slightly overestimated.
Rogue waves—giant waves that spring up suddenly and tower over the seas around them—have inspired physicists to look for an analogue in light. These high-intensity pulses can cross large distances without losing information. Now a team of physicists have identified one set of conditions that produces optical rogue waves. Their findings are reported in Physical Review A and highlighted with in the October 19 issue of Physics (physics.aps.org).