Using a new satellite-based vegetation monitoring system researchers found that about 12 percent of the biomass has disappeared in this country that's more than twice the size of Texas
The study compared volatile profiles of five southern highbush blueberry cultivars (Farthing FL01-173 Scintilla Star
If the volatiles in this study are in fact the most important to the perception of blueberry flavor then'Star'may have the most consistent flavor in response to varying environmental factors they concluded.
Even though there is heightened awareness about the need for limited sun exposure and use of sunscreens we're still seeing far too many cases of skin cancer each year Dr. Dickinson said.
It could be useful for powering devices for use in extreme environments such as oil drilling the military and space.
how soil conditions minerals sun temperature climate altitude and other environmental factors affect the expression of genes in grapes and the chemistry of wine's aromas and color.
Though a small player still Uruguay is a rising star in the world's wine industry exporting about 17%of its production (over 20 million litres valued at $15 million in 2012;
Our findings provide novel evidence suggesting that certain fruits may be especially beneficial for lowering diabetes risk said senior author Qi Sun assistant professor in the Department of Nutrition at HSPH and assistant professor at the Channing Division of Network
According to the researchers this type of forest is a unique carbon sink containing the most abundant land carbon stocks on the planet.
today the fertilizer it produces allows us to feed a population roughly a third larger than the planet could sustain without synthetic fertilizer.
Tae Seok Moon Phd and Fuzhong Zhang Phd both assistant professors of energy environmental and chemical engineering in the School of engineering & Applied science at Washington University;
Cyanobacteria that both photosynthesize and fix nitrogen separate the two activities either in space or in time.
In fact there are probably as many beetle species living in dung as there are bird species on this planet.
And Landsat satellites built by NASA and operated by the U s. Geological Survey help direct the crews to those forest areas needing attention.
and so sends back a strong signal to the Landsat detector that isn't present over burned areas explained Jeff Masek Landsat program scientist with NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt Md.
But the shortwave infrared band--added to Landsat satellites starting with Landsat 4--has a distinct spectral signature for burned areas.
While he also employs remote sensing data from other satellites Landsat is the satellite of choice Albury said.
Plus having two satellites orbiting halves the wait time for post-fire images. Now I've got those good clean gap-free scenes on a regular basis Albury said.
Natural processes that once created open spaces even within mature forests such as fire are controlled largely diminishing the availability of quality habitat.
Scant research makes it hard to provethe number of humans on the planet has doubled almost in the past 50 years
By the end of their run on the planet multituberculates had evolved complex teeth that allowed them to enjoy vegetarian diets
These two model classes characterize different portions of the environmental space or niche that crops and other species occupy Estes said.
In the new study Huang and Rice graduate student Tzu-Lin Sun partnered with colleagues Ming-Tao Lee at the National Synchrotron Radiation Research center (NSRRC) in Hsinchu Taiwan
In the experiments Sun used a needle-like glass pipette to partially aspirate and grab dye-filled GUVS
Satellites and recording stations document extreme eventsthe researchers working with Markus Reichstein took different approaches to their study from the ecosystem perspective.
or a storm satellites be directed at the area in question as quickly as possible so that the immediate effect can be recorded along with the long-term impact.
Knowing that for the entire planet is much more challenging. Taking advantage of the long-duration and high-altitude-profiling capabilities of the NSF Gulfstream V aircraft also known as HIAPER the HIPPO project was designed to take a'snapshot'of the global troposphere Earth's lowest atmospheric
#NASA fire towers in space watch for wildfires on the risethe Black forest wildfire this June was one of the most destructive in Colorado history in terms of homes lost.
Over the last 30 years we have seen an increase in hot and dry conditions that promote fire activity said Doug Morton a scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center Greenbelt Md.
And across the western U s. and Alaska satellites show an increase in the area that burns each year over that same time period.
Fire Monitoring from Space For more than a decade instruments on Terra and Aqua two of NASA's flagship Earth-observing satellites have scanned the surface of our planet for fires.
An instrument on both satellites the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) has revolutionized what scientists know about fire's role in land cover change ecosystem processes
and the global carbon cycle by allowing researchers to map characteristics of the global distribution of fires in remarkable detail.
The satellite provides two additional daily observations. Another instrument called the Ozone Mapper Profiler Suite
The project uses data from Landsat satellites a mission jointly operated by NASA and the U s. Geological Survey.
