Earth

A strategy that has been shown to reduce age-related health problems in several animal studies may also combat a major cause of age-associated infertility and birth defects. Investigators from Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) have shown that restricting the caloric intake of adult female mice prevents a spectrum of abnormalities, such as extra or missing copies of chromosomes, that arise more frequently in egg cells of aging female mammals. Their report appears in this week's online Early Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA.

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Decreasing autumn and winter rainfall over southern Australia has been attributed to a 50-year decrease in the average intensity of storms in the region – a trend which is forecast to continue for another 50 years.

In an address today to the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics conference in Melbourne, CSIRO climate scientist, Dr Jorgen Frederiksen, said these changes are due to reductions in the strength of the mid-latitude jet stream and changes in atmospheric temperatures. The jet stream comprises fast moving westerly winds in the upper atmosphere.

How the frequency and intensity of wildfires and intentional biomass burning will change in a future climate requires closer scientific attention, according to CSIRO's Dr Melita Keywood.

Dr Keywood said it is likely that fire – one of nature's primary carbon-cycling mechanisms – will become an increasingly important driver of atmospheric change as the world warms.

More than 99 per cent of modern vertebrates (animals with a backbone, including humans) have jaws, yet 420 million years ago, jawless, toothless armour-plated fishes dominated the seas, lakes, and rivers. There were no vertebrates yet on land and the recently evolved jawed fishes were minor players in this alien world, some sporting unusual jaw shapes and structures that bear little physical resemblance to modern animals.

BOULDER, Colo. – Showcasing new tools for widespread development of quantum circuits made of mechanical parts, scientists from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have demonstrated a flexible, broadlyusable technique for steadily calming the vibrations of an engineered mechanical object down to the quantum "ground state," the lowestpossible energy level.

Bringing fresh insight into long-standing debates about how powerful geological forces shape the planet, from earthquake ruptures to mountain formations, scientists at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego have identified a new mechanism driving Earth's massive tectonic plates.

Professional development workshops for college teachers, designed to encourage the use of active, "learner-centered" teaching methods, may be less effective than the participants believe, according to research reported in the July issue of BioScience.

Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have designed a multiple-compartment gel capsule that could be used to simultaneously deliver drugs of different types. The researchers used a simple "one-pot" method to prepare the hydrogel capsules, which measure less than one micron.

Researchers from the RUB-Department of Biophysics of Prof. Dr. Klaus Gerwert have succeeded in providing evidence that a protein is capable of creating a water molecule chain for a few milliseconds for the directed proton transfer. The combination of vibrational spectroscopy and biomolecular simulations enabled the elucidation of the proton pump mechanism of a cell-membrane protein in atomic detail. The researchers demonstrated that protein-bound water molecules play a decisive role in the function. Their results were selected for the Early Edition of PNAS.

In 2009, 1,547 ART children were born in public clinics in Denmark, projecting a net tax revenue of €224 million and €247 million in 25 and 50 years respectively. The authors of the study calculated that reductions of 30-50% in ART cycles following the new policy would lead to cost savings of €67 - €111 million for the Danish government in 2034. By 2059 however, when the IVF cohort are 50 years of age, the government would have lost €74 - €123 million due to less tax contributions from fewer children born.

The question seems simple enough: What happens to the Earth's temperature when atmospheric carbon dioxide levels increase? The answer is elusive. However, clues are hidden in the fossil record. A new study by researchers from Syracuse and Yale universities provides a much clearer picture of the Earth's temperature approximately 50 million years ago when CO2 concentrations were higher than today. The results may shed light on what to expect in the future if CO2 levels keep rising.

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Latest research into the age of volcanos in Western Victoria and South Australia has confirmed that the regions are overdue for an eruption, potentially affecting thousands of local residents.

Using the latest dating techniques, scientists from the University of Melbourne's School of Earth Sciences and the Melbourne School of Engineering have calculated the ages of the small volcanoes in the regions and established the recurrence rate for eruptions as 2,000 years.

raphene, discovered in 2004 at The University of Manchester by Professor Andre Geim and Professor Kostya Novoselov, is one of the world's most versatile materials, and is already being used in such varied applications as touch screens, transistors and aircraft wings.

Researchers from the University are presenting the vast potential of the wonder material at the Royal Society's annual Summer Science Exhibition which opens today (5 July 2010).