http://phys.org/ en-us Phys.org internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Physics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. Levels of carbon dioxide rose hand-in-hand with warming at the end of the last Ice Age, according to a study Thursday that deals a blow to climate skeptics. http://phys.org/news281286765.html Space & Earth Thu, 28 Feb 2013 15:13:52 EST news281286765 University of Delaware researcher Deb Jaisi is using his newly established stable isotope facility in the Environmental Biogeochemistry Laboratory (EBL) to find the fingerprints of isotopes in chemical elements—specifically phosphorus—in order to track sources of nutrients in the environmentally-sensitive Chesapeake Bay, other bodies of water and farmland throughout the Mid-Atlantic. http://phys.org/news281262841.html Space & Earth Thu, 28 Feb 2013 09:50:01 EST news281262841 The cold, dead asteroid Vesta might have had a very active inner life early in the solar system's history, according to an unusual analysis of a Saharan meteorite. http://phys.org/news277964429.html Space & Earth Mon, 21 Jan 2013 04:20:36 EST news277964429 Stephan Winkler, isotope researcher at the University of Vienna, has identified the bomb-pulse of uranium-236 in corals from the Caribbean Sea for the first time. 236U was distributed world-wide in the period of atmospheric nuclear testing in the 1960s. Readily dissolved in seawater it is an ideal tool for investigating ocean currents. http://phys.org/news274966589.html Space & Earth Mon, 17 Dec 2012 11:36:36 EST news274966589 Researchers at the Tokyo Institute of Technology,  NASA's Johnson Space Center, Lunar Planetary Institute, and Carnegie Institute of Washington report on geochemical studies that help towards settling the controversy that surrounds the origin, abundance, and history of water on Mars. http://phys.org/news272538511.html Space & Earth Mon, 19 Nov 2012 09:08:45 EST news272538511 (Phys.org)—Researchers working out of the University of Copenhagen have published a paper in the journal Science in which they claim that a new method of dating chondrules and calcium-aluminum–rich inclusions (CAIs) is more accurate than previous methods. Their dating method produces results that contradict earlier findings that have suggested that chondrules formed up to 2 million years later than CAIs; instead they say, the two materials found in meteorites formed at roughly the same time. http://phys.org/news271060625.html Space & Earth Fri, 02 Nov 2012 07:37:43 EST news271060625 Emissions of the greenhouse gas methane into the atmosphere can be traced back thousands of years in the Greenland ice sheet. Using special analytical methods, researchers from the Niels Bohr Institute, among others, have determined how much methane originates from natural sources and how much is due to human activity. The results go all the way back to Roman times and up to the present, where more than half of the emissions are now man-made. The results are published in the scientific journal Nature. http://phys.org/news268486815.html Space & Earth Wed, 03 Oct 2012 13:00:02 EST news268486815 The Moon is believed to have formed from a collision, 4.5 billion years ago, between Earth and an impactor the size of Mars, known as "Theia." Over the past decades scientists have simulated this process and reproduced many of the properties of the Earth-Moon system; however, these simulations have also given rise to a problem known as the Lunar Paradox: the Moon appears to be made up of material that would not be expected if the current collision theory is correct. A recent study published in Icarus proposes a new perspective on the theory in answer to the paradox. http://phys.org/news265457102.html Space & Earth Wed, 29 Aug 2012 11:05:18 EST news265457102 (Phys.org) -- Tree ring and oxygen isotope data from the U.S. Pacific Northwest do not provide the same information on past precipitation, but rather than causing a problem, the differing results are a good thing, according to a team of geologists. http://phys.org/news260454497.html Space & Earth Mon, 02 Jul 2012 15:00:13 EST news260454497 For the African nation of Niger, the effect of seasonal atmospheric variability on the weather is poorly understood. Because most residents rely on local agriculture, improving the predictability of seasonal weather and precipitation availability is crucial. http://phys.org/news256480251.html Space & Earth Thu, 17 May 2012 13:31:46 EST news256480251 (Phys.org) -- Is Earth really a sort of giant living organism as the Gaia hypothesis predicts? A new discovery made at the University of Maryland may provide a key to answering this question. This key of sulfur could allow scientists to unlock heretofore hidden interactions between ocean organisms, atmosphere, and land -- interactions that might provide evidence supporting this famous theory. http://phys.org/news256321026.html Space & Earth Tue, 15 May 2012 17:17:21 EST news256321026 New research has revealed that some events in Earth's history happened more recently than previously thought. http://phys.org/news252247779.html Space & Earth Thu, 29 Mar 2012 14:00:13 EST news252247779 Unexpected new findings by a University of Maryland team of geochemists show that some portions of the Earth's mantle (the rocky layer between Earth's metallic core and crust) formed when the planet was much smaller than it is now, and that some of this early-formed mantle survived Earth's turbulent formation, including a collision with another planet-sized body that many scientists believe led to the creation of the Moon. http://phys.org/news248790100.html Space & Earth Sat, 18 Feb 2012 13:00:02 EST news248790100 In a study published in the journal Geology, scientists at the University of Miami (UM) Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science suggest that the large changes in the carbon isotopic composition of carbonates which occurred prior to the major climatic event more than 500 million years ago, known as 