Earth

A study at the University of Valencia ensures that science fiction, especially the cinema, is very popular amongst secondary school students and teachers see it as a good way of motivating interest in the sciences. However, out of the 31 textbooks analysed, only nine make some form of reference to science fiction cinema as a teaching resource.

A decline in April-May rainfall over south-east Australia is associated with a southward expansion of the subtropical dry-zone according to research published today in Scientific Reports, a primary research journal from the publishers of Nature.

CSIRO scientists Wenju Cai, Tim Cowan and Marcus Thatcher explored why autumn rainfall has been in decline across south-eastern Australia since the 1970s, a period that included the devastating Millennium drought from 1997-2009.

CAMBRIDGE, MA -- The colorful leaves piling up in your backyard this fall can be thought of as natural stores of carbon. In the springtime, leaves soak up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, converting the gas into organic carbon compounds. Come autumn, trees shed their leaves, leaving them to decompose in the soil as they are eaten by microbes. Over time, decaying leaves release carbon back into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide.

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- A new study in the journal Geology is shedding light on the brief but violent lives of maar-diatreme volcanoes, which erupt when magma and water meet in an explosive marriage below the surface of the earth.

Maar-diatremes belong to a family of volcanoes known as monogenetic volcanoes. These erupt just once before dying, though some eruptions last for years. Though not particularly famous, monogenetic volcanoes are actually the most common form of land-based volcano on the planet.

Engineers and city planners study surface geology in order to construct buildings that can respond safely to earthquakes. Soft soil amplifies seismic waves, resulting in stronger ground motion than for sites built over bedrock. This study examines the local site response for the city of Ottawa, and the results indicate seismic waves may amplify ground motion greater than expected or referenced in the National Building Code of Canada.

Aaron Orkin from the Northern Ontario School of Medicine and colleagues describe their collaboration that developed, delivered, and studied a community-based first response training program in a remote indigenous community in northern Canada.

Source: Public Library of Science

MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL (10/02/2012) —Plants' ability to absorb increased levels of carbon dioxide in the air may have been overestimated, a new University of Minnesota study shows.

Akron, Ohio, Oct. 2, 2012 — While the common house spider may be creepy, it also has been inspiring researchers to find new and better ways to develop adhesives for human applications such as wound healing and industrial-strength tape. Think about an adhesive suture strong enough to heal a fractured shoulder and that same adhesive designed with a light tackiness ideal for "ouch-free" bandages.

A fossil which has lain in a museum drawer for over a century has been recognized by a University of Leicester geologist as a unique clue to the long-lost skills of some of the most sophisticated animal architects that have ever lived on this planet.

It has provided evidence that early organisms developed specialised roles and that these specialists displayed co-operation in order to construct their homes – much like today's builders employ a team of bricklayers, plasters and decorators.

This video shows colloidal beads (bright dots) that have assembled themselves on a liquid droplet to form a three-dimensional curved crystalline structure. The positive electric charges cause the beads to repel each other, leading them to arrange themselves naturally in a honeycomb pattern with each particle equally distant from six others.

(Photo Credit: William Irvine, University of Chicago)

AMES, Iowa – Two Iowa State University graduate students are just back from the Gulf of Maine with another big catch of clam shells.

Shelly Griffin and Madelyn Mette recently boarded a lobster boat, dropped a scallop dredge into 30 meters of ocean water and pulled up load after load of Arctica islandica.

University of Leeds-led research has used tree rings from eight cedar trees in Bolivia to unlock a 100-year history of rainfall across the Amazon basin, which contains the world's largest river system.

The new study shows that the rings in lowland tropical cedar trees provide a natural archive of data closely related to historic rainfall.

LOS ALAMOS, N.M., Oct. 1, 2012— Combine the tree-ring growth record with historic information, climate records and computer-model projections of future climate trends, and you get a grim picture for the future of trees in the southwestern United States. That's the word from a team of scientists from Los Alamos National Laboratory, the U.S. Geological Survey, University of Arizona, and several other partner organizations.

Highlights, including authors and their institutions

The following highlights summarize research papers that have been recentlypublished in Geophysical Research Letters (GRL), Journal of GeophysicalResearch - Solid Earth (JGR-B), Journal of Geophysical Research - Oceans(JGR-C), and Water Resources Research (WRR).

In this release:

1. The pros and cons of trading water: A case study in Australia

2. Linking typhoon tracks with rainfall patterns and flood timing