Earth

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — One way that geologists try to decipher how cells functioned as far back as 3 billion years is by studying modern microbial mats, or gooey layers of nutrient-exchanging bacteria that grow mostly on moist surfaces and collect dirt and minerals that crystallize over time. Eventually, the bacteria turn to stone just beneath the crystallized material, thereby recording their history within the crystalline skeletons. Known as stromatolites, the layered rock formations are considered to be the oldest fossils on Earth.

In the May 7 edition of Physical Review Letters, a journal of the American Physical Society, an international team led by University of Delaware researchers reports new findings about helium that may lead to more accurate standards for how temperature and pressure are measured.

At extremely low temperatures atoms can aggregate into Bose Einstein condensates (BECs - see Nobel laureate Carl Wieman) forming coherent laser-like matter waves.

NOAA's National Geodetic Survey – the official U.S. government source for determining precise latitude, longitude and elevation – is undergoing a modernization effort that takes into account advances in GPS and other technologies. The effort is important to all activities requiring accurate positioning information including levee construction projects, the design of evacuation routes in hurricane-prone areas and the forecast of sea-level rise in coastal communities.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (May 13, 2010) – Oxygen levels in the lab can permanently alter human embryonic stem (ES) cells, specifically inducing X chromosome inactivation in female cells, according to Whitehead Institute researchers. Human ES cells have been routinely created and maintained at atmospheric levels of oxygen, which is about 20%. Cells in the body are usually exposed to only 1-9% oxygen.

A visible satellite image on Wednesday, May 12 at 13:10 UTC (9:10 a.m. EDT) from NASA's Aqua satellite's Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument captured the Eyjafjallajokull Volcano's ash plume (brown).

Scientists from the Naval Research Laboratory at Stennis Space Center, MS, (NRL-SSC) and Washington, D.C., recently completed an investigation of the acoustic properties of the deep seafloor in the Gulf of Mexico.

Caffeine can help those working shifts or nights to make fewer errors, according to a new study by Cochrane researchers. The findings have implications for health workers and for any industry relying on shift or night work, such as transportation.

To most people in the southwestern U.S., the April 4 El Mayor-Cucapah earthquake felt like a rocking of the ground. But on a group of inch-long fish that exist nowhere else on Earth outside of "Devils Hole," a crack in the ground in Nevada's Mojave Desert, it unleashed a veritable tsunami.

LA JOLLA, Calif. – Scientists from NOAA's Southwest Fisheries Science Center placed 61 satellite tags on fur seals, leopard seals, Weddell seals, chinstrap penguins and gentoo penguins that will allow researchers and the public to track the movements of these animals over the austral winter, which takes place during our summer.

CSI notwithstanding, forensics experts cannot always retrieve fingerprints from objects, but a conformal coating process developed by Penn State professors can reveal hard-to-develop fingerprints on nonporous surfaces without altering the chemistry of the print.

"As prints dry or age, the common techniques used to develop latent fingerprints, such as dusting or cyanoacrylate -- SuperGlue -- fuming often fail," said Robert Shaler, professor of biochemistry and molecular biology and director of Penn State's forensic sciences program.

Scientists have identified an unusual species of pathogenic algae that causes human skin infections, described in a new study in the International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology. The finding should improve our understanding of how rare species of algae are sometimes able to cause serious disease in humans and animals.