Earth

This news release is available in German.

Alpine goats appear to be shrinking in size as they react to changes in climate, according to new research from Durham University.

The researchers studied the impacts of changes in temperature on the body size of Alpine Chamois, a species of mountain goat, over the past 30 years.

To their surprise, they discovered that young Chamois now weigh about 25 per cent less than animals of the same age in the 1980s.

In recent years, decreases in body size have been identified in a variety of animal species, and have frequently been linked to the changing climate.

WASHINGTON, Oct. 21, 2014 — It's National Chemistry Week, and this year's theme is the sweetest of all: candy. Whether it's ice cream, candy bars, pudding or cake, we love our sweets. But why do those treats actually taste sweet? Whether they're made with sugar or artificial sweeteners, it all comes down to chemistry. Find out more here: http://youtu.be/FaBFyEa8-eI.

Boulder, CO, USA — The last ten years have been a remarkable time for great earthquakes. Since December 2004 there have been no less than 18 quakes of Mw8.0 or greater – a rate of more than twice that seen from 1900 to mid-2004. Hundreds of thousands of lives have been lost and massive damage has resulted from these great earthquakes. But as devastating as such events can be, these recent great quakes have come with a silver lining: They coincide with unprecedented advances in technological and scientific capacity for learning from them.

Cosmologists have made the most sensitive and precise measurements yet of the polarization of the cosmic microwave background.

The report, published October 20 in the Astrophysical Journal, marks an early success for POLARBEAR, a collaboration of more than 70 scientists using a telescope high in Chile's Atacama desert designed to capture the universe's oldest light.

The way in which male moths locate females flying hundreds of meters away has long been a mystery to scientists.

Researchers know the moths use pheromones to locate their mates. Yet when these chemical odors are widely dispersed in a windy, turbulent atmosphere, the insects still manage to fly in the right direction over hundreds of meters with only random puffs of their mates' pheromones spaced tens of seconds apart to guide them.

At 8 a.m. EDT (2 a.m. HST/1200 UTC) Tropical Storm Ana was just below hurricane strength with maximum sustained winds near 70 mph (110 kph). NOAA's Central Pacific Hurricane Center (CPHC) expects weakening today, but intensification on Oct. 20. The center of tropical storm Ana was located near latitude 20.6 north and longitude 162.6 west. That puts the center of Ana about 225 miles (360 km) west-southwest of Lihue Hawaii and about 325 miles (525 km) southeast of French Frigate Shoals. Ana is moving toward the west near 9 mph (15 kph) and is expected to gradually turn to the northwest.

"This work is one of the first to explore how networking policies affect how the network is used," Heidemann said.

There are 4 billion IPv4 internet addresses. Heidemann and his team pinged about 3.7 million address blocks (representing about 950 million addresses) every 11 minutes over the span of two months, looking for daily patterns.

"This data helps us establish a baseline for the Internet — to understand how it functions, so that we have a better idea of how resilient it is as a whole, and can spot problems quicker," Heidemann said.

Climate change predictions for the Middle East, like other arid regions of the world, are alarming. In an area known for its water scarcity, rainfall is expected to decrease even further in the near future, spelling disaster for the functioning of unique ecosystems — hotspots of biodiversity and rich genetic fodder for essential crops.

WASHINGTON, DC – A mass of marine debris discovered in a giant sinkhole in the Hawaiian islands provides evidence that at least one mammoth tsunami, larger than any in Hawaii's recorded history, has struck the islands, and that a similar disaster could happen again, new research finds. Scientists are reporting that a wall of water up to nine meters (30 feet) high surged onto Hawaiian shores about 500 years ago.

Boulder, CO, USA — Naturally occurring asbestos minerals may be more widespread than previously thought, with newly discovered sources now identified within the Las Vegas metropolitan area. The asbestos-rich areas are in locations not previously considered to be at risk, according to new report that will be presented at the Annual Meeting of the Geological Society of America (GSA) in Vancouver, Canada, on Sunday, 20 October.

How did life originate? And can scientists create life? These questions not only occupy the minds of scientists interested in the origin of life, but also researchers working with technology of the future. If we can create artificial living systems, we may not only understand the origin of life - we can also revolutionize the future of technology.

Washington, D.C.— Hydrogen—the most abundant element in the cosmos—responds to extremes of pressure and temperature differently. Under ambient conditions hydrogen is a gaseous two-atom molecule. As confinement pressure increases, the molecules adopt different states of matter—like when water ice melts to liquid and then heats to steam. Thus far, at extreme pressures hydrogen has four known solid phases.

A set of genes that can be used to naturally boost the provitamin A content of corn kernels, a finding that could help combat vitamin A deficiency in developing countries.

Purdue professor of agronomy Torbert Rocheford and fellow researchers found gene variations that can be selected to change nutritionally poor white corn into biofortified orange corn with high levels of provitamin A carotenoids - substances that the human body can convert into vitamin A. Vitamin A plays key roles in eye health and the immune system, as well as in the synthesis of certain hormones.

NOAA's GOES-West satellite captured an image of Tropical Storm Ana that showed the outer clouds were already reaching the big island by 11 a.m. EDT and the storm resembled a giant question mark.

Tropical Storm Ana was nearing hurricane strength mid-day on Oct. 17 and the Central Pacific Hurricane Center (CPHC) expects the storm to become a hurricane before reaching the big island of Hawaii.