The Sumatra-Andaman earthquake of Dec. 26, 2004, was one of the worst natural disasters in history, largely because of the devastating tsunami that followed. Now, scientists have discovered that regions of the earth previously thought to be immune to such events may actually be at high risk of experiencing them.

Their findings, reported in this week’s issue of the journal Nature, suggest researchers may need to revise their former ideas about where giant earthquakes are li

The next sunspot cycle will be 30-50% stronger than the last one and begin as much as a year late, according to a breakthrough forecast using a computer model of solar dynamics developed by scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). Predicting the Sun’s cycles accurately, years in advance, will help societies plan for active bouts of solar storms, which can slow satellite orbits, disrupt communications, and bring down power systems.

The scientists have confidence i

Threatened species are characterized by declining and eventually small numbers of individuals. Once a population has been reduced below a certain level, its chances of recovery are slim.

This size is commonly referred to as a ‘minimum viable population’, or MVP. But is there one size that fits all species, or are MVPs more idiosyncratic?

Many have shown that the relative susceptibility of species to human-caused decline and extinction can be predicted by traits such as body size

Conservationists should be acting now to protect mammals such as North American reindeer which risk extinction in the future as the human population grows, according to research published today.

The research, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, reveals areas with the potential to lose species that are not presently in danger. Species in these ’hotspots’ have a latent risk of extinction; that is, they are currently less threatened than thei

An international team of researchers has headed into the field for one of the most complex campaigns ever undertaken in atmospheric chemistry: a month-long investigation of air pollution as it flows downwind from Mexico City.

The scientists expect that their assessment of the pollution’s impact on regional and global air quality, climate and ecosystems will be applicable to megacities–cities with 10 million or more inhabitants–in locations around the world.

The p

Satellite measurements of a steep difference in sea surface height between the western and eastern tropical Pacific support predictions that a La Niña event is in the offing. El Niño’s chillier sister, La Niña is linked to opposing but equally wide-ranging shifts in weather patterns.

Hundreds of years ago fishermen off the west coast of Peru noted how periodically around Christmas time the waters grew unusually warm and fish became scarce: a phenomenon they called ‘the Chris

Shipping companies can route ships more safely and efficiently. Ocean search-and-rescue can operate more effectively. Meteorologists and climatologists now have a tool to provide long-range weather prediction more accurately. Navies too can perform more accurate anti-submarine surveillance. And environmental managers now have a mechanism to track pollution, algal blooms, or emergent situations such as oil spills. And, this is all due to a unique three-dimensional ocean model that has been developed

USGS releases new report about pesticide occurence

Today, the U.S. Geological Survey released a report describing the occurrence of pesticides in streams and ground water during 1992-2001. The report concludes that pesticides are typically present throughout the year in most streams in urban and agricultural areas of the Nation, but are less common in ground water. The report also concludes that pesticides are seldom at concentrations likely to affect humans. However in many strea

Researchers from BU’s Center for Remote Sensing locate crater using detailed satellite data

Researchers from Boston University have discovered the remnants of the largest crater of the Great Sahara of North Africa, which may have been formed by a meteorite impact tens of millions of years ago. Dr. Farouk El-Baz made the discovery while studying satellite images of the Western Desert of Egypt with his colleague, Dr. Eman Ghoneim, at BU’s Center for Remote Sensing.

The

In a simple world rivers would flow in straight lines, every airplane ride would be smooth, and we would know the daily weather 10 years into the future. But the world is not simple — it is turbulent.

That’s good news, since turbulence helps drive natural processes essential for life. Unfortunately it also means we are never 100 percent sure it won’t rain on Saturday.

“Turbulence is the last major unsolved problem of classical physics,” explains Eberhard Bod

An extensive study on the Indo-Pacific coral reefs, about to be published in the 2nd of March issue of the journal Nature[1] challenges the present conservation protocols for these organism and calls for important changes in the way that protected areas are being established all over the world, in order to be able to stop the present (fast) rate of extinction observed in coral reefs.

A major ongoing discussion in ecology is what determines the biodiversity (which species and i

A team of researchers from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and other institutions is heading to Mexico City to participate in one of the most complex field campaigns ever undertaken in atmospheric chemistry. From March 1 to 29, the team will make multiple research flights in the NSF/NCAR C-130 aircraft and operate ground instruments to investigate the chemical and physical transformation of air pollution as it flows downwind from Mexico City.

The team’s goa

A fake peregrine and a radar-activated cannon work better at keeping birds away from oil sands tailings than the current system, says new research from the University of Alberta.

Oil sands mining is one of several industrial activities that produces waste dangerous to waterfowl. The birds, such as ducks, geese and swans, are attracted to freshwater ponds for foraging, roosting and nesting, and as stopover sites during migration. Spring migration is a particular problem in nort

University of Colorado at Boulder researchers have used data from a pair of NASA satellites orbiting Earth in tandem to determine that the Antarctic ice sheet, which harbors 90 percent of Earth’s ice, has lost significant mass in recent years.

The team used measurements taken with the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment, or GRACE, to conclude the Antarctic ice sheet is losing up to 36 cubic miles of ice, or 152 cubic kilometers, annually. By comparison, the city of Los Ange

Data from ESA’s Huygens probe have been used to validate a new model of the evolution of Titan, Saturn’s largest moon, showing that its methane supply may be locked away in a kind of methane-rich ice.

The presence of methane in Titan’s atmosphere is one of the major enigmas that the NASA/ESA/ASI Cassini-Huygens mission is trying to solve.

Titan was revealed last year to have spectacular landscapes apparently carved by liquids. The Cassini-Huygens mission als

Enormous benefit for humans and without harming the environment can be extracted from domestic waste, old car wheel casings, industrial wastes and even silt, that remain after cleaning sewage outflows. It transpires that all this can successfully be turned into light and heat when incinerated, under methodology, developed by scientists from Chernogolovka in the Moscow Region, staff from the Institute of Problems of Chemical Physics RAS. The scientists were aided by the International Science and Tec