Earth

Alexandria, VA – The American Geological Institute (AGI) Workforce Program has completed the report "Status of the Geoscience Workforce 2009." The first chapter, "Trends in Geoscience Education from K-12 through Community College" of this comprehensive benchmark report is now available through AGI's website at http://www.agiweb.org/workforce.

Earthquakes, volcanoes and the African superplume are only some of the phenomena under investigation through AfricaArray, a program that establishes geophysical observatories, trains African and American students and examines geophysical phenomena on the African continent.

CHICAGO -- Field work and computer simulations in Michigan and Wisconsin are helping biofuels researchers understand the basics of getting home-grown energy from the field to consumers. Preliminary results presented today suggest that incorporating native, perennial plants during biofuels production reduces emissions of greenhouse gases, improves water quality and enhances biodiversity. The results are part of an experimental effort to make biofuels economically and environmentally sustainable.

CHICAGO – Putting a price tag on carbon dioxide emitted by different land use practices could dramatically change the way that land is used – forests become increasingly valuable for storing carbon and overall carbon emissions reductions become cheaper, according to research presented today at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

GAITHERSBURG, Md.—Pushing the envelope of Albert Einstein's "spooky action at a distance," known as entanglement, researchers at the Joint Quantum Institute (JQI) of the Commerce Department's National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the University of Maryland have demonstrated a "quantum buffer," a technique that could be used to control the data flow inside a quantum computer. Quantum computers could potentially speed up or expand present capabilities in decrypting data, searching large databases, and other tasks. The new research is published in the Feb.

CHICAGO – Imagine you live in the suburbs of Chicago and you must commute hundreds of miles to a job in Iowa just to put food on the table. Magellanic penguins living on the Atlantic coast of Argentina face a similar scenario, and it is taking a toll.

The penguins' survival is being challenged by wide variability in conditions and food availability, said Dee Boersma, a University of Washington biology professor and a leading authority on Magellanic penguins.

Scientists have for the first time calculated the likely impact of climate change on the distribution of more than 1,000 species of fish around the globe.

Published this week in the journal 'Fish and Fisheries', the research was carried out by scientists at the University of East Anglia (UEA), the Sea Around Us project at the University of British Columbia (UBC) and Princeton University. The findings will also be presented at the AAAS Annual Meeting in Chicago on Friday February 13 by the paper's lead author Dr William Cheung of UEA's School of Environmental Sciences.

A quarter-century of data reveals how changing weather patterns and land use, combined with overfishing and pollution, are taking a heavy toll on penguin numbers

Edmonton—Canada's inland waters, the countless lakes and reservoirs across the country, are important "sentinels" for climate change and Ottawa and the provinces are ignoring the warnings.

That's the message from University of Alberta biologist David Schindler and colleagues in a paper to be released Feb. 12, 2009, in the prestigious publication, Science.

Schindler is a co-author of Sentinels of Change, which reviewed papers addressing the effects of climate change revealed in numerous long-term studies presented at a conference last September.

The study, funded in part by the National Geographic Society, found that songbirds' overall migration rate was two to six times more rapid in spring than in fall. For example, one purple martin took 43 days to reach Brazil during fall migration, but in spring returned to its breeding colony in only 13 days. Rapid long-distance movement occurred in both species, said Stutchbury.

BOZEMAN, Mont. -- A new Montana State University study says that weather, especially in late winter and early spring, is getting warmer in northwestern North America.

CHESTNUT HILL, MA (February 12, 2009) – Restoring habitat for spawning species of fish, such as Atlantic salmon, starts with a geological inventory of suitable rivers and streams, and the watershed systems that support them. But the high-tech mapping tools available to geologists and hydrologists have had their limits.

Now, lasers beamed from planes overhead are adding greater clarity to mapping streams and rivers and interpreting how well these bodies of water can help maintain or expand fish stocks, according to a new study.

MOSS LANDING, CA — Over the last two decades, marine biologists have discovered lush forests of deep-sea corals and sponges growing on seamounts (underwater mountains) offshore of the California coast. It has generally been assumed that many of these animals live only on seamounts, and are found nowhere else. However, two new research papers show that most seamount animals can also be found in other deep-sea areas. Seamounts, however, do support particularly large, dense clusters of these animals.

Blacksburg, Va. – Tomorrow's fuel-cell vehicles may be powered by enzymes that consume cellulose from woodchips or grass and exhale hydrogen.

Researchers at Virginia Tech, Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), and the University of Georgia have produced hydrogen gas pure enough to power a fuel cell by mixing 14 enzymes, one coenzyme, cellulosic materials from nonfood sources, and water heated to about 90 degrees (32 C).

It was the geological collision between India and Asia millions of years ago that created one of the world's most distinctive places: The area around Lake Baikal in Siberia, which contains 20 per cent of the world's fresh water reserves and a unique display of plant- and wildlife.

That is the conclusion reached by two Danish researchers from the University of Copenhagen, Professor Hans Thybo and PhD Christoffer Nielsen, after many seismic examinations, including blowing up tons of dynamite, and five years work of analysing the data.