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Public Release: 2-Aug-2013
Revised location of 1906 rupture of San Andreas Fault in Portola Valley New evidence suggests the 1906 earthquake ruptured the San Andreas Fault in a single trace through Portola Village, current day Town of Portola Valley, and indicates a revised location for the fault trace. Contact: Nan Broadbent Public Release: 1-Aug-2013
NASA looks at Tropical Storm Jebi in South China Sea Tropical Storm Jebi developed on July 31 and NASA satellite data on Aug. 1 shows the storm filling up at least half of the South China Sea. Contact: Rob Gutro Public Release: 1-Aug-2013
NASA sees Hurricane Gil being chased by developing storm On July 31, NASA's TRMM satellite saw Tropical Storm Gil intensifying and the storm became a hurricane. NASA's Aqua satellite and NOAA's GOES-15 satellite captured views of Gil on Aug. 1 as it was being chased by another developing tropical system. Contact: Rob Gutro Public Release: 1-Aug-2013
NASA seeing which way the wind blows The autonomous and compact High-altitude Imaging Wind and Rain Profiler, or HIWRAP, a dual-frequency conical-scanning Doppler radar, will hang under NASA's aircraft's belly as it flies above hurricanes to measure wind and rain and to test a new method for retrieving wind data. Contact: Ellen Gray Public Release: 1-Aug-2013
August 2013 story tips from Oak Ridge National Laboratory The following are story ideas from the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory for August 2013. Contact: Ron Walli Public Release: 1-Aug-2013
UCI-led team develops more accurate model of climate change's effect on soil Scientists from UC Irvine and the National Center for Atmospheric Research have developed a new computer model to measure global warming's effect on soil worldwide that accounts for how bacteria and fungi in soil control carbon. Contact: Andrea Burgess Public Release: 1-Aug-2013
Cool heads likely won't prevail in a hotter, wetter world Researchers from Princeton University and the University of California-Berkeley report that even slight spikes in temperature and precipitation greatly increase the risk of personal and civil violence, and suggest that more human conflict is a likely outcome of climate change. Contact: Morgan Kelly Public Release: 1-Aug-2013
Geoscientists unearth mineral-making secrets potentially useful for new technologies Proteins have gotten most of the attention in studies of how organic materials control the initial step of making the first tiny crystals that organisms use to build structures that help them move and protect themselves. Virginia Tech researchers have discovered that certain types of sugars, known as polysaccharides, may also control the timing and placement of minerals that animals use to produce hard structures. Contact: John Pastor Public Release: 1-Aug-2013
The endemic species of remarkable Fulgoromorpha from Iran Being among the countries with the most miscellaneous wildlife in South West Asia, Iran disposes of a number of endemic species. Among the species demonstrating the great biodiversity of the region is the infraorder Fulgoromorpha, or grass hoppers, with more than 200 species recorded so far. The scholar Fariba Mozaffarian from the Iranian Research Institute of Plant Protection conducted a survey in the field and the study was published in the open access journal ZooKeys. Contact: Fariba Mozaffarian Public Release: 1-Aug-2013
Extreme wildfires likely fueled by climate change Climate change is likely fueling the larger and more destructive wildfires that are scorching vast areas of the American West, according to new research led by Michigan State University scientists. Contact: Andy Henion Public Release: 1-Aug-2013
Climate change occurring 10 times faster than at any time in past 65 million years Not only is the planet undergoing one of the largest climate changes in the past 65 million years, Stanford climate scientists report that it's occurring at a rate 10 times faster than any change in that period. Without intervention, this extreme pace could lead to a 5-6 degree Celsius spike in annual temperatures by the end of the century. Contact: Noah Diffenbaugh Public Release: 1-Aug-2013
CU-Boulder team develops new water splitting technique that could produce hydrogen fuel A University of Colorado Boulder team has developed a radically new technique that uses the power of sunlight to efficiently split water into its components of hydrogen and oxygen, paving the way for the broad use of hydrogen as a clean, green fuel. Contact: Alan Weimer Public Release: 1-Aug-2013
'Evolution will punish you if you're selfish and mean' Two Michigan State University evolutionary biologists offer new evidence that evolution doesn't favor the selfish, disproving a theory popularized in 2012. "We found evolution will punish you if you're selfish and mean," said lead author Christoph Adami, MSU professor of microbiology and molecular genetics. "For a short time and against a specific set of opponents, some selfish organisms may come out ahead. But selfishness isn't evolutionarily sustainable." Contact: Layne Cameron Public Release: 1-Aug-2013
