Earth

A new study from an international team of scientists uncovered new information about the tiny, globetrotting organisms commonly used to reconstruct past climate conditions. The findings can aid in improving our understanding of past global climate conditions.

Media and popular culture might portray religion and science as being at odds, but new research from Rice University suggests just the opposite.

Findings from the recently completed study "Religious Understandings of Science (RUS)" reveal that despite many misconceptions regarding the intersection of science and religion, nearly 70 percent of evangelical Christians do not view the two as being in conflict with each other.

Bacteria that live on iron were found for the first time at three well-known vent sites along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, one of the longest undersea mountain ranges in the world. Scientists report that these bacteria likely play an important role in deep-ocean iron cycling, and are dominant members of communities near and adjacent to sulfur-rich, black-smoker hydrothermal vents prevalent along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge.

Spring is just around the corner and for millions of Americans, that means planting a garden with plenty of fruits and vegetables, including tomatoes. However, some of the plants will be infected by bacteria, leading to stunted growth and less nutritional value. Now, a University of Missouri research team has uncovered new regulations of defense pathways for plants. This discovery could lead to helping those home-grown tomatoes fight off certain bacteria better and has implications for pear trees, roses, soybeans and rice.

Lithium-ion batteries have enabled many of today's electronics, from portable gadgets to electric cars. But much to the frustration of consumers, none of these batteries last long without a recharge. Now scientists report in the journal ACS Nano the development of a new, "green" way to boost the performance of these batteries -- with a material derived from silk.

Researchers trying to understand wheat-related health problems have found new clues to how the grain's proteins, including gluten, change when cooked and digested. They report in ACS' Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry that boiling pasta releases some of its potential allergens, while other proteins persist throughout cooking and digestion. Their findings lend new insights that could ultimately help celiac patients and people allergic to wheat.

Findings published today in Scientific Reports looked at the pattern of variation of the South Asian monsoon over time and compared it with the evolution of African mole rats and bamboo rats as revealed by a full analysis of their relationships coupled with studies of their distribution in space and through time and of their evolutionary rates.

An Antarctic octopus that lives in ice-cold water uses an unique strategy to transport oxygen in its blood, according to research published in Frontiers in Zoology. The study suggests that the octopus's specialized blood pigments could help to make it more resilient to climate change than Antarctic fish and other species of octopus.

NASA's Terra satellite provided an outside look at Tropical Cyclone Pam while the RapidScat instrument that flies aboard the International Space Station provided an inside look at the surface winds generated by the storm. The GPM core satellite provided another inside look at Pam and provided data on where the heavy rainfall was occurring within the storm.

On March 9 and 10, Tropical Cyclone Pam strengthened to hurricane-force as it neared Vanuatu in the Southern Pacific Ocean.

Red lead is most familiar to us in orange-red rustproof paint. Artists have treasured the brilliant color of this pigment for their paintings since ancient times. However, various ageing processes cause discoloration of the saturated hue over time. Thanks to a combination of X-ray diffraction mapping and tomography experiments at DESY´s synchrotron light source PETRA III, Belgian scientists have now explained an additional step in the light-induced degradation of lead red.

Many mammals -- and some birds -- escape the winter by hibernating for three to nine months. This period of dormancy permits species which would otherwise perish from the cold and scarce food to survive to see another spring. The Middle East, with temperate winters, was until recently considered an unlikely host for hibernating mammals.

Natural forces have always caused the climate on Earth to fluctuate. Now researchers have found geological evidence that some of the same forces as today were at play 1.4 billion years ago.

Fluctuating climate is a hallmark of Earth, and the present greenhouse effect is by far the only force affecting today's climate. On a larger scale the Earth's climate is also strongly affected by how the Earth orbits around the sun; this is called orbital forcing of climate change. These changes happen over thousands of years and they bring ice ages and warming periods.

Proteins from salt-loving, halophilic, microbes could be the key to cleaning up leaked radioactive strontium and caesium ions from the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant incident in Japan. The publication of the X-ray structure of a beta-lactamase enzyme from one such microbe, the halophile Chromohalobacter sp. 560, reveals it to have highly selective cesium binding sites.

Genes linked with a greater risk of developing autism may also be associated with higher intelligence, a study suggests.

Researchers have found new evidence linking genetic factors associated with autism to better cognitive ability in people who do not have the condition.

The relationship between autism and intelligence is not clear, researchers say. Although up to 70 per cent of individuals with autism have an intellectual disability, some people with the disorder have relatively well-preserved, or even higher than average, non-verbal intelligence, the team says.

Nearly three out of four Chinese adults have poor cardiovascular health, with poor diet and growing rates of obesity compounding the risks associated with continuing high rates of smoking, according to a new survey published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.