Life on land and tropical overheating 250 million years ago
One of the key effects of the end-Permian mass extinction, 252 million years ago, was rapid heating of tropical waters and atmospheres.
View ArticleMapping 'damage trails' lets researchers follow the water in Photosystem II
Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis have traced the paths of three water channels in an ancient photosynthetic organism to provide the first comprehensive, experimental study of how that...
View ArticleThe atmospheres of water worlds
There are currently about fifty known exoplanets with diameters that range from Mars-sized to several times the Earth's and that also reside within their stars' habitable zone – the orbital range...
View ArticleGlobal oceanic dead zones persisted for 50,000 years after end-Triassic...
Extremely low oxygen levels in Earth's oceans could be responsible for extending the effects of a mass extinction that wiped out millions of species on Earth around 200 million years ago, according to...
View ArticleResearchers devise microreactor to study formation of methane hydrate
Researchers at the NYU Tandon School of Engineering are using a novel means of studying how methane and water form methane hydrate that allows them to examine discrete steps in the process faster and...
View ArticleHow migrating birds 'run a marathon,' burning muscles and organs in long flights
Migrating birds complete long non-stop flights of many hours for songbirds and days for some shorebirds to reach breeding or wintering grounds. During such flights a bird's metabolic rate is very high,...
View ArticleVideo: Earth as a planet
Earth is the largest rocky planet in our Solar System, and the only body we know of capable of supporting life. With so much news about exoplanets dominating the headlines, in this episode of Space we...
View ArticleExploring ocean waters to characterize atmospheric aerosols
Aerosols are collections of fine particles, either biological or of other types, suspended in a gaseous medium. They play a major role in cloud formation and therefore have a strong impact on climate...
View ArticleStudy reveals mass extinction event 35 million years ago
Australian National University biologists have found the first evidence of mass extinction of Australian animals caused by a dramatic drop in global temperatures 35 million years ago.
View ArticleAustralian continent shifts with the seasons, study finds
Australia shifts and tilts back and forth by several millimeters each year because of changes to the Earth's center of mass, according to a new study. The findings could help scientists better track...
View ArticleEarth-sized planets with abundant water statistically likely around red dwarfs
Computer simulations of the formation of planets orbiting in the habitable zones of low mass stars such as Proxima Centauri by astrophysicists at the University of Bern show that these planets are most...
View ArticleResearchers solve one of the great scientific mysteries of the ice ages
An international team of researchers headed by scientists from the Alfred Wegener Institute has gained new insights into the carbon dioxide exchange between ocean and atmosphere, thus making a...
View ArticleGeodesists visualize the ice-mass loss of Antarctica
The Antarctic ice sheet, with a thickness of up to 4800 meter, has lost mass in the recent years. This was confirmed by a variety of scientific studies. Scientists of the Institut für Planetare...
View ArticleTiny fossils tell a long(ish) story
The impact of an asteroid at the end of the Cretaceous caused mass extinctions in the oceans, as well as killing the dinosaurs on land. The carbon isotope difference between surface and seabed...
View ArticleResearchers shed new light on the origins of Earth's water
Water covers more than two-thirds of Earth's surface, but its exact origins are still something of a mystery. Scientists have long been uncertain whether water was present at the formation of the...
View ArticleIs climate change responsible for more salt in the North Atlantic?
As a result of global warming, more extremely salty water masses from the Mediterranean will be flowing into the North Atlantic through the Straits of Gibraltar. This was the conclusion of researchers...
View ArticleWater pathways make fuel cells more efficient
Researchers from the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) have developed a coating technique in the laboratory that could raise the efficiency of fuel cells. The PSI scientists have already applied to patent...
View ArticleWhat is the habitable zone?
The weather in your hometown is downright uninhabitable. There's scorching heatwaves, annual tyhpoonic deluges, and snow deep enough to bury a corn silo.
View ArticleEarth-like planets are more likely to orbit Sun-like stars than lower-mass stars
Simulations by researchers at Tokyo Institute of Technology and Tsinghua University indicate that Earth-like planets are more likely to be found orbiting Sun-like stars rather than lower-mass stars...
View ArticleGeochemical process on Saturn's moon linked to life's origin
New work from a team including Carnegie's Christopher Glein has revealed the pH of water spewing from a geyser-like plume on Saturn's moon Enceladus. Their findings are an important step toward...
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