Oldest measurement of Earth's magnetic field reveals battle between sun and Earth

Mar 5 | News

According to findings by Univ. of Rochester researchers who visited sites in Africa known to contain extremely old rocks, the Earth’s magnetic field 3.5 billion years ago was only half as strong as it is today. This may mean the Sun took away much of Earth’s hydrogen and water.

Evidence of hydrothermal vents on the seafloor near Antarctica

Mar 4 | News

Scientists at Columbia’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory have found evidence of hydrothermal vents on the seafloor near Antarctica, formerly a blank spot on the map for researchers wanting to learn more about seafloor formation and the bizarre life forms drawn to these extreme environments.

Phytoplankton play role in global climate change

Mar 3 | News

Phytoplankton are single-celled organisms that serve as the base of the marine food web and provide half the oxygen we breathe on Earth. They also play a key role in global climate change by removing carbon from the atmosphere and injecting it deep into the oceans.

Uranium mining focus of Va. forum

16 hours ago | News

Opponents of uranium mining in Southside Virginia and the people who want to end a state moratorium on mining the fuel for nuclear power plants have one more difference of opinion: the size of the deposit.A speaker at a forum Thursday organized by environmentalists said the deposit totals 5.5...

Hubert's remnants still raining on southern Madagascar

17 hours ago | News

Hubert may not be a tropical storm now that it has made landfall in southeastern Madagascar, but it's still a formidable and large storm system. NASA's Aqua satellite revealed that there are still some very high, strong thunderstorms in Hubert's remnants as it continues to bring rains and gusty...

Second only south Atlantic tropical storm: 90Q, moving away from Brazil

17 hours ago | News

Tropical Storm 90Q is the second known tropical cyclone to form in the cooler South Atlantic Ocean, and two NASA satellites confirm it is now moving away from Brazil's coast. The first tropical cyclone ever seen in recorded history in the Southern Atlantic was called "Catarina" in 2004.

Hopkins doctor/disaster expert says resource problems in Haiti required ethical decision-making

17 hours ago | News

In an essay published in this week's issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, a Johns Hopkins emergency physician outlines how he and other physicians who worked in Haiti after the earthquake had to make emotionally difficult ethical decisions daily in the face of a crushing wave...

Proposed mission would return sample from asteroid 'time capsule'

17 hours ago | News

Meet asteroid 1999 RQ36, a chunk of rock and dust about 1,900 feet in diameter that could tell us how the solar system was born, and perhaps, shed light on how life began. It also might hit us someday.

3 FASTSAT instruments pass tests

17 hours ago | News

The outer layers of Earth's atmosphere hold many secrets yet to be uncovered and three scientific instruments will fly soon on the FASTSAT-HSV01 satellite and seek to uncover them to benefit us here on Earth. Known as MINI-ME, PISA and TTI, these instruments recently passed a series of important...

New study debunks myths about Amazon rain forests

18 hours ago | News

A new NASA-funded study has concluded that Amazon rain forests were remarkably unaffected in the face of once-in-a-century drought in 2005, neither dying nor thriving, contrary to a previously published report and claims by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Shocking recipe for making killer electrons

23 hours ago | News

Take a bunch of fast-moving electrons, place them in orbit and then hit them with the shock waves from a solar storm. What do you get? Killer electrons. That's the shocking recipe revealed by ESA's Cluster mission.

Behavior of single protein observed in unprecedented detail by Stanford chemists

Mar 11 | News

Scrutinizing a single molecule for more than a few milliseconds used to require effectively "stapling" it down, inhibiting its normal behavior. Now, using a technique recently developed in their lab, Stanford chemists have for the first time confined a protein (one involved in photosynthesis),...

More maize ethanol may boost greenhouse gas emissions

Mar 11 | News

Mandated increases in the production of maize-derived ethanol will lead to land-use changes that boost carbon dioxide emissions enough to make the fuel a worse environmental option than burning gasoline, according to an analysis published in the March issue of BioScience. The new analysis refines...

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A clean energy America…is it coming or not?

Feb 24 | RDBlog

Almost a year ago, the buzz during the downturn was that the economic stimulus will help boost jobs in a sort of national improvement program reminiscent of the 1930s. Our coal would be phased out. Our grids would get smart. Our cars would get hybridized.

Build-up over the Y chromosome

Jan 15 | RDBlog

The Y chromosome—it is the one genetic factor that determines whether you will be a male or female and now it is also evolving faster than expected. However, what does this new discovery actually mean to the world of genetics without opening a debate that may cause gender disagreements?

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