Earth Sciences
New treatments for infertility could be closer to reality, thanks to a discovery from scientists at the Université de Montréal and Maisonneuve-Rosemont Hospital Research Centre.
According to a study published in the journal Molecular Human Reproduction, the researchers have become the first to clone, produce and purify a protein important for sperm maturation, termed Binder of Sperm (BSP), which may have implications for both fertility treatments and new methods of male contraception.
“We have previously isolated and characterized BSPs from many species, such as bulls and boars,” says…
The Earth explorer satellite GOCE (Gravity Field and Steady-State Ocean Circulation Explorer), built by the European Space Agency ESA, was successfully launched today at 15:21 GMT from the Russian Cosmodrome Plesetsk. GOCE is the first satellite mission within the framework of the Living Planet Programme of ESA and will map Earth's gravity field in unprecedented detail.
From the data obtained, the GFZ - German Research Centre for Geosciences will calculate its own, high resolution gravity field. "The accuracy of the depiction of the Earth's gravity field, well known as the 'Potsdam Gravity…
Here is your opportunity to influence the policy makers at the the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP-15) to be held in Copenhagen, Denmark during November-December 2009.
Specifically, the University of Copenhagen is hosting an international scientific congress entitled "Climate Change: Global Risks, Challenges&Decisions," March 10-12, 2009 at the Bella Center in Copenhagen. The purpose of the congress is "a synthesis of existing and emerging scientific knowledge necessary in order to make intelligent societal decisions concerning application of mitigation and adaptation…
Geodesy is the science of determining the geometry, gravity field, and rotation of the Earth and their evolution in time. Traditionally, geodesy has been serving other sciences and has had many societal applications, including mapping.
With the advent of satellite technology, geodesy itself developed into a science, making unique contributions to the study of the Earth system, its inherit dynamics, and its response to climate change, as well as a tool underpinning a wide variety of other remote sensing techniques. Geodesy is an important element in making all Earth observations interoperable…
New research challenges the generally accepted belief that substantial ice sheets could not have existed on Earth during past super-warm climate events.
The study by researchers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego provides strong evidence that a glacial ice cap, about half the size of the modern day glacial ice sheet, existed 91 million years ago during a period of intense global warming.
Posted in Science, “Isotopic Evidence for Glaciation During the Cretaceous Supergreenhouse” examines geochemical and sea level data retrieved from marine microfossils deposited on the…
Organic compounds contain carbon and hydrogen and form the building blocks of all life on Earth. By analyzing organic material and minerals in the Martian meteorite Allan Hills 84001, scientists at the Carnegie Institution's Geophysical Laboratory have shown for the first time that building blocks of life formed on Mars early in its history.
Previously, scientists have thought that organic material in ALH 84001 was brought to Mars by meteorite impacts or more speculatively originated from ancient Martian microbes.
The Carnegie-led team made a comprehensive study of the ALH 84001 meteorite…
Researchers at the University of Illinois have developed a new model of global carbon and nitrogen cycling that will fundamentally transform the understanding of how plants and soils interact with a changing atmosphere and climate.
The new model takes into account the role of nitrogen dynamics in influencing the response of terrestrial ecosystems to climate change and rising atmospheric carbon dioxide.
Current models used in the assessment reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change do not account for nitrogen processing, and probably exaggerate the terrestrial ecosystem’s…
Two researchers have found that the effects of the current warming and melting of Greenland 's glaciers that has alarmed the world's climate scientists occurred in the decades following an abrupt warming in the 1920s.
Their evidence reinforces the belief that glaciers and other bodies of ice are exquisitely hyper-sensitive to climate chang.
Using weather station records from the past century, they recently recognized that temperatures in Greenland had warmed in the 1920s at rates equivalent to the recent past. But they hadn't confirmed that the island's glaciers responded to that earlier…
As the giant North American ice sheets melted an enormous pool of freshwater, many times larger than all of the Great Lakes, formed behind them. About 8400 years ago this pool of freshwater burst free and flooded the North Atlantic.
About the same time, a sharp century long cold spell is observed around the North Atlantic and other areas. Researchers have often speculated that the cooling was the result of changes in ocean circulation triggered by this freshwater flood. The sudden addition of so much freshwater would have curtailed (suppressed) the sinking of deep water in the North Atlantic…
The world oceans are by far the largest sink of anthropogenic CO2 on our planet. Until now, they have swallowed almost half of the CO2 emitted through the burning of fossil fuels but scientists are concerned about the ability of the oceans to continue to shoulder this environmental burden as CO2 levels rise.
Current models for the development of the global climate system do not incorporate the reaction of marine organisms nor the processes that they influence.
To investigate the biological processes and their potential changes with time, scientists in a new study made use of an unusual…