Heavens

HANOVER, N.H. - Health advertorials, or advertisements camouflaged as credible news, succeed in misleading people, in part, by tamping down their skepticism and expectations for truth in advertising, a Dartmouth College-Stanford University study finds.

When the banks of a marsh channel accumulate sediment at a faster rate than relative sea level rise, it may seem like the marsh is resilient. However, a new study published in Geology proposes a new framework to look at sediment fluxes in marsh channels that takes into account the natural process of sediment recycling. Understanding how sediments are transported within salt marshes is critical to predict the effect that processes such as nutrient loading, sea-level rise and sediment supply have on marsh erosion.

Scientists from Princeton University and NASA have confirmed that 1,284 objects observed outside Earth's solar system by NASA's Kepler spacecraft are indeed planets. Reported in The Astrophysical Journal on May 10, it is the largest single announcement of new planets to date and more than doubles the number of confirmed planets discovered by Kepler so far to more than 2,300.

ATHENS, GA - Controlled environment agriculture is rapidly becoming an important part of the global food system. For example, there has been much interest in the potential of large-scale, indoor agricultural production - often referred to as vertical farming - as a means to produce high quantities of produce. These "plant factories" are expensive to operate, however, in part because of the large power requirements of electric lamps that provide the type and amount of light necessary for photosynthesis in plants.

Irvine, Calif., May 9, 2016 - Earth system scientists from the University of California, Irvine have taken water samples from the north Pacific, north and south Atlantic, and Arctic oceans in search of repositories of black carbon, soot from burning biomass and diesel engines, among other sources. They've found considerably less of the material than expected, and they've discovered that it exists in at least two varieties, a younger pool closer to the ocean's surface that is absorbed into the environment in a roughly 100-year cycle and an ancient reserve that remains stable for millennia.

Sorry, E.T. lovers, but the results of a new study make it far less likely that KIC 8462852, popularly known as Tabby's star, is the home of industrious aliens who are gradually enclosing it in a vast shell called a Dyson sphere.

Congregations attempting to boost their racial and ethnic diversity may end up with fewer people in the seats, according to a Baylor University study.

The findings, published in the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, are based on an analysis of data from more than 11,000 congregations in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ECLA) from 1993-2012, as well as data from the U.S. Census Bureau.

HANOVER, N.H. - Whether fish hunt nearshore or in the open water and what prey they eat affect the amount of mercury that accumulates in them, a Dartmouth College study shows.

The results are published in the journal Science of The Total Environment. A PDF is available on request.

Profound environmental and faunal changes are associated with climatic deterioration during the Eocene-Oligocene transition (EOT) roughly 34 million years ago. Primates are among the most environmentally sensitive of all mammals. Reconstructing how Asian primates responded to the EOT has been hindered by a sparse record of Oligocene primates on that continent.

BEIJING, CHINA/NOTTINGHAM, UK - Increasingly, vegetables are being efficiently grown using soilless techniques such as hydroponics. Hydroponic systems are favored for their ability to improve water and nutrient use efficiency and crop yields, and have the added benefit of allowing growers to use fewer chemical fertilizers.

When Super Storm Sandy struck New York State in October 2012, the damage to the state's electric utility infrastructure was devastating, overwhelming repair and restoration by the distribution system operators (DSOs). A new study shows the extent of the challenge faced by the upstate New York distribution grid and suggests what might be done to make the system more resilient against future storms.

The idea that the young Earth had a thicker atmosphere turns out to be wrong. New research from the University of Washington uses bubbles trapped in 2.7 billion-year-old rocks to show that air at that time exerted at most half the pressure of today's atmosphere.

The results, published online May 9 in Nature Geoscience, reverse the commonly accepted idea that the early Earth had a thicker atmosphere to compensate for weaker sunlight. The finding also has implications for which gases were in that atmosphere, and how biology and climate worked on the early planet.

An international team of astrophysicists, including Professor Phil Charles from the University of Southampton, have detected an intense wind from one of the closest known black holes to the Earth.

The risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) appears to increase when infants are swaddled while sleeping on their stomachs or sides, new research has found.

The analysis, carried out by the University of Bristol, looked at four studies, which spanned two decades and covered three diverse geographical areas, including regions of England; Tasmania in Australia; and Chicago, Illinois.

Research result: The Sun's magnetic field during the grand minimum is in fact at its maximum

The study of the Sun's long-term variation over a millennium by means of super computer modelling showed that during a time period of the Maunder Minimum type, the magnetic field may hide at the bottom of the convection zone.