Earth | Page 1375 | Science Codex

Hooded seals get around

Researchers have discovered a new fact about hooded seals, a mysterious mammal that spends all but a few days each year in the ocean.

An international team of researchers led by Dr. David Coltman, an evolutionary geneticist at the University of Alberta, have learned that all the hooded seal populations in the world share the same genetic diversity. The researchers reached their conclusions after analysis of more than 20 years of DNA samples taken from hundreds of hooded seals from around the world.

Understanding the global carbon budget

As climate change becomes more and more a central issue in local, national, and international discussions, understanding the global carbon budget, and how it influences trends in global warming, will become increasingly crucial.

Wildfire emissions monitored from space

Using data from the SCIAMACHY instrument aboard ESA's environmental satellite Envisat, scientists have determined that the carbon monoxide hovering over Australia during the wildfire season largely originated from South American wildfires some 13 000 kilometres away.

Tropical plants may acclimate well to climate change

Tropical plants may be more adaptable than commonly thought to changing rainfall patterns expected to accompany a warming climate, new research shows.

Greenland ice cap melting may have consequences for climatic change

According to two international-research studies on the last ice age, studies with the participation of Dr Rainer Zahn, research professor in the ICREA at the UAB Institute of Environmental Science and Technology (ICTA), before the great ice sheets of the Arctic Ocean began to melt, early sporadic episodes of melting of the old ice sheet which covered the British Isles had already begun to affect the circulation of the ocean currents, which played a key role in the climatic stability of the planet.

Wheat stem rust a global threat to wheat supply

A new, highly destructive strain of wheat stem rust is continuing to evolve and has the potential to devastate wheat production worldwide, say plant pathologists with The American Phytopathological Society (APS).

'Ancient bathtub ring' in Yakima valley consists of Mammoth fossils

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory geologists have put out a call for teeth tusks, femurs and any and all other parts of extinct mammoths left by massive Ice Age floods in southeastern Washington.Flood zone: The area of eastern Washington sculpted by the mammoth-killing Ice Age floods. Credit: U.S. Geological Survey

Waste-free corn for cars

A new variety of corn developed and patented by Michigan State University scientists could turn corn leaves and stalks into products that are just as valuable as the golden kernels.

Right now, most U.S. ethanol is made from corn kernels. This is because breaking down the cellulose in corn leaves and stalks into sugars that can be fermented into ethanol is difficult and expensive.

Drought tolerance limits tropical plant distributions

Drought tolerance is a critical determinant of tropical plant distributions, researchers working at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama report in the May 3rd issue of Nature. In a novel coupling of experimental measurements and observed plant distributions across a tropical landscape, drought tolerance predicted plant distributions at both local and regional scales. This mechanism to explain a common observation will contribute significantly to models of land use and climate change.

How liquid CO2 helps form diamond-bearing kimberlites

Freeze-dried ice cream looks like the original product, and even tastes pretty good, but "drying" ice cream at room temperature would leave a sour-smelling, sloppy mess. Similarly, diamonds ejected from deep in the Earth can survive the journey intact only if they head toward the surface quickly and under just the right conditions.

Madagascan tropical forests return thanks to better management

A new study shows that although loss of tropical dry forests occurs in southern Madagascar, there are also large areas of forests regenerating.

Ultrashort light pulse blazes new paths for science

Researchers in Italy have created an ultrashort light pulse—a single isolated burst of extreme-ultraviolet light that lasts for only 130 attoseconds (billionths of a billionth of a second).

Their achievement currently represents the shortest artificial light pulse that has been reported in a refereed journal. Shining this ultrashort light pulse on atoms and molecules can reveal new details of their inner workings—providing benefits to fundamental science as well as potential industrial applications such as better controlling chemical reactions.

The great package race

The major carriers, UPS, FedEx and DHL get put to the test every year with the Great Package Race, a contest to see which carrier can get a package to a very challenging locale the fastest and in the best condition.

New computer models for hurricane intensity

Aided by new observations from the Coupled Boundary Layer Air-Sea Transfer (CBLAST) hurricane field program, scientists at the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science have helped to develop and test a new, high-resolution computer model to better understand how air-sea interactions directly affect hurricane intensity, a factor not yet possible in the current operational forecast models.

Determining carbon flux between vegetation and the atmosphere: national biomass dataset

After completing a two-year pilot phase, scientists at the Woods Hole Research Center are expanding the scope of the "National Biomass and Carbon Dataset" for the year 2000 (NBCD2000), the first ever inventory of its kind, by moving into the production phase.To date, 5 of the 66 mapping zones have been completed in the NBCD2000 project. The remaining 61 will be completed at an approximate rate of one every seven working days. Credit: Wayne Walker/Greg Fiske. Woods Hole Research Center.