The anticipated Mars landing on Jan. 24 of the Opportunity rover will be a bit more challenging than the Spirit’s bounce onto the red planet earlier this month, according to a University at Buffalo geologist, but if it’s successful, then scientists will be able to be much bolder about selecting future Mars landing sites.

“If both of these landers survive with airbag technology, then it blows the doors wide open for future Mars landing sites with far more interesting terrain,” said

The Ebola virus, identified for the first time in 1976 in the Democratic Republic of Congo (ex-Zaire), has unleashed several lethal epidemics in Central Africa. For several years, many outbreaks have been occurring simultaneously in the Republic of Congo and Gabon, making the control of Ebola virus infection a major public health priority for these countries. In humans infection triggers haemorrhagic fever. In 80% of cases it leads to death in a few days. High mortality generated by this particularly

Different viral strains responding to ideal conditions

Though they may appear as single outbreaks quickly spread by people and wildlife, recent flare-ups of the deadly Ebola virus in Central Africa are actually multiple epidemics of different viral strains, simultaneously appearing when conditions are ideal, according to a study appearing in the journal Science.

The study, authored by the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society and other groups, said that scientists pr

Most corn earworms cannot survive the cold of a Northeastern winter, but each summer this sweet corn pest arrives back in the cornfields of the northeastern United States more quickly than most people believe is possible. Now, a team of Penn State meteorologists thinks it knows how the small moths travel long distances so quickly, and perhaps can predict where and when they will appear next.

“For years, researchers have assumed that the moths travel in parcels of air,” says Matthew Welshans

A hot debate in the Earth Sciences is finally resolved in this week’s issue of Nature. Researchers from the Department of Earth Sciences at Bristol University show that large volcanoes do not contain material from the Earth’s core. This overturns previous theories that conflicted with models of how the Earth’s magnetic field is sustained.

The magnetic field results from the movement of liquid iron in the core and affects everything from bird migration to the navigation of aircraft, so it is

NASA’s QuikSCAT satellite is providing meteorologists with accurate data on surface winds over the global oceans, leading to improved 2- to 5- day forecasts and weather warnings. The increased accuracy, already being used in hurricane forecasts, is bringing economic savings and a reduction in weather-related loss of life, especially at sea, according to a recent NASA study.

Robert Atlas, a research scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., demonstrated the initial

Better designed oil filters and less frequent oil changes are two ways to reduce the health and environmental threats of used motor oil, according to a new study published in the Jan. 15 issue of Environmental Science & Technology, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Chemical Society, the world’s largest scientific society.

The approximately one billion gallons of used oil generated in the United States each year comes primarily from lubricating oils — motor and transmission oils —

Study shown fallen leaves play a role in the food web

Aquatic plants form the base of the food web. The energy they create supports aquatic life, from invertebrates to the largest sport fish. Now, a study shows that aquatic plants are receiving a little help from trees. In a paper in this week’s issue of the journal Nature, Michael Pace and Jonathan Cole of the Institute of Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook, New York, along with colleagues from Wisconsin and Sweden, indicate that a

2004 Earth Feature Story

Satellites and computers are getting so good, that now they can help study human activity on scales as local as ones own neighborhood, and may answer questions concerning how local conditions affect global processes, like water and energy cycles.

NASA’s Land Information System (LIS) uses computer models to predict impacts that cities and other local land surfaces might have on regional and global land and atmospheric processes. Dr. Christa Pete

The oceans have their desert zones, in other words areas poor in nutrients and unfavourable for phytoplankton to develop. Half of the southern Pacific thus consists of great expanses of warm water with an average temperature of 28 °C (a greater surface area than Europe), which receives no input of deep-source cold water, rich in nutrient salts.

However, in 2000 analyses of satellite observations on the colour of the ocean conducted by American scientists revealed unusually high concentrati

Civil engineer Heather MacLean examines environmental impact of automobiles from plant to scrapyard

Although she leads a national research team on automotive life-cycle assessments, studies the future of hybrid electric and hydrogen fuel cell cars and takes the subway to work, the car sitting in her driveway is a rusty 1987 BMW. And although she rarely drives it, her attachment to the vehicle speaks volumes about the challenges of shifting to newer, low-emission vehicles. “I like my

A team of CSIRO Livestock Industries researchers are helping to make pigs healthier and happier, while fattening the bottom line.

Dr David Strom leads a team at CSIRO Livestock Industries’ Australian Animal Health Laboratory (AAHL), detecting and modulating immune responses in pigs.

“In Australia 20 per cent of fresh meat production is pork,” Dr Strom says. “World-wide there is more pork produced than any other livestock meat – accounting for more than 40 per cent of the world

Research at Harper Adams University College has shown how spraying wheat plants with milk can help to cure mildew disease.

South American research showed four years ago that milk could help in the fight against mildew disease on squash plants, and milk is used to treat this disease by some organic gardeners, as well as by grape vine growers in Australia.

Further research at Harper Adams, by Research Assistant Georgina Drury working with Dr Peter Kettlewell, and published in the cu

Medium to large earthquakes occurring along the central San Andreas Fault appear to cluster at regular three-year intervals – a previously unnoticed cycle that provides some hope for forecasting larger quakes along this and other California faults.

A study by University of California, Berkeley, seismologists shows a higher probability of moderate to large quakes – magnitude 4, 5 and 6 – just as the frequency of smaller quakes, called microquakes, begins to increase along the northern half of

They are called hurricanes in the Atlantic, typhoons in the West Pacific, and tropical cyclones worldwide; but wherever these storms roam, the forces that determine their severity now are a little less mysterious. NASA scientists, using data from the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite, have found “hot tower” clouds are associated with tropical cyclone intensification.

Owen Kelley and John Stout of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md., and George Mason Un

New evidence published online in Pest Management Science reports the first signs of resistance to pyrethroid insecticides in a population of mosquitoes from Marin County, California. The species in question is not only a major pest, but also acts as a vector of West Nile virus, a virus that spread rapidly westward across the United States after it first invaded the new world in New York in 1999.

The study, carried out by researchers in California, determined that the Culex pipiens complex m