Results from an expedition to the sea floor near the Hawaiian Islands show evidence that the deep Earth is more unsettled than geologists have long believed. A new University of Rochester study suggests that the long chain of islands and seamounts, which is deemed a “textbook” example of tectonic plate motion, was formed in part by a moving plume of magma, upsetting the prevailing theory that plumes have been unmoving fixtures in Earth’s history. The research will be published in the August 22 i

On a high hilltop terrace in Oaxaca, Mexico, a team of Field Museum archaeologists discovered a 1,500-year-old underground tomb while excavating a palace-like residence. Although it was near the end of their excavation season, they dared not leave the tomb unexplored. News of this find at El Palmillo was sure to get around, and looting would follow. As it was, workers had to guard the tomb every night until the tomb was excavated.

Images of the stone-lined interior – snapped with a digital c

Fire fighters tackling the blazes that have ravaged Portugal are doing so with the aid of a satellite data-link.

For the first time, ESA’s satellite Artemis has been used to support an emergency request under the International Charter on “Space and Major Disasters”.
Portugal’s civil protection unit (SNPC) was able to receive information and groups of images that showed the scope of the fires. The data, transmitted from ESA’s Earth observation satellite, Envisat, via the Artemis d

A new study settles a long-standing dispute about the genesis of an endangered species. With scant fossil evidence supporting a prehistoric presence, scientists could not say for sure where Borneo’s elephants came from. Did they descend from ancient prototypes of the Pleistocene era or from modern relatives introduced just 300–500 years ago? That question, as Fernando et al. report in an article that will appear in the inaugural issue of PLoS Biology (and currently available online at http://bio

Five areas, including North America’s deserts, top conservation priorities

According to the most comprehensive global analysis of its kind ever conducted, wilderness still covers a large portion of the Earth’s land surface and contains only a tiny percentage of the world’s population but, surprisingly, only five wilderness areas hold globally significant levels of biodiversity. More than 200 international scientists contributed to the analysis, which is featured in this week

The first attempt in the Russian Federation to utilize contemporary information technologies for efficient farm production management has been made. The decision-making support system for agricultural enterprises is being tested at a private agricultural farm in the Orenburg Province.

Information technologies, which formerly served solely space industry, can be employed to make agriculture more efficient. That has been done by the specialists of the GEOMIR Engineering Center in collaboratio

Purdue University scientists investigating osteoporosis in laying hens have shown that a noninvasive tool can monitor birds’ bone strength and aid in discovering genetic information about bone disease in chickens.

Lack of calcium in chickens’ food and lack of exercise can leave hens with brittle bones, said Patricia “Scotti” Hester, a professor in Purdue’s Department of Animal Sciences. In addition, eggshell production leaches calcium from hens’ bones. Hester and her research team found th

Highway travelers view much of the Midwest as little more than barren flatlands. The formation of the region and its rich soils, especially tall grass areas that seemingly should support diverse forests, however, have long fascinated scientists. Newly available, long-term climate data now say the area is the product of weather extremes.

Compared with adjacent regions, the tall-grass area of the plains endures more frequent periods of severe drought, more lightning strikes and subsequent fir

High air pollution does more than just irritate your lungs, research confirms it also affects the way you look. By using ESA-provided pollution maps along with ultraviolet radiation data, cosmetics firm L’Oreal plans to investigate the future possibility of producing skincare products customised for local conditions.

Today the skin-ageing effects of ultraviolet (UV) rays are well known, but the harmful consequences of air pollution on our skin are less easily quantified outside of laboratori

A 106,000-year-long record of nitrous oxide concentrations and a shorter record of nitrogen and oxygen isotopes show that both marine and terrestrial nitrous oxide production increased in unison and effectively by the same proportional amount during the end of the last glacial period, according to Penn State researchers.

Equal terrestrial and marine production of nitrous oxide also suggest that increased storage of carbon in the oceans was not the cause of low atmospheric carbon dioxide dur

It may take them a century to advance a few meters, but the bottoms of some glaciers churn with supercooled activity, according to an article by a Lehigh University geologist in the Aug. 14 issue of Nature magazine.

Edward B. Evenson, professor of earth and environmental sciences, says his team’s 12-year study of the Matanuska Glacier in south-central Alaska sheds light on a riddle that has long baffled geologists – how glaciers are able to pick up and transport silt.

The fin

Global warming and pollution are among the modern-day threats commonly blamed for decline of coral reefs, but new research shows the downfall of those resplendent and diverse signatures of tropical oceans actually may have begun centuries ago.
According to a paper set to appear Friday (8/15) in the journal Science, the downward spiral started when people first began killing off reef-frequenting large fish, turtles, seals and other top predators or herbivores – a process that started thousands of

Recent drought conditions in the North Pacific Ocean near Hawaii have caused a decrease in the strength of the carbon dioxide sink, according to a study published this week in the journal Nature. A team funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and led by scientists Dave Karl and Roger Lukas of the School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST) at the University of Hawaii used 15 years of time-series measurements to compare the precipitation, salinity and carbon dioxide (CO2) concentr

Researchers have discovered that total bromine in the lower atmosphere has been decreasing since 1998 and is now more than five percent below the peak reached that year. Bromine is one of the most active destroyers of the stratospheric ozone layer, which forms an invisible shield around the Earth, protecting it from the biologically damaging ultraviolet rays of the Sun.

Stephen A. Montzka and colleagues from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Climate Monitoring and D

Glaciers, it turns out, aren’t so different from people – they can gain weight in their bottoms and be less active, scientists have discovered.

Glaciers, the heavyweights of landscape erosion, grow not just from snow accumulating on their surfaces but also from beneath by freezing of meltwater which can affect the rate at which they can erode, according to a team of scientists, including one from Michigan State University.

Their discovery, reported in a cover story in the Aug

In an important new study directly linking climatic warming with the survival of lake organisms, researchers have found multiple lines of evidence showing that increasing air and water temperatures and related factors are shrinking fish and algae populations in a major lake. The lake holds 18 percent of the world’s liquid freshwater and is a critical food source in East Africa.

Reporting in the August 14, 2003, issue of the journal Nature, Catherine O’Reilly of Vassar College, Andrew Cohe