Unusual happenings at Dundrum Bay, County Down, have been puzzling residents for some time now. Reports of the beach at Newcastle disappearing while sand dunes at Ballykinler, across the bay, were getting bigger and bigger, had locals and Down County Council stumped.

But researchers from the University of Ulster have stepped in to explain the mysterious phenomenon.

Dr Andrew Cooper and Dr Fatima Navas, from the Centre for Coastal and Marine Research at UU, have discovered that nat

Even before marble-shaped pebbles nicknamed “blueberries” were discovered on Mars by the Opportunity rover, University of Utah geologists studied similar rocks in Utah’s national parks and predicted such stones would be found on the Red Planet.

In a study published in the June 17 issue of the journal Nature, the Utah researchers suggest both the Martian and Utah rocks – known as hematite concretions – formed underground when minerals precipitated from flowing groundwater.

“We came

Archaeologists have found a trio of extraordinary stone carvings while charting the phenomenon of prehistoric rock markings in Northumberland, close to the Scottish border in the United Kingdom.

Records and examples of over 950 prehistoric rock art panels exist in Northumberland, which are of the traditional ’cup and ring’ variety, with a typical specimen featuring a series of cups and concentric circles pecked into sandstone outcrops and boulders.

However, archaeologists at the U

CSIRO is breeding new ’high-vigour’ wheats so fast-growing they can out-compete weeds while maintaining high yields.

Weeds cost Australian farmers over $4 billion annually in chemical and mechanical control and yield losses.

“High-vigour wheats have the potential to provide significant economic savings and environmental benefits for Australian agriculture,” says Dr Greg Rebetzke, CSIRO Plant Industry.

“In field trials where wheat crops have to compete with weeds, the hig

Soybean crops planted weeks ago appear in no hurry to grow. Others aren’t turning a rich green in color. And while growers might be starting to worry, there’s no need to fret, said Ellsworth Christmas, Purdue University Extension soybean specialist.

“There are two basic questions producers have at this time,” Christmas said. “No. 1, why are soybeans that have emerged growing so slowly? And, secondly, why are the plants yellow or very light green in color? Both of those concerns are

Maps are tools to show you where you are going, but they can also show you where you came from. That principle drives the work of Roberto Rodríguez and Patrisia Gonzales, who study ancient maps, oral traditions and the movement of domesticated crops to learn more about the origins of native people in the Americas.

“How do you bring memory back to a people that were told not to remember?” asks Rodríguez. As longtime scholars and syndicated columnists, Gonzales and Rodríguez explore this issu

’Big Bonanza’ and the Comstock Lode

Remember the burning Ponderosa map at the beginning of the long-running TV show “Bonanza”? It’s up in flames before you can read all the place names.
Now a geologist at Washington University in St. Louis has replaced that map with one of the famous ore site known as the Comstock Lode, a part of which is the “Big Bonanza.”

While it’s doubtful that Hoss, Adam and Little Joe – not to mention the sages, Pa and Hop Sing

Did the Earth form with water locked into its rocks, which then gradually leaked out over millions of years? Or did the occasional impacting comet provide the Earth’s oceans? The Ptolemy experiment on Rosetta may just find out…

The Earth needed a supply of water for its oceans, and the comets are large celestial icebergs – frozen reservoirs of water orbiting the Sun.

Did the impact of a number of comets, thousands of millions of years ago, provide the Earth with its supply of water

Researchers have shown that Darwin’s finches on smaller islands in the Galapagos archipelago have weaker immune responses to disease and foreign pathogens—findings that could help explain why island populations worldwide are particularly susceptible to disease.

A paper, written by University of Michigan researcher Johannes Foufopoulos, an assistant professor at the School of Natural Resources and Environment who specializes in disease ecology, and collaborators from Princeton Univers

Old fish bones can tell scientists about more than what people used to eat. They can also provide clues to the climate in which those people lived. In the scientific journal Quaternary Research, a team led by three University of Maine scientists reports using fish bones from an archaeological site in Peru to describe the timing of Pacific Ocean climate cycles linked to El Nino.

The report provides new evidence for a theory stating that biological cycles in the world’s oceans reflect su

After receiving the brunt of powerful hurricanes in 1996 and 1999, the Neuse River and Estuary and western Pamlico Sound in eastern North Carolina appear to have suffered few long-term ill effects from the storms, and have actually benefited ecologically in some ways from the storms’ scouring effects.

Those are the findings of a team of North Carolina State University scientists and collaborators from various North Carolina universities and government agencies.

Dr. JoAnn Burkholder,

Potatoes may be on the no-no list for high-protein diets, but a University of Florida researcher says a new low-carb potato will help win back die-hard carbohydrate counters.

“Consumers are going to love the flavor and appearance of this potato and the fact that it has 30 percent fewer carbohydrates compared to a standard Russet baking potato,” said Chad Hutchinson, an assistant professor of horticulture with UF’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences.

“The potato doesn’t l

New reserach by Columbia University

For years, researchers have examined climate records indicating that millennial-scale climate cycles have linked the high latitudes of the Northern hemisphere and the subtropics of the North Pacific Ocean. What forces this linkage, however, has been a topic of considerable debate. Did the connection originate in the North Pacific with the sinking of oxygen-rich waters into the interior of the ocean during cool climate intervals, or did it originate

NASA satellite data are giving scientists insight into how large-scale deforestation in the Amazon Basin in South America is affecting regional climate. Researchers found during the Amazon dry season last August, there was a distinct pattern of higher rainfall and warmer temperatures over deforested regions.

Researchers analyzed multiple years of data from NASA’s Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM). They also used data from the Department of Defense Special Sensor Microwave Imag

NASA and University of Maryland scientists have found the African monsoon consists of two distinct seasons The first season is in the late spring and early summer. The rain is concentrated on the West African Coast near the Gulf of Guinea, five degrees north of the equator. This season appears strongly influenced by sea surface temperatures off the coast of West Africa. The second season arrives later in summer in July at around 10 degrees north of the equator. Atmospheric wa

If all the highways, streets, buildings, parking lots and other solid structures in the 48 contiguous United States were pieced together like a giant jigsaw puzzle, they would almost cover the state of Ohio. That is the result of a study by Christopher Elvidge of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Geophysical Data Center in Boulder, Colorado, who along with colleagues from several universities and agencies produced the first national map and inventory of impervious su