Earth

Finding a new species of dinosaur is pretty rare. Getting a hand in the discovery and naming of one - that's rarer still.

Or it would be for anyone other than 32-year-old Sterling Nesbitt, an assistant professor of geological sciences in the College of Science and the newest addition to Virginia Tech's paleontology team.

Nesbitt has been responsible for naming more than half a dozen reptiles (including dinosaurs) in his young career.

Scientists plumbing the depths of the ocean have made a surprise finding that could change the way we understand supernovae, exploding stars way beyond our solar system.

They have analysed extraterrestrial dust thought to be from supernovae, that has settled on ocean floors to determine the amount of heavy elements created by the massive explosions.

Researchers at Universidad Politécnica de Madrid have studied the stability of diverse arsenic species found in edible marine algae and have established the best conditions for their storage and preservation.

By developing a specific analytical method, members from the research group of Materials Technology and Environment (TEMATMA) of the School of Civil Engineering of Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM) have studied the stability of diverse chemical species of arsenic found in the edible alga Hijiki (Hizikia fusiformis) both in the dry sample and in its water extracts.

Earth's earliest primates have taken a step up in the world, now that researchers have gotten a good look at their ankles.

A new study has found that Purgatorius, a small mammal that lived on a diet of fruit and insects, was a tree dweller. Paleontologists made the discovery by analyzing 65-million-year-old ankle bones collected from sites in northeastern Montana.

As the Earth warms and glaciers all over the world begin to melt, researchers and public policy experts have focused largely on how all of that extra water will contribute to sea level rise.

But another impact lurking in that inevitable scenario is carbon. More specifically, what happens to all of the organic carbon found in those glaciers when they melt?

Strategies for delaying insect resistance to transgenic crops rely on assumptions that often are overly optimistic, a new study led by UA scientists shows. Published as an advance online publication by the journal Nature Biotechnology, the findings could improve management practices for current biotech crops and promote development of new varieties that are more effective and more durable.

A group of white blood cells known as B cells play a key role in the human immune response but need a protein-targeting signal called mannose 6-phosphate (M6P) in order to proliferate, differentiate, and present immune cell-activating antigens, according to a study in The Journal of Cell Biology.

The use of animal translocations as a means to mitigate construction projects and other human developments is a widespread animal-management tool. A paper published today, produced through collaboration of conservationists from San Diego Zoo Global, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, University of Kent UK, University of Newcastle and Amphibian and Reptile Conservation, reviews the success rates associated with these moves from a species-conservation standpoint.

A variety of wheat that is resistant to a destructive fungal disease has been found to have specialized and protective cell walls, according to research published in BMC Plant Biology. These insights could help to produce stronger, disease-resistant varieties of durum wheat for improved pasta production.

DNA molecules provide the "source code" for life in humans, plants, animals and some microbes. But now researchers report an initial study showing that the strands can also act as a glue to hold together 3-D-printed materials that could someday be used to grow tissues and organs in the lab. This first-of-its-kind demonstration of the inexpensive process is described in the brand-new journal ACS Biomaterials Science & Engineering.

The emerald ash borer (Agrilus planipennis), also known as EAB, is an invasive insect pest from Asia that has killed millions of trees in the United States and Canada and has caused billions of dollars of damage since it was discovered in 2002. Fortunately, its damage has been limited to ash trees -- or so we thought.

Every summer, the news reports on a bacterium called Vibrio vulnificus found in warm saltwater that causes people to get sick, or die, after they eat raw tainted shellfish or when an open wound comes in contact with seawater.

People with a weakened immune system, chronic liver disease or iron overload disease are most at risk for severe illness. Vibrio vulnificus infections in high-risk individuals are fatal 50 percent of the time.

Human activity, predominantly the global economic system, is now the prime driver of change in the Earth System (the sum of our planet's interacting physical, chemical, biological and human processes), according to a set of 24 global indicators, or "planetary dashboard".

The research charts the "Great Acceleration" in human activity from the start of the industrial revolution in 1750 to 2010, and the subsequent changes in the Earth System - greenhouse gas levels, ocean acidification, deforestation and biodiversity deterioration.

Two miles below the surface of the ocean, researchers have discovered new microbes that "breathe" sulfate.

The microbes, which have yet to be classified and named, exist in massive undersea aquifers -- networks of channels in porous rock beneath the ocean where water continually churns. About one-third of the Earth's biomass is thought to exist in this largely uncharted environment.

Two teams of astronomers have used computer models to look back nearly 13 billion years, when the Universe was less than 10 percent its present age, to determine how quasars - extremely luminous objects powered by supermassive black holes with the mass of a billion suns - regulate the formation of stars and the build-up of the most massive galaxies.