Hurricanes cannot form near the equator, or so meteorology textbooks maintain. But a storm named Typhoon Vamei upended scientists’ thinking when it swirled above the equator in the South China Sea near Singapore on December 27, 2001. It formed so close to the equator that its winds howled in both hemispheres.

New research funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the U.S. Navy’s Office of Naval Research reveals the unusual mechanism for the birth of such a storm.

Scientists have just returned from two months at sea aboard the oceanographic drill ship JOIDES Resolution where they studied the effects of a larger than expected methane release 55 million years ago that may have caused extreme global warming.

In March, the scientists traveled to a site near Walvis Ridge — an ancient submarine mountain chain off Africa—as part of the NSF-supported Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) Leg 208. The researchers searched for evidence of roughly 2,000 gigatons of meth

WWF Italia is monitoring the urbanization of the Italian coast to catch overdeveloped “hot spots”, courtesy of an ESA programme to develop new applications-driven services with space data.

WWF Italia has been working with ESA as part of the Agency’s Urban Expansion (UrbEx) project to provide a novel information service that monitors the loss of natural areas from urban development. The project’s objective was to demonstrate the capability to monitor urban growth using Earth observa

The resilience of sockeye salmon runs in Alaska’s Bristol Bay -– after a century of fishing they’re as healthy as they’ve ever been – is about strength in numbers.

It’s not just an abundance of fish, although the numbers returning to spawn is tens of millions more than the total across the lower 48 states and prudent actions by fishermen and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game have helped make it a classic example of a sustainable fishery.

As it turns out, it’

Farmers can prioritize areas within fields to reduce nitrate contamination

Fine-tuning fertilizer and irrigation management requires farmers to carefully balance optimizing yield and protecting groundwater quality. Some states even require farmers to use crop production practices to minimize nitrate leaching to groundwater in environmentally sensitive areas.

One such practice is using a nitrification inhibitor when applying nitrogen fertilizer, which helps protect nitrogen f

In a Perspective in the May 9 issue of Science, geochemist Don DePaolo and geodynamicist Michael Manga defend a fundamental assumption of Earth science, the mantle plume model of hotspots, against an outbreak of seismic skepticism.

DePaolo and Manga are members of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s Earth Sciences Division and the University of California at Berkeley’s Department of Earth and Planetary Science. DePaolo studies the chemical signatures of geological structures l

Geologists find meteorites 100 times more common in wake of ancient asteroid collision

Using fossil meteorites and ancient limestone unearthed throughout southern Sweden, marine geologists at Rice University have discovered that a colossal collision in the asteroid belt some 500 million years ago led to intense meteorite strikes over the Earth’s surface.

The research, which appears in this week’s issue of Science magazine, is based upon an analysis of fossil meteor

Weizmann Institute study suggests that rising carbon dioxide levels might cause forests to spread into dry environments

Missing: around 7 billion tons of carbon dioxide (CO2), the main greenhouse gas charged with global warming. Every year, industry releases about 22 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. And every year, when scientists measure the rise of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, it doesn’t add up – about half goes missing. Figuring in the amount that could be s

There’s a small problem with Earth’s magnetic field: It should not have existed, as Earth’s rock record indicates it has, for the past 3.5 billion years. Motions in the Earth’s molten iron core generate convection currents–similar to boiling water–which produce the field. Many sources of heat drive these currents, but the known sources seem inadequate to maintain the field this long. In 1971 University of Minnesota geology and geophysics professor Rama Murthy theorized that radi

Converting one third of chemical scrubbers worldwide could save up to two billion dollars each year

Scientists at UC Riverside have pushed the current limit of a technique for biologically removing hydrogen sulfide from sewage emissions a step further. Marc Deshusses, associate professor in the department of chemical and environmental engineering, and his postdoctoral researcher, David Gabriel, report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) that they have modifi

While it is well-established that roads can help spread invasive weeds, one new study shows that improved roads are worse than primitive ones, while another suggests that roadless areas act as refuges for native species against invasions.

Cheatgrass, knapweeds and other non-native plants have invaded nearly 125 million acres of the American West. Roads promote invasion because vehicles can transport non-native seeds into uninfested areas, and disturbed roadsides give weed seeds a place to g

Oil geologists now have a new villain to worry about – the digestive processes of the marine worm.

Clay minerals are the bane of an oil geologist’s life. They sit in pore spaces and block the necks of communication between them, so reducing both porosity and permeability – the two essential characteristics of an oil reservoir, which holds the precious black fluid, like a sponge.

Now, researchers based in Liverpool University have shown that these troublesome minerals are cru

From the air and the ground, scientists this spring and summer will examine some of the world’s largest thunderstorm complexes, behemoths that can spread hurricane-force wind and torrential rain for hundreds of miles across the U.S. Midwest. The study, scheduled from May 20 to July 6, should provide the clearest picture to date of how such storms wreak havoc and how forecasters can better predict trails of storm damage. The Bow Echo and MCV Experiment (BAMEX) is organized by scientists

Under the right economic conditions, a growing demand for forest products that accompanies development may lead to an increase – not a decline – in forest cover, according to a new study by researchers at Brown University and Harvard University. Policies that focus on reducing paper demand may not necessarily increase forestation.

The study examined the connection between the economy and forest cover in India, a country with a relatively closed economy that experienced an apparent increase

NASA-funded researchers have discovered El Niño’s soggy secret. When scientists identified rain patterns in the Pacific Ocean, they discovered the secret of how El Niño moves rainfall around the globe during the life of these periodic climate events when waters warm in the eastern Pacific Ocean.

The results may help scientists improve rainfall forecasts around the globe during the life of an El Niño, and may also offer new insights into how an El Niño develops.

The findings were hi

A new study by a University of Colorado at Boulder geological sciences professor suggests one earthquake causing up to 1 million fatalities on Earth each century could occur unless more earthquake-resistant construction materials are implemented.

Professor Roger Bilham’s conclusions are based on a study of the world’s urban population growth in the 21st century, including the number of rapidly expanding “supercities” and their locations close to major fault lines that have caused past tembl