Earth

Boulder, CO, USA–The Apollo Moon missions of 1969-1972 all share a dirty secret. "The major issue the Apollo astronauts pointed out was dust, dust, dust," says Professor Larry Taylor, Director of the Planetary Geosciences Institute at the University of Tennessee. Fine as flour and rough as sandpaper, Moon dust caused 'lunar hay fever,' problems with space suits, and dust storms in the crew cabin upon returning to space.

A team of Penn State physicists has discovered that the size of grains, such as sand, above a buried object is important in determining the force required to begin raising the object. No one, until now, has discovered how much force is required to initiate an object's movement through grains. The result may be useful for engineering foundations for objects to be anchored in sandy soils, such as power-line towers, or for designing industrial mixer blades, such as those used in pharmaceutical processing.

SEPTEMBER 24, 2008 -- With reducing carbon emissions on the national agenda, a group of expert panelists will discuss methods, markets, testing and policy issues on how carbon sinks or carbon sequestration may be used to reduce atmospheric CO2.

MADISON -- Ancient lava flows are guiding a better understanding of what generates and controls the Earth's magnetic field – and what may drive it to occasionally reverse direction.

A new experiment to find out how British plant ecosystems may be affected by future changes to climate and biodiversity is underway at Imperial College London.

Canadian bedrock more than 4 billion years old may be the oldest known section of the Earth's early crust.

Scientists at the Carnegie Institution of Washington and McGill University in Montreal used geochemical methods to obtain an age of 4.28 billion years for samples of the rock, making it 250 million years more ancient than any previously discovered rocks.

The findings, which offer scientists clues to earliest stages of our planet's evolution, are published in this week's issue of the journal Science.

Washington, D.C.—Canadian bedrock more than four billion years old may be the oldest known section of the Earth's early crust. Scientists at the Carnegie Institution used geochemical methods to obtain an age of 4.28 billion years for samples of the rock, making it 250 million years more ancient than any previously discovered rocks. The findings, which offer scientists clues to the earliest stages of our planet's evolution, are published in the September 26 issue of Science.*

PASADENA, Calif.-- An explanation for a strange property of noctilucent clouds--thin, wispy clouds hovering at the edge of space at 85 km altitude--has been proposed by an experimental plasma physicist at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), possibly laying to rest a decades-long mystery.

Boulder, CO, USA – Small white stalagmites lining caves in the Midwest may help scientists chronicle the history of the New Madrid Seismic Zone (NMSZ) – and even predict when the next big earthquake may strike, say researchers at the Illinois State Geological Survey and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Life has been discovered in the barren depths of Rome's ancient tombs, proving catacombs are not just a resting place for the dead. The two new species of bacteria found growing on the walls of the Roman tombs may help protect our cultural heritage monuments, according to research published in the September issue of the International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology.

A little-used grain-drying technique can help farmers control energy costs, according to an Ohio State University agricultural engineer.

Robert Hansen, of the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center, is reacquainting farmers with natural-air grain drying, a low-energy system that typically results in higher grain quality. In some circumstances, the technique has the potential to cut energy costs by as much as two-thirds, compared to more commonly used high-temperature drying systems.

Pine bark beetles appear to be doing more than killing large swaths of forests in the Rocky Mountains. Scientists suspect they are also altering local weather patterns and air quality.

A new international field project, led by scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colo., is exploring how trees and other vegetation influence rainfall, temperatures, smog and other aspects of the atmosphere.

BOULDER--Mountain pine beetles appear to be doing more than killing large swaths of forests in the Rocky Mountains. Scientists suspect they are also altering local weather patterns and air quality.

Dessau. Extreme flood events in floodplain grasslands affect carabid beetles and molluscs more than plants. This is the finding of a study by biologists from the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ), TU Berlin, the German Federal Institute of Hydrology (BfG), ÖKON Kallmünz and the ILN Bühl, following several years of observations before and after the Elbe floods of August 2002. Flow variations are known to be most important drivers in structuring riverine communities.

COLUMBUS, Ohio – River floods and storms that send water surging through swamps and marshes near rivers and coastal areas might cut in half the average greenhouse gas emissions from those affected wetlands, according to recent research at Ohio State University.

A study suggests that pulses of water through wetlands result in lower average emissions of greenhouse gases over the course of the year compared to the emissions from wetlands that receive a steady flow of water.