Latest and Breaking Earth Science News

University of Miami student Bignami among 5 Guy Harvey Scholarship recipients
3 February 2012, 5:00 am
(University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine & Atmospheric Science) University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine & Atmospheric Science graduate student Sean Bignami received a Guy Harvey Ocean Foundation scholarship for his studies of how the changing chemistry of marine waters as a result of ocean acidification might affect the early development of large marine fish.

Southampton enters research agreement with the Crown Estate
3 February 2012, 5:00 am
(University of Southampton) The University of Southampton has entered into a research agreement with the Crown Estate to provide specialist expertise to projects involving the seabed and near surface geology of UK waters.

Sediments from the Enol lake reveal more than 13,500 years of environmental history
3 February 2012, 5:00 am
(FECYT - Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology) A team of Spanish researchers have used different geological samples, extracted from the Enol lake in Asturias, to show that the Holocene, a period that started 11,600 years ago, did not have a climate as stable as was believed.

AIBS names emerging public policy leaders
3 February 2012, 5:00 am
(American Institute of Biological Sciences) The American Institute of Biological Sciences has selected two graduate students to receive the 2012 AIBS Emerging Public Policy Leadership Award. Lida Beninson is a Ph.D. candidate in Integrative Physiology at the University of Colorado Boulder. Andrew Reinmann is a Ph.D. candidate in Biology at Boston University.

Parasites or not? Transposable elements in fruit flies
3 February 2012, 5:00 am
(University of Veterinary Medicine -- Vienna) The problem of parasitism occurs at all levels right down to the DNA scale. Genomes may contain up to 80 percent "foreign" DNA but details of the mechanisms by which this enters the host genome and how hosts attempt to combat its spread are still the subject of conjecture. Important new information comes from the group of Christian Schlötterer at the University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna. The findings are published in the prestigious journal PLoS Genetics.

Global extinction: Gradual doom is just as bad as abrupt
3 February 2012, 5:00 am
(University of Cincinnati) Around 250 million years ago, most life on Earth was wiped out in an extinction known as the "Great Dying." A team led by University of Cincinnati geologist Thomas J. Algeo finds that the end came slowly from thousands of centuries of volcanic activity.

Batchelor Foundation challenge grant to support helicopter purchase
3 February 2012, 5:00 am
(University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine & Atmospheric Science) The University of Miami's Rosenstiel School of Marine & Atmospheric Science announced that it has received a challenge grant for $700,000 from the Miami-based Batchelor Foundation to support its exploration research efforts. The funds will be applied toward the acquisition of a helicopter outfitted with a suite of scientific equipment that will serve as the basis for a one-of-a-kind platform for environmental observations at the School.

Castaway lizards offer new look at evolutionary processes
3 February 2012, 5:00 am
(National Science Foundation) Biologists who released lizards on tiny uninhabited islands in the Bahamas have uncovered a seldom-observed interaction between evolutionary processes.Jason Kolbe, a biologist at the University of Rhode Island -- along with colleagues at Duke University, Harvard University and the University of California, Davis -- found that the lizards' genetic and morphological traits were determined by both natural selection and a phenomenon called the founder effect.

New super-Earth detected within the habitable zone of a nearby cool star
2 February 2012, 5:00 am
(Carnegie Institution) An international team of scientists led by Carnegie's Guillem Anglada-Escudé and Paul Butler has discovered a potentially habitable super-Earth orbiting a nearby star. The star is a member of a triple star system and has a different makeup than our Sun, being relatively lacking in metallic elements. This discovery demonstrates that habitable planets could form in a greater variety of environments than previously believed.

UT biosolar breakthrough promises cheap, easy green electricity
2 February 2012, 5:00 am
(University of Tennessee at Knoxville) A professor of biochemistry, cellular and molecular biology, at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and a team of researchers have developed a system that taps into photosynthetic processes to produce efficient and inexpensive energy.