NASA recently launched the Landsat 8 and Suomi-NPP satellites which will provide information on fire fuels active fires aerosols and climate:
NASA satellites used to predict zebra migrationsone of the world's longest migrations of zebras occurs in the African nation of Botswana
to the Makgadikgadi Salt Pans--the largest salt pan system on the planet. Zebras walk an unmarked route that takes them to the next best place for grazing
High above Earth-orbiting satellites capture images of the zebras'movements on this epic trek as well as the daily change in environmental conditions.
While tracking animal movement with satellites has been accomplished many times Beck said he and his team combined that information with in depth use of environmental satellite data using a series of images of vegetation growth and rainfall taken over days and weeks.
To track the greening of leaves the researchers relied on the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index data acquired by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer on board NASA's Terra and Aqua satellites.
The original article was written by Lisa-Natalie Anjozian NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. Note:
if ozone destruction had continued unabated and increasing CFCS further heated the planet the jet stream in the mid-latitudes would have shifted toward the poles expanding the subtropical dry zones and shifting the mid-latitude rain belts poleward.
#Climate change occurring ten times faster than at any time in past 65 million yearsthe planet is undergoing one of the largest changes in climate
Although some of the changes the planet will experience in the next few decades are baked already into the system how different the climate looks at the end of the 21st century will depend largely on how humans respond.
For instance the planet experienced a 5 Degree celsius hike in temperature 20000 years ago as Earth emerged from the last ice age.
By 2015 the varieties will be vying for space in grocery stores among the Empires Galas and Honeycrisps.
As our planet gets more crowded or we experience disasters like droughts and pests we can find ways of using existing croplands more efficiently.
The above story is provided based on materials by The Agency for Science Technology and Research (A*STAR.
research showsit might be easier than previously thought for a planet to overheat into the scorchingly uninhabitable runaway greenhouse stage according to new research by astronomers at the University of Washington and the University of Victoria published July 28 in the journal Nature Geoscience.
In the runaway greenhouse stage a planet absorbs more solar energy than it can give off to retain equilibrium.
which leaves the planet glowing-hot and forever uninhabitable as Venus is now. One estimate of the inner edge of a star's habitable zone is where the runaway greenhouse process begins.
The habitable zone is that ring of space around a star that's just right for water to remain in liquid form on an orbiting rocky planet's surface thus giving life a chance.
Revisiting this classic planetary science scenario with new computer modeling the astronomers found a lower thermal radiation threshold for the runaway greenhouse process meaning that stage may be easier to initiate than had been thought previously.
The habitable zone becomes much narrower in the sense that you can no longer get as close to the star as we thought before going into a runaway greenhouse said Tyler Robinson a UW astronomy postdoctoral researcher and second author on the paper.
The lead author is Colin Goldblatt of the University of Victoria. Though further research is called for the findings could lead to a recalibration of where the habitable zone begins
and ends with some planets having their candidacy as possible habitable worlds revoked. These worlds on the very edge got'pushed in'from our perspective--they are now beyond the runaway greenhouse threshold Robinson said.
The findings apply to planet Earth As well as the sun increases in brightness over time Earth too will move into the runaway greenhouse stage--but not for a billion and a half years or so.
Still it inspired the astronomers to write As the solar constant increases with time Earth's future is analogous to Venus's past.
of ecosystems that support some of the planet's most spectacular yet little-known large mammals.
and Mongolia the vast highlands and open spaces that once were populated by wild camel and wild yak Przewalski's horse chiru saiga antelope Tibetan gazelle kiang khulan and snow leopard are increasingly dominated by domestic goats and other livestock.
#Climate forecasts shown to warn of crop failuresclimate data can help predict some crop failures several months before harvest according to a new study from an international team including a research scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt Md.
All organisms on our planet can be divided between prokaryotes (which include bacteria) and eukaryotes (which include humans plants and animals as well as fungi).
CLASLITE's high-resolution satellite imaging uncovered logging roads in Brunei and in the Malaysian states of Sabah and Sarawak on the island of Borneo.
what even today is still a virtually forgotten and neglected area of##ur planet the Guiana Shield in the north of South america.
#Boldly illuminating biologys dark matteris space really the final frontier or are the greatest mysteries closer to home?
The biological equivalent is microbial dark matter that pervasive yet practically invisible infrastructure of life on the planet
and characterizing single genomes from complex environmental samples of millions of cells to provide a profound leap of understanding the microbial evolution on our planet.
One such trait involves an enzyme that bacteria commonly use for creating space within their protective cell wall
We interpreted millions of these bits of genetic information like distant stars in the night sky trying to align them into recognizable constellations.
#IBEX spacecraft images the heliotail, revealing an unexpected structurenasa's Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) spacecraft recently provided the first complete pictures of the solar system's downwind region revealing a unique and unexpected structure.