'Snowball Earth,' are unrelated to worldwide glacial events. http://phys.org/news246880724.html Space & Earth Fri, 27 Jan 2012 09:58:53 EST news246880724 (PhysOrg.com) -- Many tropical forests are extremely rich in nitrogen even when there are no farms or industries nearby, says Montana State University researcher Jack Brookshire. http://phys.org/news245910707.html Space & Earth Mon, 16 Jan 2012 04:32:27 EST news245910707 New research by the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) and the Scottish Universities Environmental Research Centre (SUERC) will improve the accuracy of estimates of the time of geological events. The work centres on the calibration of one of the world's slowest clocks, known as the 'argon-argon clock'. http://phys.org/news244980516.html Physics Thu, 05 Jan 2012 10:08:44 EST news244980516 Animals require oxygen, but oxygenated environments were rare on early Earth. New research from University of Southern Denmark shows that poisonous sulfide existed in the oceans 750 million years ago making large areas of the seafloor inhospitable to animal life. Such ocean conditions may have prohibited the emergence of animals on early Earth. The results are published in the scientific journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters. http://phys.org/news238671679.html Space & Earth Mon, 24 Oct 2011 10:41:38 EST news238671679 The hypothesis that the Earth was completely covered in ice 635 million years ago has received a serious blow. The atmospheric concentration of CO2 during that period was much lower than previously thought, according to a team of French researchers from the Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris (CNRS, France), working in collaboration with scientists from Brazil and the US. Their work, which is published in the journal Nature on October 6, challenges part of the so-called Snowball Earth hypothesis and rekindles the debate about the origins of the deglaciation mechanism. http://phys.org/news237628927.html Space & Earth Wed, 12 Oct 2011 09:02:20 EST news237628927 NASA has selected Southwest Research Institute's MAss Spectrometer for Planetary EXploration (MASPEX) for technology development funding. Originally offered as part of the Primitive Material Explorer (PriME) mission proposal, the mass spectrometer was selected to further advance NASA's capability for evaluating the chemical composition of comets. http://phys.org/news224849332.html Space & Earth Tue, 17 May 2011 11:09:12 EST news224849332 (PhysOrg.com) -- What tales they tell of their former lives, these old bones of sirenians, relatives of today's dugongs and manatees. http://phys.org/news222620935.html Space & Earth Thu, 21 Apr 2011 16:09:39 EST news222620935 Dinosaurs did not always enjoy mild climates. New findings show that during part of the Early Cretaceous, north-east China had a temperate climate with harsh winters. They explain the abundance of feathered dinosaurs in fossil deposits of that period. The discovery was made by an international collaboration coordinated by Romain Amiot of the Laboratoire de geologie de Lyon (France). Their work is published on the PNAS website this week. http://phys.org/news219065363.html Other Sciences Fri, 11 Mar 2011 11:30:01 EST news219065363 University of Alberta researchers determined that a fossilized dinosaur bone found in New Mexico confounds the long established paradigm that the age of dinosaurs ended between 65.5 and 66 million years ago. http://phys.org/news215358552.html Other Sciences Thu, 27 Jan 2011 13:49:31 EST news215358552 (PhysOrg.com) -- Liquid water has interacted with the Martian surface throughout Mars' history, measurements by NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander suggest. http://phys.org/news203261346.html Space & Earth Thu, 09 Sep 2010 14:29:21 EST news203261346 The University of Alberta has new multi-million dollar technology that can analyze an ancient mineral sample and tell you how it was created, its chemical makeup and its potential commercial value. It can also analyze teeth from an animal and tell you about the environmental conditions it experienced. http://phys.org/news203244813.html Space & Earth Thu, 09 Sep 2010 09:53:46 EST news203244813 A team made up of members of the University of Oviedo (UO) and the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM) have gathered together all findings of the woolly mammoth, the woolly rhinoceros and the reindeer in the Iberian Peninsula to show that, although in small numbers, these big mammals, prehistoric indicators of cold climates, already lived in this territory some 150,000 years ago. http://phys.org/news203076360.html Other Sciences Tue, 07 Sep 2010 11:30:07 EST news203076360 (PhysOrg.com) -- Young mulloway fish reared in hatcheries and released in New South Wales waters are adapting quickly and well to life in the wild, a new study has found. http://phys.org/news196066176.html Biology Fri, 18 Jun 2010 07:50:10 EST news196066176 (PhysOrg.com) -- A new geological study which took place in the Pilbara region of Western Australia brings us one step closer to understanding more precisely the timing of when the primordial earth crust was formed and its composition. http://phys.org/news186221373.html Space & Earth Wed, 24 Feb 2010 08:10:04 EST news186221373 (PhysOrg.com) -- Science has unearthed the secret to what might have been alchemy at Oldoinyo Lengai volcano in Tanzania. http://phys.org/news160834772.html Space & Earth Wed, 06 May 2009 13:20:37 EST news160834772 (PhysOrg.com) -- Sedimentary rocks created more than 2.4 billion years ago sometimes have an unusual sulfur isotope composition thought to be caused by the action of ultra violet light on volcanically produced sulfur dioxide in an oxygen poor atmosphere. Now a team of geochemists can show an alternative origin for this isotopic composition that may point to an early, oxygen-rich atmosphere. http://phys.org/news159111288.html Space & Earth Thu, 16 Apr 2009 14:35:26 EST news159111288