Updated: 2012-12-31 20:30:30
Much has been made of our ancestors "coming down out of the trees," and many researchers view terrestrial bipedalism as the hallmark of "humanness." After all, most of our living primate relatives—the great apes, specifically—still spend their time in the trees. Humans are the only member of the family devoted to the ground, living terrestrial rather than arboreal lives, but that wasn't always the case.read more
Updated: 2012-12-31 20:30:23
MADISON – Trees and the insects that eat them wage constant war. Insects burrow and munch; trees deploy lethal and disruptive defenses in the form of chemicals.
But in a warming world, where temperatures and seasonal change are in flux, the tide of battle may be shifting in some insects' favor, according to a new study.read more
Updated: 2012-12-28 18:30:10
Industries across Europe are threatened with shutdown as European Union emission rules for Volatile Organic Compounds are tightened. Now an air cleaning invention from the University of Copenhagen has proven its ability to remove these compounds. And in the process they have helped a business in Danish town Aarhus improve relations to angry neighbors.
Inventor, Copenhagen chemist Matthew Johnson, presented evidence for the air cleaning invention at the conference "First International Education Forum on Environment and Energy Science" held on Hawaii December 14 to 18. read more
Updated: 2012-12-28 15:44:10
A research team led by scientists from Nanyang Technological University (NTU) has discovered that massive earthquakes in the range of 8 to 8.5 magnitudes on the Richter scale have left clear ground scars in the central Himalayas.
This ground-breaking discovery has huge implications for the area along the front of the Himalayan Mountains, given that the region has a population density similar to that of New York City. read more
Updated: 2012-12-27 19:00:04
Boulder, Colo., USA – GSA BULLETIN articles posted online between 10 Dec. and 21 Dec. 2012 include a new version of The Geological Society of America's Geologic Time Scale. This paper marks the beginning of a special series of invited papers in celebration of GSA's 125th Anniversary in 2013. Highlights are provided below.read more
Updated: 2012-12-27 15:30:18
AMHERST, Mass. – Contributing geometric and topological analyses of micro-materials, University of Massachusetts Amherst mathematician Robert Kusner aided experimental physicists at the University of Colorado (UC) by successfully explaining the observed "beautiful and complex patterns revealed" in three-dimensional liquid crystal experiments. The work is expected to lead to creation of new materials that can be actively controlled.read more
Updated: 2012-12-27 11:27:00
Peatlands (bogs, turf moors) are among the most important ecosystems worldwide for the storage of atmospheric carbon and thus for containing the climate warming process. In the last 30 to 50 years the peat (Sphagnum) mosses, whose decay produces the peat (turf), have come under pressure by vascular plants, mostly small shrubs.
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Updated: 2012-12-26 23:29:58
When prey is scarce, large carnivores may gnaw prey to the bone, wearing their teeth down in the process. A new analysis of the teeth of saber-toothed cats and American lions reveals that they did not resort to this behavior just before extinction, suggesting that lack of prey was probably not the main reason these large cats became extinct.
The paper in PLOS ONE by Larisa DeSantis of Vanderbilt University and colleagues compares tooth wear patterns from the fossil cats that roamed California 12,000 to 30,000 years ago. read more
Updated: 2012-12-26 18:30:10
Choosing the perfect wine may soon involve more than just knowing the perfect vintage and chateau. Differences in the microbes present on grapes even in different parts of the same vineyard may contribute to flavor fluctuations in samples of grapes from different tanks, according to research published December 26 in PLOS ONE by Mathabatha Setati and colleagues from Stellenbosch University, South Africa. read more
Updated: 2012-12-26 13:17:13
A research team has tested a hypothesis in paleo-ocean chemistry, and proved it false. Many researchers attribute the delayed diversification and proliferation of eukaryotes to very low levels of zinc in seawater. But after analyzing marine black shale samples from North America, Africa, Australia, Asia and Europe, ranging in age from 2.7 billion years to 580 million years old, the researchers found that the shales reflect high seawater zinc availability. #187; riginal news
Updated: 2012-12-23 18:31:25
COLUMBUS, Ohio—In a discovery that raises further concerns about the future contribution of Antarctica to sea level rise, a new study finds that the western part of the ice sheet is experiencing nearly twice as much warming as previously thought.
The temperature record from Byrd Station, a scientific outpost in the center of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS), demonstrates a marked increase of 4.3 degrees Fahrenheit (2.4 degrees Celsius) in average annual temperature since 1958—that is, three times faster than the average temperature rise around the globe. read more
Updated: 2012-12-23 18:30:23
Some 40 million people depend on the Colorado River Basin for water but warmer weather from rising greenhouse gas levels and a growing population may signal water shortages ahead. In a new study in Nature Climate Change, climate modelers at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory predict a 10 percent drop in the Colorado River's flow in the next few decades, enough to disrupt longtime water-sharing agreements between farms and cities across the American Southwest, from Denver to Los Angeles to Tucson, and through California's Imperial Valley. read more
Updated: 2012-12-23 18:30:08
DURHAM, NC -- In a forced game of molecular tug-of war, some strings of atoms can act like a lever, accelerating reactions 1000 times faster than other molecules. The discovery suggests that scientists could use these molecular levers to drive chemical and mechanical reactivity among atoms and ultimately engineer more efficient materials.