Researchers have theorized long that like a comet a tail trails the heliosphere the giant bubble in
which our solar system resides as the heliosphere moves through interstellar space. The first IBEX images released in 2009 showed an unexpected ribbon of surprisingly high energetic neutral atom (ENA) emissions circling the upwind side of the solar system.
With the collection of additional ENAS over the first year of observations a structure dominated by lower energy ENAS emerged
and starboard to distinguish the lobes as the heliosphere is the vessel that transports our solar system throughout the galaxy.
IBEX data show the heliotail is the region where the Sun's million mile per hour solar wind flows down
The slow solar wind heads down the tail in the port and starboard lobes at low-and mid-latitudes and at least around the Sun's minimum in solar activity fast solar wind flows down it at high northern and southern latitudes.
The IBEX spacecraft uses two novel ENA cameras to image and map the heliosphere's global interaction providing the first global views and new knowledge about our solar system's interaction with interstellar space.
IBEX is part of NASA's series of low-cost rapidly developed Small Explorer space missions. Southwest Research Institute in San antonio leads the IBEX mission with teams of national and international partners.
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt Md. manages the Explorers Program for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.
what rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide mean for the planet Richardson cautioned. There is little doubt that as carbon dioxide continues to rise
Scientists of the Alfred Wegener Institute Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research have been following this natural spectacle via Earth observation satellites Terrasar-X from the German Space agency (DLR)
Benjamin I. Cook of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory;
and crop production will benefit animals people and the planet.''Agriculture is a potent sector for economic growth and rural development in many countries across Africa Asia and South america.
And the proteins--those little beads on the string that are designed to fold up like origami--are folded to position all these beads in three-dimensional space to perfectly wrap around those molecules
And the proteins--those little beads on the string that are designed to fold up like origami--are folded to position all these beads in three-dimensional space to perfectly wrap around those molecules
#The sun moth: A beautiful new species Stenoloba solaris from Chinascientist describe a new striking species of moth from China with an engaging wing pattern.
The new species Stenoloba solaris has inspired its name by the orange circular patch on its wings that resembles the rising sun. The study was published in the open access journal Zookeys.
The newly described sun moth belongs to the Family noctuidae also known as owlet moths which refers to their robustly built bodies.
#Dusty surprise around giant black holeeso's Very Large Telescope Interferometer has gathered the most detailed observations ever of the dust around the huge black hole at the centre of an active galaxy.
Rather than finding all of the glowing dust in a doughnut-shaped torus around the black hole as expected the astronomers find that much of it is located above and below the torus.
These observations show that dust is being pushed away from the black hole as a cool wind--a surprising finding that challenges current theories
and tells us how supermassive black holes evolve and interact with their surroundings. Over the last twenty years astronomers have found that almost all galaxies have a huge black hole at their centre.
Some of these black holes are growing by drawing in matter from their surroundings creating in the process the most energetic objects in the Universe:
active galactic nuclei (AGN. The central regions of these brilliant powerhouses are ringed by doughnuts of cosmic dust 1 dragged from the surrounding space similar to how water forms a small whirlpool around the plughole of a sink.
It was thought that most of the strong infrared radiation coming from AGN originated in these doughnuts.
The newly-discovered dust forms a cool wind streaming outwards from the black hole. This wind must play an important role in the complex relationship between the black hole and its environment.
The black hole feeds its insatiable appetite from the surrounding material but the intense radiation this produces also seems to be blowing the material away.
It is still unclear how these two processes work together and allow supermassive black holes to grow
and evolve within galaxies but the presence of a dusty wind adds a new piece to this picture.
to collect enough light to observe faint objects This lets us study a region as small as the distance from our Sun to its closest neighbouring star in a galaxy tens of millions of light-years away.
and how supermassive black holes grow and evolve must now take into account this newly-discovered effect. HÃ nig concludes I am now really looking forward to MATISSE
what a space telescope with a diameter of over 100 metres would measure. 3 The hotter dust was mapped using the AMBER VLTI instrument at near-infrared wavelengths
By planting much closer together and causing them to branch like that you are able to fill up available space intercept light more quickly
Basso continued Ritchie's work and added new features to better predict the impact of agronomic management on crop yield over space and time.
