Earth

RENO, Nev. – The Seismological Lab at the University of Nevada, Reno is finishing the first phase of seismic surveying through downtown as part of a $1 million U.S. Geological Survey study to create an earthquake hazard map in the Reno-Carson City urban corridor.

"There are several suspected faults in the downtown area, and we don't know much about them," John Louie, professor of geophysics in the Seismological Lab said. "We finished the Truckee river profile along Riverside Drive with the minivibe truck and will finish the small southwest Reno portion this week."

Scientists have discovered a unique beaked, plant-eating dinosaur in China they call Limusaurus inextricabilis. The finding of Limusaurus inextricabilis, they say, demonstrates that theropod, or bird-footed, dinosaurs were more ecologically diverse in the Jurassic period than previously thought, and offers important evidence about how the three-fingered hand of birds evolved from the hand of dinosaurs.

The discovery is reported in a paper published in this week's edition of the journal Nature.

For climatologists, part of the challenge in predicting the future is figuring out exactly what happened during previous periods of global climate change.

One long-standing climate puzzle relates to a sequence of events 33.5 million years ago in the Late Eocene and Early Oligocene. Profound changes were underway. Globally, carbon dioxide levels were falling and the hothouse warmth of the dinosaur age and Eocene Period was waning. In Antarctica, ice sheets had formed and covered much of the southern polar continent.

Over the past 30 years, Atlantic salmon stocks appear to have declined in both North America and Europe. The decline, which has been observed by scientists and has raised concerns within the North Atlantic Salmon Conservation Organization (NASCO), is believed to be related to the characteristics of the salmon’s environment during its time at sea.

Blacksburg, Va. – A collaboration of researchers, which includes scientists at the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute (VBI) and Virginia Tech, have completed the genome sequence of Azotobacter vinelandii, uncovering important genetic information that will contribute to a more complete understanding of the biology of this versatile, soil-living bacterium.

Sewage treatment plants fail to remove artificial sweeteners completely from waste water. What's more, these pollutants contaminate waters downstream and may still be present in our drinking water. Thanks to their new robust analytical method, which simultaneously extracts and analyses seven commonly used artificial sweeteners, Marco Scheurer, Heinz-Jürgen Brauch and Frank Thomas Lange from the Water Technology Center in Karlsruhe, Germany, were able to demonstrate the presence of several artificial sweeteners in waste water.

TEMPE, Ariz. – Arizona State University professor Nancy Grimm is one of the authors of a new and authoritative federal study assessing the current and anticipated domestic impacts of climate change. The report, "Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States," was released June 16 by the U.S. Office of Science and Technology Policy, which advises the President on the effects of science and technology on domestic and international affairs.

LIVERMORE, Calif. - Global warming is already occurring in the United States and the choices Americans make today will determine the severity of its impact in the future, according to a new report released today.

Researchers representing 13 U.S. government science agencies, major universities and research institutes, including Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, produced the study entitled "Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States."

PITTSBURGH—A group of researchers led by Carnegie Mellon University Biological Sciences Professor Aaron Mitchell has identified a novel regulatory gene network that plays an important role in the spread of common, and sometimes deadly, yeast infections. The findings, which establish the role of Zap1 protein in the activation of genes that regulate the synthesis of biofilm matrix, will be published in the June 16, 2009, issue of PLoS Biology, a peer-reviewed open-access journal from the Public Library of Science.

Berkeley, CA—Two researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), Evan Mills and Michael Wehner, contributed to the analysis of the effects of climate change on all regions of the United States, described in a major report released today by the multi-agency U.S. Global Change Research Program. For the southwest region of the United States, which includes California, the report forecasts a hotter, drier climate with significant effects on the environment, agriculture and health.

A new report issued today by the U.S. Global Change Research Program outlines the extent of climate change around the U.S. and its effects not only at present but for the future as well.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Extreme weather, drought, heavy rainfall and increasing temperatures are a fact of life in many parts of the U.S. as a result of human-induced climate change, researchers report today in a new assessment. These and other changes will continue and likely increase in intensity into the future, the scientists found.

Palo Alto, CA— Emergency plans to counteract global warming by artificially shading the Earth from incoming sunlight might lower the planet's temperature a few degrees, but such "geoengineering" solutions would do little to stop the acidification of the world oceans that threatens coral reefs and other marine life, report the authors of a new study in the journal Geophysical Research Letters*. The culprit is atmospheric carbon dioxide, which even in a cooler globe will continue to be absorbed by seawater, creating acidic conditions.

A University of Colorado at Boulder team has uncovered an ancient and previously unknown Maya agricultural system -- a large manioc field intensively cultivated as a staple crop that was buried and exquisitely preserved under a blanket of ash by a volcanic eruption in present-day El Salvador 1,400 years ago.

SANTA CRUZ, CA--Chemists at the University of California, Santa Cruz, have developed novel compounds that show promise for photodynamic cancer therapy, which uses light-activated drugs to kill tumor cells.

The new compounds, called dye-sensitized ruthenium nitrosyls, are absorbed by cancer cells and respond to specific wavelengths of light by releasing nitric oxide, which triggers cell death.