Earth

Science study: Teacher participation in Columbia program improves student achievement in science

NEW YORK (Oct. 16, 2009) – The notion that training teachers in the rigors of hands-on science will directly improve their students' academic performance now has real data behind it: Research assembled over the last decade – now published in the Oct. 16 issue of Science – shows that high school students' pass rate on New York State standardized tests, called Regents examinations, can be significantly improved if they are among the lucky few to study under a teacher trained in Columbia University's Summer Research Program for Science Teachers.

Tree leaves may be powerful air quality indicators

Boulder, CO USA – Tree leaves may be powerful tools for monitoring air quality and planning biking routes and walking paths, suggests a new study by scientists at Western Washington University in Bellingham. The research will be presented at this month's Annual Meeting of the Geological Society of America in Portland, Oregon.

Giant impact near India -- not Mexico -- may have doomed dinosaurs, geologists argue

Boulder, CO, USA -- A mysterious basin off the coast of India could be the largest, multi-ringed impact crater the world has ever seen. And if a new study is right, it may have been responsible for killing the dinosaurs off 65 million years ago.

Satellite data provide behind the scenes look at deadly Wenchuan earthquake

Using satellite radar data and GPS measurements, Chinese researchers have explained the exceptional geological events leading to the 2008 Wenchuan Earthquake that killed nearly 90 000 people in China's Sichuan Province.

"One of the very fundamental issues for understanding an earthquake is to know how the rupture is distributed on the fault plane, which is directly related to the amount of ground shaking and the damage it could cause at the surface," said Dr Jianbao Sun of the Institute of Geology, China Earthquake Administration (IGCEA).

Arctic traps 25 percent of World's carbon -- but global warming could change that

The arctic could potentially alter the Earth's climate by becoming a possible source of global atmospheric carbon dioxide. The arctic now traps or absorbs up to 25 percent of this gas but climate change could alter that amount, according to a study published in the November issue of Ecological Monographs.

Forget about the shoreline; rip currents pose greater risk to swimmers

Rip currents—powerful, channeled currents of water flowing away from the shore—represent a danger to human life and property. Rip currents are responsible for more than one hundred deaths on our nation's beaches each year, according to the United States Lifesaving Association, and if rip currents persist long enough they can cause beach erosion. Henry Bokuniewicz, Professor in the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences at Stony Brook University, and Ph.D.

New nanotech sensor developed with medical, chemistry applications

CORVALLIS, Ore. – Researchers at Oregon State University and other institutions have developed a new "plasmonic nanorod metamaterial" using extraordinarily tiny rods of gold that will have important applications in medical, biological and chemical sensors.

Ambassadors from the past: banded rocks tell early Earth's story

MADISON — The strikingly banded rocks scattered across the upper Midwest and elsewhere throughout the world are actually ambassadors from the past, offering clues to the environment of the early Earth more than 2 billion years ago.

Called banded iron formations or BIFs, these ancient rocks formed between 3.8 and 1.7 billion years ago at what was then the bottom of the ocean. The stripes represent alternating layers of silica-rich chert and iron-rich minerals like hematite and magnetite.

As nitrogen cycle enters global warming equation, climate models could get a makeover

OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Oct. 9, 2009 -- For the first time, climate scientists from across the country have successfully incorporated the nitrogen cycle into global simulations for climate change, questioning previous assumptions regarding carbon feedback and potentially helping to refine model forecasts about global warming.

Are rising sea levels putting England's south coast at risk?

A new study by researchers at the University of Southampton has found that sea levels have been rising across the south coast of England over the past century, substantially increasing the risk of flooding during storms.

The team has conducted a major data collection exercise, bringing together computer and paper-based records from across the south of England, from the Scilly Isles to Sheerness, to form a single data set of south coast sea levels across the years.

Cleaning up explosive pollutants with XplA

Scientists at the University of York have uncovered the structure of an unusual enzyme which can be used to reverse the contamination of land by explosives.

The discovery, by scientists in the York Structural Biology Laboratory and the Centre for Novel Agricultural Products, will support the development of plants that can help tackle pollution caused by royal demolition explosive, also known as RDX.

Last time carbon dioxide levels were this high: 15 million years ago, scientists report

You would have to go back at least 15 million years to find carbon dioxide levels on Earth as high as they are today, a UCLA scientist and colleagues report Oct. 8 in the online edition of the journal Science.

Clemson bioengineer uses nanoparticles to target drugs

CLEMSON — Clemson bioengineer Frank Alexis is designing new ways to target drugs and reduce the chances for side effects.

Pharmaceutical commercials can cause the unsettling feeling that if the disease doesn't kill, the cure will, what with a drug's long list of side effects and warnings. Many therapeutic drugs administered by pill, cream, syringe, IV or liquid can be a hit or miss delivery system.

Researchers report that only 1 of 100,000 molecules of an intravenous drug make it to the intended spot in the body.

Scientists measure the rate of ascent of volcanic magma

UA scientists discover quantum fingerprints of chaos

Chaotic behavior is the rule, not the exception, in the world we experience through our senses, the world governed by the laws of classical physics.

Even tiny, easily overlooked events can completely change the behavior of a complex system, to the point where there is no apparent order to most natural systems we deal with in everyday life.

The weather is one familiar case, but other well-studied examples can be found in chemical reactions, population dynamics, neural networks and even the stock market.