Last year was the fourth warmest year on average for our planet since the late 1800s, according to NASA scientists.

To determine if the Earth is warming or cooling, scientists look at average temperatures. To get an “average” temperature, scientists take the warmest and the coolest temperatures in a day, and calculate the temperature that is exactly in the middle of those high and low values. This provides an average temperature for a day. These average temperatures are then ca

While nothing can undo the devastation from the massive tsunami that recently struck in Southeast Asia, lives can be saved in the future if scientists can rapidly characterize the earthquakes that cause tsunami. The quick response of the Global Seismographic Network to the 26 December 2004 Sumatra- Andaman earthquake offers clear opportunities to reduce the amount of time before an emergency response and assistance could be dispatched to a similarly afflicted area in the future.

Northwestern University seismologists have determined that the Dec. 26 Sumatra earthquake that set off a deadly tsunami throughout the Indian Ocean was three times larger than originally thought, making it the second largest earthquake ever instrumentally recorded and explaining why the tsunami was so destructive.

By analyzing seismograms from the earthquake, Seth Stein and Emile Okal, both professors of geological sciences in Northwestern’s Weinberg College of Arts and Science

CSIRO Petroleum and German-based research centre Laser Zentrum Hannover eV (LZH) are collaborating in a project that could save millions of dollars in oil exploration and introduce new Australian geochemical and petroleum analysis techniques to Europe.

Researchers from the two organisations are six months into a three year project working to enhance the capabilities of the on-line laser micropyrolysis gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (LaPy-GC/MS) technique for quality control

Recent Southern Research Station (SRS) research demonstrates how models can be used to forecast future forest conditions in areas of rapid development. In a report published this last fall in Ecology and Society, FS Southern Research Station (SRS) researchers David Wear, John Pye, and Kurt Riitters provide a visual forecast of the effects of population and economic growth on interior forest habitat in the Southeast over the next 40 years.

“Almost 90 percent of the land in the sout

Few studies quantify evolutionary processes in populations of domesticated plants in traditional farming systems. In February’s Ecology Letters, Pujol, David and McKey show that these systems offer unusual opportunities for studying microevolution. Cassava (Manihot esculenta) is clonally propagated, but Amerindian cassava farmers also regularly incorporate volunteer plants from sexually produced seeds into their clonal stocks (cuttings) at harvest time.

These new genotypes re

See the face of Europe from space – with the entire continent covered in consistent detail. This set of true-colour Envisat satellite mosaics depicts the ten newest members of the European Union as well as ESA’s 15 current member states and two pending accessions of Greece and Luxembourg.

The crowning mosaic in the series represents approximately 1.6 million square kilometres of European territory at 300-metre resolution. All the mosaics were produced using the Medium Reso

While Thousands Gather in New Orleans for Mardi Gras Scientists and Students Working to Save Louisiana Wetlands

An impending crisis that could have a detrimental impact on the oil and gas infrastructure and fishing industry in the United States is leading scientists to investigate how to stop rapid deterioration and to start restoring marsh land in Louisiana’s southern coastal wetlands – which are losing a piece of land the size of a football field every 35 minutes. All of t

Finland ranks first in the world in environmental sustainability out of 146 countries according to the latest Environmental Sustainability Index (ESI) produced by a team of environmental experts at Yale and Columbia Universities.

The 2005 ESI, to be released at the World Economic Forum January 27 in Davos, Switzerland, ranks Norway, Uruguay, Sweden and Iceland two to five respectively. Their high ESI scores are attributed to substantial natural resource endowments, low population

In drought conditions, the capacity for retaining carbon in legume nodules is limited and this may be the reason why there is a drop in nitrogen-fixing in legumes under these conditions. This was the conclusion of María Dolores Gálvez in defending her PhD thesis at the Public University of Navarre. Her PhD was entitled, “Nodule metabolism in Pisum sativum L. in response to water stress: carbon/nitrogen interactions and the possible molecules involved in the modulation of the response”.

Injecting synthetic “super” greenhouse gases into the Martian atmosphere could raise the planet’s temperature enough to melt its polar ice caps and create conditions suitable for sustaining biological life. In fact, a team of researchers suggests that introducing global warming on the Red Planet may be the best approach for warming the planet’s frozen landscape and turning it into a habitable world in the future.

Margarita Marinova, then at the NASA Ames Research Center, a

The British Geological Survey (BGS) announced today that they will start sending scientists to the affected regions next Monday. The scientists will help with the rebuilding process and address immediate problems such as contaminated freshwater supplies.

Following a symposium in Thailand (31 January –1 February), David Ovadia, head of the BGS international team, said, ‘What we got out of the conference was a consolidated, agreed list of scientific activities that the affected countr

New evidence suggests that rarely studied upland birds may be as vulnerable as songbirds to climate change.

Scientists from the RSPB and Newcastle and Manchester universities have found that the golden plover, a typical upland bird found on the moors and peat bogs of the Pennines, Peak and Lake Districts and Highlands, is breeding significantly earlier than 20 years ago.

They say warmer springs have prompted the change and that the failure of the plover chick’s ma

EUREKA project E! 2507 EUROENVIRON COPAP has developed a new detection device that will aid research into global climate change, environmental studies, life-science research and environmental monitoring and improve understanding on aerosols.

“It is now recognised that aerosols play a central role in a range of environmental problems such as respiratory diseases, climate change and decreased visibility,” says Dr Vidmantas Ulevicius, Head of the Environmental Physics and Chemistry L

The single-celled organisms of the world’s oceans are immensely diverse. For the ‘International Census of Marine Microbes’ scientists are going to track down knowledge on the diversity and distribution of these micro-organisms and their viruses. The budget? 900,000 dollars of the Sloan Foundation in New York to start with. On February 7 and 8, the steering committee from America and the Netherlands will gather for the first time.

Goal of the International Census of Marine Microb

While Siberia may be one of the last expanses on Earth where human presence is relatively scarce, scientists are finding some surprising connections between humans and fires in these frigid, northern forests. Until now, most researchers assumed that lightning caused most of the fires that burned in Siberia. But a new study by NASA scientists and others used a NASA satellite to map where and when fires lit up over a three year period. The satellite showed that Siberian fires burned mostly ne