Earth

Jerusalem, March 7, 2010 – Friction in physics has had a "secret life" of its own that has revealed new clues, say scientists at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

In an article appearing in the journal Nature (with a further reference to it in Nature Physics), the scientists show how frictional strength evolves from extremely short to long time scales. The new information could be useful in assessing a wide range of natural and man-made phenomena — from earthquakes to computer hard drives

Palo Alto, CA— A new study by scientists at the Carnegie Institution finds that over a third of carbon dioxide emissions associated with consumption of goods and services in many developed countries are actually emitted outside their borders. Some countries, such as Switzerland, "outsource" over half of their carbon dioxide emissions, primarily to developing countries. The study finds that, per person, about 2.5 tons of carbon dioxide are consumed in the U.S. but produced somewhere else. For Europeans, the figure can exceed four tons per person.

VERNON -- The application of summer patch burning to heal native rangeland may be best accomplished using rotational grazing, according to a Texas AgriLife Research range ecologist.

Dr. Richard Teague recently completed a study of native rangeland vegetation and soils subjected to summer patch burns followed by cattle being allowed to graze either continuously or using a rotational grazing system.

Geologists have found evidence that sea ice extended to the equator 716.5 million years ago, bringing new precision to a "snowball Earth" event long suspected to have taken place around that time.

Funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and led by scientists at Harvard University, the team reports on its work this week in the journal Science.

The new findings--based on an analysis of ancient tropical rocks that are now found in remote northwestern Canada--bolster the theory that our planet has, at times in the past, been ice-covered at all latitudes.

Ten Kent State University researchers are part of a team of international scientists who have discovered the most massive antinucleus discovered to date. They are part of an international team of scientists studying high-energy collision of gold ions at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collidor (RHIC), a 2.4 mile-circumference particle accelerator at the U.S Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, N.Y.

A worldwide team of researchers, including 10 from Texas A&M University, have for the first time created a particle that is believed to have been in existence immediately after the creation of the universe – the so-called "Big Bang" – and it could lead to new questions and answers about some of the basic laws of physics because in essence, it creates a new form of matter.

USGS scientists are helping Haitians lay the groundwork for reconstruction and long-term earthquake monitoring in the wake of the Jan. 12, 2010, magnitude-7 earthquake, by providing geologic research that will assist with the establishment of new building codes in the country.

"USGS research will contribute to explicit recommendations to both the Haitian government and the international community that is assisting the reconstruction efforts," said Walter Mooney, USGS research geophysicist, who recently returned from Haiti.

Climate change is one reason malaria is on the rise in some parts of the world, new research finds, but other factors such as migration and land-use changes are likely also at play. The research, published in The Quarterly Review of Biology, aims to sort out contradictions that have emerged as scientists try to understand why malaria has been spreading into highland areas of East Africa, Indonesia, Afghanistan and elsewhere.

The ongoing El Niño of 2010 is affecting north Pacific Ocean ecosystems in ways that could affect the West Coast fishing industry, according to scientists at NOAA and Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego.

Researchers with the California Cooperative Oceanic Fisheries Investigations (CalCOFI) at Scripps and NOAA's Southwest Fisheries Science Center report a stronger than normal northward movement of warm water up the Southern California coast, a high sea-level event in January and low abundances of plankton and pelagic fish — all conditions consistent with El Niño.

Time taken to detect brain tumours could soon be significantly reduced thanks to an ongoing pioneering project led by the University of Liverpool with the Nuclear Physics Group and Technology departments at the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) at Daresbury Laboratory.

TORONTO, March 2, 2010 — The levels of contamination to water and sediment in Frenchman's Bay in Pickering, Ontario greatly exceed provincial water quality standards, in some cases by as much as 250 per cent, according to a new study by researchers at the University of Toronto Scarborough. This is largely due to large amounts of road salt applied in winter, especially to Highway 401, the study finds.

Today, scientists from the NOAA-funded Gulf of Maine Toxicity project issued an outlook for a significant regional bloom of a toxic alga that causes 'red tides' in the spring and summer of this year, potentially threatening the New England shellfish industry.

The melting of glaciers is well documented, but when looking at the rate at which they have been retreating, a team of international researchers steps back and says not so fast.

Previous studies have largely overestimated mass loss from Alaskan glaciers over the past 40-plus years, according to Erik Schiefer, a Northern Arizona University geographer who coauthored a paper in the February issue of Nature Geoscience that recalculates glacier melt in Alaska.

Mosquitoes—not birds as suspected—may have a played a primary role in spreading West Nile virus westward across the United States, according to a study by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. The study is among the first to examine the role of mosquitoes in the dispersion of West Nile virus across the U.S. and is published in the March 2 edition of Molecular Ecology.

The first systematic study of surveillance techniques for the insect vector of Chagas disease in Amazonia, conducted by researchers from the Fiocruz Instituto Leônidas e Maria Deane, the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and colleagues, concludes that tall palm trees with large amounts of debris on their crowns and stems should be targets for disease surveillance and control.