| EurekAlert! - Earth Science |
| Tracing natural hazards by taking Earth's pulse (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München) Earthquakes and volcanic eruptions are caused by processes deep within the Earth. A project led by researchers of Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich and supported by a major grant from the EU will develop three-dimensional images of Earth's interior, thus improving our understanding and ability to forecast natural disasters. |
| Are bees also addicted to caffeine and nicotine? (University of Haifa) Bees prefer nectar with small amounts of nicotine and caffeine over nectar that does not comprise these substances at all, a study from the University of Haifa reveals. \"This could be an evolutionary development intended, as in humans, to make the bee addicted,\" states Prof. Ido Izhaki, one of the researchers who conducted the study. |
| March/April 2010 GSA Bulletin Highlights (Geological Society of America) GSA Bulletin spans the globe, from the Greater Caucasus Mountains separating Azerbaijan and Georgia from Russia; to the Altyn Tagh fault zone, Bohai Bay Basin, Yangtze craton, and Tian Shan of China; the collision zone between India and the Himalaya; the Southern Uplands of Scotland; and on to the western U.S., covering central Idaho, Mammoth Mountain and Long Valley caldera, California, the King Lear Formation, Nevada, the Grand Canyon, and the Fountain Formation of Colorado. |
| New UC Davis study: Climate 'tipping points' may arrive without warning, says top forecaster (University of California - Davis) A new University of California, Davis, study by a top ecological forecaster says it is harder than experts thought to predict when sudden shifts in Earth's natural systems will occur -- a worrisome finding for scientists trying to identify the tipping points that could push climate change into an irreparable global disaster. |
| Urbanization, export crops drive deforestation (The Earth Institute at Columbia University) The drivers of tropical deforestation have shifted in the early 21st century to hinge on growth of cities and the globalized agricultural trade, a new large-scale study concludes. The observations starkly reverse assumptions by some scientists that fast-growing urbanization and the efficiencies of global trade might eventually slow or reverse tropical deforestation. The study, which covers most of the world's tropical land area, appears in this week's early edition of the journal Nature Geoscience. |
| 38 percent of world's surface in danger of desertification (FECYT - Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology) A team of Spanish researchers has measured the degradation of the planet's soil using the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), a scientific methodology that analyses the environmental impact of human activities, and which now for the first time includes indicators on desertification. The results show that 38 percent of the world is made up of arid regions at risk of desertification. |
| WPI, Colorado School of Mines found Center for Sustainable Metals Recovery and Recycling (Worcester Polytechnic Institute) With National Science Foundation support, Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) and Colorado School of Mines have established the Center for Resource Recovery and Recycling, the nation's first research center dedicated to developing new technologies for maximizing the recovery and recycling of metals used in manufactured products and structures. By promoting a more sustainable approach to the use of metals, the center aims to dramatically reduce the energy usage and the carbon footprint associated with metals production. |
| Study challenges bird-from-dinosaur theory of evolution - was it the other way around? (Oregon State University) A new study just published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences provides yet more evidence that birds did not descend from ground-dwelling theropod dinosaurs, experts say, and continues to challenge decades of accepted theories about the evolution of flight. |
| URI researcher calls for global effort to monitor marine pollutants (University of Rhode Island) A researcher who studies chemical pollutants in the marine environment has called on colleagues around the world to establish a global monitoring network to verify that the chemicals banned by the United Nations in 2003 are no longer in use. |
| New international satellite observations help assess future earthquake risk in Haiti (University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine & Atmospheric Science) Analyzing images captured using Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) by Japan's ALOS satellite before and just after Haiti's earthquake on Jan. 12, University of Miami scientists are making new discoveries. The images show that the earthquake rupture did not reach the surface--unusual for an earthquake this size. More importantly, the images confirm that only the western half of the fault actually ruptured this time. Scientists are interpreting the data to establish the probability of another large quake in the next 20-30 years. |
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