Through SALUS Basso forecasted the impact of changes in temperature precipitation and CO2 emissions on wheat yield from contrasting environment across the planet.
and hopefully with less poverty and enough food for the planet Basso said. Story Source:
the importance of space seasonality and nitrogen. For example he said high inputs of nitrogen may hasten the transition of hemlock stands to hardwood species that provide scant winter cover.
and Technology suggests that in 40 years a hotter planet would cut the yield of corn grown for ethanol in the U s. by an average of 7 percent
Juan C Motamayor from Mars Incorporated and colleagues sequenced the genome of the Matina cacao variety then used genetic analyses
Or the researchers speculate a science fiction idea of a space elevator that could connect an orbiting satellite to Earth by a long cord that might consist of sheets of CVD graphene
The researchers believe that their work could be applied widely helping to identify at-risk species from many different groups and from many regions of the planet.
and orient themselves in relation to the sun. In a new study researchers report that a regulatory gene known to be involved in learning
Since crop production consumes more freshwater than any other human activity on the planet the study has significant implications for addressing the twin challenges of water stress
Such an ultrathin array could save space in small microprocessor-based devices. Further work along these lines could produce such structures as patterned nanotube arrays on diamond that could be utilized in electronic devices Ajayan said.
Through beautiful images of strikingly symmetric stars and triangles hundreds of microns across they have uncovered key insights into the optical and electronic properties of this new material
Rivers of wildebeests zebra and Thompson's gazelles--more than 2 million all told--cross the landscape in one of the largest animal migrations on the planet.
100 of our Planet's Most Amazing New Species (NY Plume 2013. For decades we have averaged 18000 species discoveries per year
At the same time we search the heavens for other earthlike planets we should make it a high priority to explore the biodiversity on the most earthlike planet of them all:
I am shocked by our ignorance of our very own planet and in awe at the diversity beauty and complexity of the biosphere and its inhabitants.
Study contradicts predictions of widespread extinctiona new Dartmouth College study finds human-caused climate change may have little impact on many species of tropical lizards contradicting a host of recent studies that predict their widespread extinction in a rapidly warming planet.
One problem is that the islands are separated by nonmagnetic spaces--some 25-65%of the surface only is magnetic.
The A*STAR-affiliated researchers contributing to this research are from the Data storage Institutestory Source The above story is provided based on materials by The Agency for Science Technology and Research (A*STAR.
and there would be no galaxies stars planets or people said Tim Chupp a University of Michigan professor of physics
5 stars best available; 4 stars very good; 3 stars good 2 stars adequate; 1 star marginal;
and no star not recommended. Each modern helmet was subjected to all 20 drop tests (four impact locations at five drop heights.
Each vintage leather helmet was subjected to 12 drop tests; the 48-and 60-inch drop tests were undertaken not
because it was feared that accelerations from those heights might damage the head form when covered by vintage helmets.
Drop testing of modern helmets was conducted during an earlier study at which time the modern helmets were assigned star ratings.
six helmets with a four-or five-star rating in the first group and four helmets with a three-star or lower rating in the second group.
Modern helmets with lower star ratings had greater peak accelerations for each drop height than modern helmets with higher star ratings
The approach foresees big changes for one of the planet's great carbon sponges. Boreal forests will likely shift north at a steady clip this century.
Boreal ecosystems encircle the planet's high latitudes covering swaths of Canada Europe and Russia in coniferous trees and wetlands.
The planet's boreal forests won't expand poleward. Instead they'll shift poleward. The difference lies in the prediction that as boreal ecosystems follow the warming climate northward their southern boundaries will be overtaken by even warmer
Climate models divide the planet into gridcells that cover tens or hundreds of square kilometers.
This is a very important and fundamental process of ecosystem renewal around the planet that we really didn't understand says co-senior investigator Joseph P. Noel professor and director of Salk's Jack H. Skirball Center for Chemical
The study found that isoprene once it is altered chemically via exposure to the sun reacts with human-made nitrogen oxides to create particulate matter.
The nanostructured black silicon coating features very low reflectivity meaning that a larger portion of the Sun's radiation can be exploited.
because they were situated between spaces known to contain food and areas without food. Mood can have a huge influence on how the brain processes information.
Spera and Mustard used imaging from NASA's Terra satellite to track land use changes in Mato grosso from 2000 to 2011.
what occurs in human skin after sun exposure. They were also able to show that mushrooms
#Grains of sand from ancient supernova found in meteorites: Supernova may have been the one that triggered the formation of the solar systemit's a bit like learning the secrets of the family that lived in your house in the 1800s by examining dust particles they left behind in cracks in the floorboards.
By looking at specks of dust carried to earth in meteorites scientists are able to study stars that winked out of existence long before our solar system formed.
This technique for studying the stars--sometimes called astronomy in the lab--gives scientists information that cannot be obtained by the traditional techniques of astronomy such as telescope observations or computer modeling.