As climate, disease links become clearer, study highlights need to forecast future shifts Climate change is affecting the spread of infectious diseases worldwide, according to an international team of leading disease ecologists, with serious impacts to human health and biodiversity conservation. Writing in the journal Science, they propose that modeling the way disease systems respond to climate variables could help public health officials and environmental managers predict and mitigate the spread of lethal diseases. Contact: Sonia Altizer Public Release: 1-Aug-2013
Scientists uncover secrets of starfish's bizarre feeding mechanism Scientists have identified a molecule that enables starfish to carry out one of the most remarkable forms of feeding in the natural world. Contact: Katrina Coutts Public Release: 1-Aug-2013
Nice organisms finish first: Why cooperators always win in the long run Leading physicists last year turned game theory on its head by giving selfish players a sure bet to beat cooperative players. Now two evolutionary biologists at Michigan State University offer new evidence that the selfish will die out in the long run. Contact: Val Osowski Public Release: 1-Aug-2013
'Soft' approach leads to revolutionary energy storage Monash University researchers have brought next generation energy storage closer with an engineering first -- a graphene-based device that is compact, yet lasts as long as a conventional battery. Contact: Emily Walker Public Release: 1-Aug-2013
Genetic background check may explain why mutations produce different results Two women have the same genetic mutation -- an abnormal BRCA1 gene that puts them both at much higher-than-average risk for breast cancer -- but only one woman develops the disease. Why? Michigan State University genetic scientists have begun to understand the mechanisms behind the phenomena. Contact: Val Osowski Public Release: 1-Aug-2013
Future warming: Issues of magnitude and pace Researchers reviewed the likelihood of continued changes to the terrestrial climate, including an analysis of a collection of 27 climate models. If emissions of heat-trapping gases continue along the recent trajectory, 21st century mean annual global warming could exceed 3.6 °F ( 2 °C) over most terrestrial regions during 2046 to 2065 and 7.2 °F (4 °C) during 2081-2100.At this pace, it will probably be the most rapid large climate change in the last 65 million years. Contact: Chris Field Public Release: 1-Aug-2013
Climate strongly affects human conflict and violence worldwide, says study Shifts in climate are strongly linked to human violence around the world, with even relatively minor departures from normal temperature or rainfall substantially increasing the risk of conflict in ancient times or today, according to a new study by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, and Princeton University. Contact: Kathleen Maclay Public Release: 1-Aug-2013
Arctic sea-ice loss has widespread effects on wildlife How the Arctic wildlife and humans will be affected by the continued melting of Arctic sea ice is explored in a review article in the journal Science, by an international team of scientists. The article examines relationships among algae, plankton, whales, and terrestrial animals such as caribou, arctic foxes, and walrus; as well as the effects of human exploration of previously inaccessible parts of the region. Contact: Barbara K. Kennedy Public Release: 31-Jul-2013
Progress in using ethanol to make key raw material now produced from oil Ethanol from corn and other plants could become the sustainable, raw material for a huge variety of products, from plastic packaging to detergents to synthetic rubber, that are currently petroleum-based. This was the conclusion of an article published in the ACS journal Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research. Contact: Michael Bernstein Public Release: 31-Jul-2013
August 2013 Lithosphere concentrates on China, the Himalaya, India, and North America The complete August 2013 issue of Lithosphere is now available online. Papers covering the lithosphere of China and Tibet dominate the issue, with articles on the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan and the Idaho, USA, Snake River plain as well. The issue also features an article on diamond prospecting in India, a numerical modeling study, and an open access research focus article that asks, "Is it possible to predict the past?" Contact: Kea Giles Public Release: 31-Jul-2013
Bird brains predate birds themselves New research provides evidence that dinosaurs evolved the brainpower necessary for flight well before they actually took to the air as birds. Based on computed tomographic scans, the study, published today in Nature, takes a comprehensive look at the so-called "bird brain," revealing that at least a few non-avian dinosaurs had brains that were as large or larger than that of one of the earliest known birds, Archaeopteryx. Contact: Kendra Snyder Public Release: 31-Jul-2013
Citizen scientists rival experts in analyzing land-cover data Data gathered and analyzed by non-experts can rival the quality of data from experts, shows a new IIASA study of crowdsourced data from its Geo-Wiki project. Contact: Katherine Leitzell |