"We are interested in designing new, stress-responsive materials, so we are trying to develop reactions that are very slow normally but that can be accelerated efficiently by force," said Duke chemist Steve Craig, who headed the research.read more
Updated: 2012-12-23 01:16:04
The climate after the largest mass extinction so far 252 million years ago was cool, later very warm and then cool again. Thanks to the cooler temperatures, the diversity of marine fauna ballooned, as paleontologists have reconstructed. The warmer climate, coupled with a high carbon dioxide level in the atmosphere, initially gave rise to new, short-lived species. In the longer term, however, this climate change had an adverse effect on biodiversity and caused species to become extinct. #187; riginal news
Updated: 2012-12-21 22:00:03
Forget solid, liquid, and gas: there are in fact more than 500 phases of matter. In a major paper in today's issue of Science, Perimeter Faculty member Xiao-Gang Wen reveals a modern reclassification of all of them.
Using modern mathematics, Wen and collaborators reveal a new system which can, at last, successfully classify symmetry-protected phases of matter. Their new classification system will provide insight about these quantum phases of matter, which may in turn increase our ability to design states of matter for use in superconductors or quantum computers.read more
Updated: 2012-12-20 19:31:34
This release is available in Arabic, French, Spanish,
Japanese and Chinese on EurekAlert! Chinese .read more
Updated: 2012-12-20 18:30:40
URBANA – Due to the introduction of exotic pests and pathogens, tree species are being eliminated one by one from forest ecosystems. In some cases, scientists can observe immediately how their loss affects the environment, whereas in other cases, creative puzzle solving and analysis reveal unexpected repercussions. In the case of the loss of the hemlock tree, University of Illinois landscape and ecosystem ecologist Jennifer Fraterrigo uncovered a surprising benefit to hardwood species.read more
Updated: 2012-12-20 17:30:51
A coherent pathway which starts from no more than rocks, water and carbon dioxide and leads to the emergence of the strange bio-energetic properties of living cells, has been traced for the first time in a major hypothesis paper in Cell this week.
At the origin of life the first protocells must have needed a vast amount of energy to drive their metabolism and replication, as enzymes that catalyse very specific reactions were yet to evolve. Most energy flux must have simply dissipated without use. read more
Updated: 2012-12-20 17:00:14
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- Following up on earlier theoretical predictions, MIT researchers have now demonstrated experimentally the existence of a fundamentally new kind of magnetic behavior, adding to the two previously known states of magnetism.read more
Updated: 2012-12-20 16:30:44
The first report on the chemical substitution, or doping, using silver atoms, for a new class of superconductor that was only discovered this year, is about to be published in EPJ B. Chinese scientists from Institute of Solid State Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hefei, discovered that the superconductivity is intrinsic rather than created by impurities in this material with a sandwich-style layered structure made of bismuth oxysulphide (Bi4O4S3).read more
Updated: 2012-12-20 16:30:33
The research group of Professor Petri Pihko at the Department of Chemistry and the NanoScience Center of the University of Jyväskylä has solved two acute problems in chemical catalysis. The research has been funded by the Academy of Finland.read more
Updated: 2012-12-20 00:30:24
As digital cameras become better and cheaper, ecologists are turning these ubiquitous consumer devices into scientific tools to study how forests are responding to climate change. And, they say, digital cameras could be a cost-effective way of visually monitoring the spread of tree diseases. The results – which come from 38,000 photographs – are presented at this week's British Ecological Society's Annual Meeting at the University of Birmingham. read more
Updated: 2012-12-19 20:30:14
The study, published in Psychiatric Services, highlights economic and psycho-social challenges faced by parents of adult children with disabilities, compared with parents of children without disabilities.
