Earth

Copenhagen. Climate change is affecting all regions in Europe, causing a wide range of impacts on society and the environment. Further impacts are expected in the future, potentially causing high damage costs, according to the latest assessment published by the European Environment Agency this week.

The shells of marine snails – known as pteropods – living in the seas around Antarctica are being dissolved by ocean acidification according to a new study published this week in the journal Nature Geoscience. These tiny animals are a valuable food source for fish and birds and play an important role in the oceanic carbon cycle*.

Metallic glass alloys (or liquid metals) are three times stronger than the best industrial steel, but can be molded into complex shapes with the same ease as plastic. These materials are highly resistant to scratching, denting, shattering and corrosion. So far, they have been used in a variety of products from golf clubs to aircraft components. And, some smartphone manufacturers are even looking to cast their next-generation phone cases out of it.

The Antarctic ice sheets drain from the continent interior to the ocean via fast flowing ice streams. As the ice within these streams moves, it erodes and modifies the bed over which it travels. Some of the eroded material is trapped within the ice as mineral and rock fragments and transported into the ocean as icebergs.

The greatest extinction event in Earth's history, the Latest Permian Extinction, saw a loss of more than 90% of the planet's species. Second to the mystery of what caused this extinction is why life on Earth took a prolonged five-million years to recover (referred to as the Early Triassic period).

Mountain glaciers respond to climate change by rapidly advancing or receding as temperatures vary, and this change in glacier extent controls hydrology, sediment transport, and deposition in rivers downstream.

The diversity of fossils recorded by paleontologists from the geological record is the product of two factors -- original biodiversity and the completeness of the geological rock record that survives today to be sampled.

Andrew B. Smith and Roger B.J. Benson show that species diversity of Cretaceous echinoids can be predicted with a high degree of precision from proxies for marine sedimentary bedrock area and habitat diversity that is captured by the rock record.

Changes in vegetation from coastal mangroves to montane forest are used to record the emergence of Timor from the sea and to track the uplift of the island from sea level to over 2000 m above sea level.

The island started to emerge soon after 4.5 million years ago, but the uplift dramatically accelerated after 3.1 million years ago to rates of 2-5 mm per year.

For the past 17 million years and perhaps longer, motion of Earth's tectonic plates has moved California west, away from Utah and Arizona.

As the area in between grew wider, Earth's crust cracked along major faults to form the mountains and valleys of the Basin and Range Province that today cover Nevada and western Utah. In the early stages of this process, large amounts of molten basalt intruded Earth's crust in northern Nevada, forming a linear, near-vertical dike swarm over 500 km long.

CAMBRIDGE, MA -- Each winter, wide swaths of the Arctic Ocean freeze to form sheets of sea ice that spread over millions of square miles. This ice acts as a massive sun visor for the Earth, reflecting solar radiation and shielding the planet from excessive warming.

The Arctic ice cover reaches its peak each year in mid-March, before shrinking with warmer spring temperatures. But over the last three decades, this winter ice cap has shrunk: Its annual maximum reached record lows, according to satellite observations, in 2007 and again in 2011.

Stretching across central Africa, the Congo Basin forest is the second largest tract of rainforest in the world and a lifeline for more than 60 million people – providing food and income for many remote communities, storing huge amounts of carbon, supporting unique ecosystems and regulating the flow of the major rivers across Central Africa. Yet the Congo's forests are being cleared at an alarming rate amid global demand for the continent's minerals, energy and wood resources.

It appears that it's not just us Brits who are fascinated with the UK weather.

A group of researchers from Germany has taken to investigating the potential changes in extreme rainfall patterns across the UK as a result of future global warming and has found that in some regions, the time of year when we see the heaviest rainfall is set to shift.

Millbrook, N.Y. -- In the northern hardwood forest, climate change is poised to reduce the viability of the maple syrup industry, spread wildlife diseases and tree pests, and change timber resources. And, according to a new BioScience paper just released by twenty-one scientists, without long-term studies at the local scale—we will be ill-prepared to predict and manage these effects.

Young girls can dance their way to better mental health. Symptoms like depression, stress, fatigue, and headaches are alleviated with regular dancing. This is shown in a study run by Anna Duberg, a physical therapist at Örebro University Hospital and a doctoral candidate at Örebro University in Sweden. Regular dance training can thereby be regarded as a strategy for preventing and treating low spirits and depression. Dance also brings enhanced self-esteem and a greater capacity to deal with everyday problems.