Now scientists working at Washington University in St louis with support from the Mcdonnell Center for the Space sciences have discovered two tiny grains of silica (Sio2;
the most common constituent of sand) in primitive meteorites. This discovery is surprising because silica is not one of the minerals expected to condense in stellar atmospheres--in fact it has been called'a mythical condensate.'
but because of their isotopic compositions they are thought to originate from AGB stars red giants that puff up to enormous sizes at the end of their lives
instead from a core-collapse supernova a massive star that exploded at the end of its life. Because the grains which were found in meteorites from two different bodies of origin have spookily similar isotopic compositions the scientists speculate in the May 1 issue of Astrophysical Journal Letters that they may have come from a single supernova perhaps even the one
whose explosion is thought to have triggered the formation of the solar system. A summary of the paper will also appear in the Editors'Choice compilation in the May 3 issue of Science magazine.
The first presolar grains are discovereduntil the 1960s most scientists believed the early solar system got so hot that presolar material could not have survived.
But in 1987 scientists at the University of Chicago discovered miniscule diamonds in a primitive meteorite (ones that had not been heated and reworked.
Since then they've found grains of more than ten other minerals in primitive meteorites. Many of these discoveries were made at Washington University home to Ernst Zinner Phd research professor in Physics at Washington University in St louis who helped develop the instruments
and techniques needed to study presolar grains (and the last author on the paper). The scientists can tell these grains came from ancient stars
because they have highly unusual isotopic signatures. Isotopes are different atoms of the same chemical element that have a slightly different mass.
Different stars produce different proportions of isotopes. But the material from which our solar system was fashioned was mixed
and homogenized before the solar system formed. So all of the planets and the Sun have the pretty much the same isotopic composition known simply as solar.
Meteorites most of which are pieces of asteroids have the solar composition as well but trapped deep within the primitive ones are pure samples of stars.
The isotopic compositions of these presolar grains provide clues to the complex nuclear and convective processes operating within stars
which are understood poorly. Even our nearby Sun is still a mystery to us; much less more exotic stars that are incomprehensibly far away.
Some models of stellar evolution predict that silica could condense in the cooler outer atmospheres of stars
but others predict silicon would be consumed completely by the formation of magnesium -or iron-rich silicates leaving none to form silica.
But in the absence of any evidence few modelers even bothered to discuss the condensation of silica in stellar atmospheres.
We didn't know which model was right and which was not because the models had said so many parameters Pierre Haenecour a graduate student in Earth
and Planetary Sciences who is the first author on the paper. The first silica grains are discovered In 2009 Christine Floss Phd research professor of physics at Washington University in St louis
and Frank Stadermann Phd since deceased found the first silica grain in a meteorite. Their find was followed within the next few years by the discovery of four more grains.
or AGB stars Floss said. When Haenecour began his graduate study with Floss she had him look at a primitive meteorite that had been picked up in Antarctica by a U s. team.
Antarctica is prime meteorite-hunting-territory because the dark rocks show up clearly against the white snow and ice.
Haenecour with the Nanosims 50 ion microprobe he used to look for presolar grains in a primitive meteorite.
The silica grain he found is too small to be seen with the unaided eye but the microprobe can magnify it 20000 times to about the size of a chocolate chip.
Haenecour found 138 presolar grains in the meteorite slice he examined and to his delight one of them was a silica grain
which meant it came from a core-collapse supernova not a red giant. He knew that another graduate student in the lab had found a silica grain rich in oxygen-18.
Xuchao Zhao now a scientist at the Institute of Geology and Geophysics in Beijing China found his grain in a meteorite picked up in Antarctica by the Chinese Antarctic Research Expedition.
With two specks to go on Haenecour tackled the difficult problem of calculating how a supernova might have produced silica grains.
Before it explodes a supernova is a giant onion made up of concentric layers dominated by different elements.
A massive star that will explode at the end of its life a core-collapse supernova has layered a structure rather like that of an onion.
Some theoretical models predicted that silica might be produced in massive oxygen-rich layers near the core of the supernova.
amounts of material from the hydrogen envelope of the supernova. In fact Haenecour said the mixing needed to produce the composition of the two grains was so similar that the grains might well come from the same supernova.
Could it have been the supernova whose explosion is thought to have started kick the collapse of the molecular cloud out of which the planets of the solar system formed?
How strange to think that two tiny grains of sand could be the humble bearers of such momentous tidings from so long ago and so far away.
Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by Washington University in St louis. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
Overtext Web Module V3.0 Alpha
Copyright Semantic-Knowledge, 1994-2011