When either parent becomes disabled, the study found, families' report lower financial well-being. This being especially true when an aging parent must contend with both the needs of an adult child with mental illness and a spouse who develops an age-related disability.read more
Updated: 2012-12-19 18:31:25
Achieving a goal considered nearly impossible, JILA physicists have chilled a gas of molecules to very low temperatures by adapting the familiar process by which a hot cup of coffee cools.read more
Updated: 2012-12-19 18:00:25
The South African government is investing in scientific research to foster production of agricultural products like pinotage (the country's signature red wine) and honeybush (source of a tea so fragrant that a potful can perfume an entire house) to create jobs and boost the economy. That effort and others aimed at developing a globally competitive research enterprise are the topics of cover stories in the current issue of Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), the weekly newsmagazine of the American Chemical Society, the world's largest scientific society.read more
Updated: 2012-12-19 17:31:08
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Updated: 2012-12-19 15:00:06
Numerous geo-engineering schemes have been suggested as possible ways to reduce levels of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and so reduce the risk of global warming and climate change. One such technology involves dispersing large quantities of iron salts in the oceans to fertilize otherwise barren parts of the sea and trigger the growth of algal blooms and other photosynthesizing marine life. Photosynthesis requires carbon dioxide as its feedstock and when the algae die they will sink to the bottom of the sea taking the locked in carbon with them. read more
Updated: 2012-12-19 01:16:16
Scientists have used synchrotron-based imaging techniques to identify previously unseen anatomy preserved in fossils. Their work on a 50-million-year-old lizard skin identified the presence of teeth (invisible to visible light), demonstrating for the first time that this fossil animal was more than just a skin moult. This was only possible using some of the brightest light in the universe, X-rays generated by a synchrotron. #187; riginal news
Updated: 2012-12-18 22:00:03
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- Brine water that flows back from gas wells in the Marcellus Shale region after hydraulic fracturing is many times more salty than seawater, with high contents of various elements, including radium and barium. The chemistry is consistent with brines formed during the Paleozoic era, a study by an undergraduate student and two professors in Penn State's Department of Geosciences found.read more
Updated: 2012-12-18 20:30:12
PHILADELPHIA — The field of metamaterials involves augmenting materials with specially designed patterns, enabling those materials to manipulate electromagnetic waves and fields in previously impossible ways. Now, researchers from the University of Pennsylvania have come up with a theory for moving this phenomenon onto the quantum scale, laying out blueprints for materials where electrons have nearly zero effective mass.
Such materials could make for faster circuits with novel properties.read more
Updated: 2012-12-18 20:00:10
This fall, the Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics at the University of Chicago and the National Academy of Sciences organized a colloquium that brought together more than 100 cosmologists, particle physicists and observational astrophysicists – three fields now united in the hunt to determine what is dark matter. Their goal: to take stock of the latest theories and findings about dark matter, assess just how close we are to detecting it and spark cross-disciplinary discussions and collaborations aimed at resolving the dark matter puzzle.
So where do things stand? read more
Updated: 2012-12-18 16:30:55
For several decades antimony electrodes have been used to measure the acidity/basicity – and so to determine the pH value. Unfortunately, they allow for measuring pH changes of solutions only at a certain distance from electrodes or corroding metals. Researchers at the Institute of Physical Chemistry of the Polish Academy of Sciences developed a method for producing antimony microelectrodes that allow for measuring pH changes just over the metal surface, at which chemical reactions take place.read more
Updated: 2012-12-14 16:59:05
From feathers to black market fossil controversies, 2012 was a big year for dinosaurs
Updated: 2012-12-13 15:17:36
Recently unveiled dinosaur sculptures are frustrating eyesores to some and tourist attractions to others
Updated: 2012-12-12 15:17:15
Were enigmatic, 230-million-year-old burrows created by dinosaurs?
Updated: 2012-12-11 16:14:27
Dinosaurs can help us unlock essential secrets about the history of life on Earth
Updated: 2012-12-11 07:09:05
: : , Paleontology : Blogs , News and Articles Login Register Back to NewsBeet Most Popular Most Recent Pictures Videos Home Monkey business : What howler monkeys can tell us about the role of interbreeding in human evolution Monkey business : What howler monkeys can tell us about the role of interbreeding in human evolution Posted from ScienceDaily : Paleontology 6 hours ago Paleontology Paleontology News Did different species of early humans interbreed and produce offspring of mixed ancestry Recent genetic studies suggest that Neanderthals may have bred with anatomically modern humans tens of thousands of years ago in the Middle East , contributing to the modern human gene pool . But the findings are not universally accepted , and the fossil record has not helped to clarify the role of
Updated: 2012-12-10 17:05:45
The name of the long-snouted dinosaur Irritator hints at the troubled history surrounding the spinosaur's classification
Updated: 2012-12-07 19:22:08
Claw Shapes: A Glimpse Into the Lifestyle of Raptors?
Updated: 2012-12-07 10:14:20
Researchers have discovered what may be the earliest dinosaur, a creature the size of a Labrador retriever, but with a five foot-long tail, that walked the Earth about 10 million years before more familiar dinosaurs like the small, swift-footed Eoraptor and Herrerasaurus. The findings mean that the dinosaur lineage appeared 10 million to 15 million years earlier than fossils previously showed. #187; riginal news
Updated: 2012-12-06 20:48:36
Claws once thought to belong to a giant turtle turned out to be from one of the weirdest dinosaurs ever found
Updated: 2012-12-05 16:56:00
A fragmentary skeleton pins the emergence of dinosaurs more than 10 million years earlier than previously thought
Updated: 2012-12-04 20:27:13
An articulated hand found in southern Utah complicates the story of North America's feathery, beaked oviraptorosaurs
