Earth

Astronomers from The University of Western Ontario in London, Canada have released footage of a meteor that was approximately 100 times brighter than a full moon. The meteor lit up the skies of southern Ontario two weeks ago and Western astronomers are now hoping to enlist the help of local residents in recovering one or more possible meteorites that may have crashed in the area of Grimsby, Ontario.

GAITHERSBURG, Md.—A fabric-covered, steel frame practice facility owned by the National Football League's Dallas Cowboys collapsed under wind loads significantly less than those required under applicable design standards, according to a report released on October 6 for public comment by the Commerce Department's National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

Located in Irving, Texas, the facility collapsed on May 2, 2009, during a severe thunderstorm. Twelve people were injured, one seriously.

Any child can tell you that a magnet has a "north" and a "south" pole, and that if you break it into two pieces, you invariably get two smaller magnets with two poles of their own. But scientists have spent the better part of the last eight decades trying to find, in essence, a magnet with only one pole. A team working at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has found one.*

The windswept deserts of northern China might seem an odd destination for studying the heavy monsoon rains that routinely drench the more tropical regions of Southeast Asia. But the sandy dunefields that mark the desert margin between greener pastures to the south and the Gobi Desert to the north are a rich source of information about past climates in Asia, says University of Wisconsin-Madison geographer Joseph Mason.

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MADISON — The windswept deserts of northern China might seem an odd destination for studying the heavy monsoon rains that routinely drench the more tropical regions of Southeast Asia.

San Diego, CA – Nearly all patients who underwent surgery to treat oropharyngeal cancer experienced some degree of obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), according to new research presented at the 2009 American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery Foundation (AAO-HNSF) Annual Meeting & OTO EXPO, in San Diego, CA.

Despite a slight recovery in summer Arctic sea ice in 2009 from record-setting low years in 2007 and 2008, the sea ice extent remains significantly below previous years and remains on a trend leading toward ice-free Arctic summers, according to the University of Colorado at Boulder's National Snow and Ice Data Center.

According to the CU-Boulder center, the 2009 minimum sea ice extent was the third lowest since satellite record-keeping began in 1979. The past five years have seen the five lowest Arctic sea ice extents ever recorded.

"Blue haze," a common occurrence that appears over heavily forested areas around the world, is formed by natural emissions of chemicals, but human activities can worsen it to the point of affecting the world's weather and even cause potential climate problems, according to a study led by a Texas A&M University researcher.

Renyi Zhang, professor of atmospheric sciences who has studied air chemistry for more than 20 years, says blue haze (tiny particles or aerosols suspended in the air) can be negatively affected by human activities such as power plants or fossil-fuel burning.

Scientists have a long and unsuccessful history of attempting to convert hydrogen to a metal by squeezing it under incredibly high and steady pressures.

Metallic hydrogen is predicted to be a high-temperature superconductor. A superconductor is a state of matter where electrons, and thus electricity, can flow indefinitely and without resistance.

Just a few weeks after tiny, early Raptorex kriegsteini was unveiled, a new wrench has been thrown into the family tree of the tyrannosaurs. The new Alioramus altai—a horned, long-snouted, gracile cousin of Tyrannosaurus rex—shared the same environment with larger, predatory relatives. A paper published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences describes this exceptionally well-preserved fossil, shedding light on a previously poorly understood genus of tyrannosaurs and describing a new suite of adaptations for meat eating.

The anticipated sea-level rise associated with climate change, including increased storminess, over the next 100 years and the impact on the nation's low-lying coastal infrastructure is the focus of a new, interdisciplinary study led by geologists at The Florida State University <http://www.fsu.edu/>.

A high-speed chase across the Panama Canal in a Boston Whaler may sound like the beginning of another James Bond film—but the protagonist of this story brandishes a butterfly net and studies the effects of climate change on insect migrations at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute.

Scientists at the University of Leeds have proved that acid in the atmosphere breaks down large particles of iron found in dust into small and extremely soluble iron nanoparticles, which are more readily used by plankton.

This is an important finding because lack of iron can be a limiting factor for plankton growth in the ocean - especially in the southern oceans and parts of the eastern Pacific. Addition of such iron nanoparticles would trigger increased absorption of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.