Planet Earth experienced a global climate shift in the late 1980s on an unprecedented scale, fuelled by anthropogenic warming and a volcanic eruption, according to new research published this week.
Scientists say that a major step change, or 'regime shift', in the Earth's biophysical systems, from the upper atmosphere to the depths of the ocean and from the Arctic to Antarctica, was centred around 1987, and was sparked by the El Chichón volcanic eruption in Mexico five years earlier.
Army ants construct complex bridges from their own bodies to span gaps and create shortcuts in the floor of the tropical forests of Central America, according to a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Army ants build living bridges by linking their bodies to span gaps and create shortcuts across rainforests in Central and South America. An international team of researchers has now discovered these bridges can move from their original building point to span large gaps and change position as required.
NASA's Terra satellite flew over Typhoon In-fa on Nov. 23 and imagery showed the storm had become elongated to the northeast.
On Nov. 23 at 02:00 UTC (Nov. 22 at 9 p.m. EST) the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer or MODIS instrument aboard NASA's Terra satellite captured an image of Typhoon In-fa in the Pacific Ocean. In-fa's cloud-filled eye was surrounded by powerful thunderstorms. A large band of thunderstorms were wrapping into the low-level center in the northeastern quadrant, and stretching east.
Tropical Storm Annabelle formed early on Nov. 21 in the Southern Indian Ocean, strengthened briefly and began a weakening trend on Nov. 23. NASA's Terra satellite and RapidScat instrument captured imagery of the storm after it developed.
Early on Nov. 21, Annabelle, the third tropical cyclone of the Southern Indian Ocean season, formed near 10.9 south latitude and 71.6 east longitude, about 234 nautical miles south-southwest of Diego Garcia.
The electric industry in the U.S. is undergoing significant changes for a number of reasons, including new and improved technologies, changing customer desires, low load growth in many regions, and changes in federal and state policies and regulations.
Droughts could kill off the tallest trees in tropical rainforests in coming decades, a study suggests.
For the first time, scientists have identified the ecological trigger that brings about the death of tropical rainforest trees during prolonged water shortages.
Reduced rainfall forecast in coming decades could cause the breakdown of the transport system in trees that takes water up from soil to the leaves, scientists say.
Space holds numerous fascinating objects which we can only investigate by observing their radiation - even beyond the visible range. For space telescopes such as the European Space Agency's (ESA) infrared observatory Herschel, whose mission is to observe radiation in the far-infrared, cooling the instruments is of vital importance, since the instruments themselves must not emit disturbing infrared radiation. The mirrors of these telescopes, which are used at temperatures below 190 °C, are made of special, ultrastable ceramics such as silicon carbide.
There is an urgent need to improve both short-term and long-term approaches to education for the large number of Syrian refugee children in Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan, according to a new RAND Corporation study.
Improving the quality of the current education system will require increasing instructional time, improving teacher training, expanding school monitoring and creating programs tailored for children who have missed instruction for as long as three years because of the crisis, according to the study.
The grizzled asteroid miner is a stock character in science fiction. Now, a couple of recent events - one legal and the other technological - have brought asteroid mining a step closer to reality.
NASA's Aqua satellite passed over Rick and captured a visible light image that showed the storm far off the coast of western Mexico. Rick continued to hang on to its status as tropical storm on Nov. 20, although a minimal one.
The MODIS instrument aboard NASA's Aqua satellite captured a visible image of Tropical Storm Rick on Nov. 19 at 20:15 UTC (3:15 p.m. EST). The image showed thunderstorms circling the low-level center, and a larger band of thunderstorms feeding into the center from the northeast.
Climate scientist Dr Nick Earl, from the University's School of Earth Sciences, found fires around the world appear to be strongly influenced by the working week and particularly days of rest associated with religion.
Of the more than a billion global fires that burned between the years 2001 and 2013, Sunday was the least active day with only 104 million fires.
That's nine million fewer fires, or eight percent less, than the number of fires on a Tuesday -- the middle of the working week.
WASHINGTON -- An investigation into how often wheelchair users are killed in car-pedestrian crashes finds they are a third more likely to die than non-wheelchair users; more than half of those deaths occur at intersections.
The study, led by Georgetown University researchers, also finds that men who use wheelchairs are five times more likely than women to die in pedestrian crashes. The researchers report their findings today in BMJ Open (link active after 6:30pm ET).
AUSTIN, Texas -- Scientists have solved a longstanding mystery about how some fish seem to disappear from predators in the open waters of the ocean, a discovery that could help materials scientists and military technologists create more effective methods of ocean camouflage.
In a paper published this week in Science, a team led by researchers at The University of Texas at Austin reports that certain fish use microscopic structures called platelets in their skin cells to reflect polarized light, which allows the fish to seemingly disappear from their predators.
The vast open ocean presents an especially challenging environment for its inhabitants since there is nowhere for them to hide. Yet, nature has found a remarkable way for fish to hide from their predators using camouflage techniques. In a study published in the current issue of Science, researchers from Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute at Florida Atlantic University and collaborators show that fish scales have evolved to not only reflect light, but to also scramble polarization.