http://www.physorg.com/ en-us Physorg.com internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Physics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. (PhysOrg.com) -- Extremes are exciting. Does anyone really think dinosaurs would capture our imagination the way they do if they hadn't been so huge? You don't see natural history museums vying for fossil skeletons of prehistoric rodents. It's the Tyrannosaurus rex fossils they salivate and squabble over. And would the Hollywood glitterati cart around those little teacup pups if they weren't so dang tiny and cute? Not likely. http://www.physorg.com/news149188848.html Space & Earth Mon, 22 Dec 2008 17:20:48 EST news149188848 (PhysOrg.com) -- Not much is known about the Earth before 4 billion years ago, the earliest period in the planet`s 4.5-billion-year history. Because Earth has lost almost all geological records of this era from its surface, it`s often considered the planet`s dark ages. http://www.physorg.com/news147960214.html Space & Earth Mon, 08 Dec 2008 12:03:34 EST news147960214 (PhysOrg.com) -- A new picture of the early Earth is emerging, including the surprising finding that plate tectonics may have started more than 4 billion years ago - much earlier than scientists had believed, according to new research by UCLA geochemists reported Nov. 27 in the journal Nature. http://www.physorg.com/news146924511.html Space & Earth Wed, 26 Nov 2008 12:21:51 EST news146924511 (PhysOrg.com) -- Evolution isn't just for living organisms. Scientists at the Carnegie Institution have found that the mineral kingdom co-evolved with life, and that up to two thirds of the more than 4,000 known types of minerals on Earth can be directly or indirectly linked to biological activity. The finding, published in American Mineralogist, could aid scientists in the search for life on other planets. http://www.physorg.com/news145805221.html Space & Earth Thu, 13 Nov 2008 13:27:01 EST news145805221 All biological reactions within human cells depend on enzymes. Their power as catalysts enables biological reactions to occur usually in milliseconds. But how slowly would these reactions proceed spontaneously, in the absence of enzymes - minutes, hours, days? And why even pose the question? http://www.physorg.com/news145602862.html Biology Tue, 11 Nov 2008 05:14:22 EST news145602862 (PhysOrg.com) -- NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has observed a new category of minerals spread across large regions of Mars. This discovery suggests that liquid water remained on the planet's surface a billion years later than scientists believed, and it played an important role in shaping the planet's surface and possibly hosting life. http://www.physorg.com/news144420918.html Space & Earth Tue, 28 Oct 2008 13:55:18 EST news144420918 Astronomers think that many - perhaps all - galaxies in the universe contain massive black holes at their centers. New observations with the Submillimeter Array now suggest that such colossal black holes were common even 12 billion years ago, when the universe was only 1.7 billion years old and galaxies were just beginning to form. The new conclusion comes from the discovery of two distant galaxies, both with black holes at their heart, which are involved in a spectacular collision. http://www.physorg.com/news143380532.html Space & Earth Thu, 16 Oct 2008 12:55:32 EST news143380532 Canadian bedrock more than four billion years old may be the oldest known section of the Earth's early crust. Scientists at the Carnegie Institution used geochemical methods to obtain an age of 4.28 billion years for samples of the rock, making it 250 million years more ancient than any previously discovered rocks. The findings, which offer scientists clues to the earliest stages of our planet's evolution, are published in the September 26 issue of Science. http://www.physorg.com/news141569184.html Space & Earth Thu, 25 Sep 2008 13:46:24 EST news141569184 A long-standing scientific belief holds that stars tend to hang out in the same general part of a galaxy where they originally formed. Some astrophysicists have recently questioned whether that is true, and now new simulations show that, at least in galaxies similar to our own Milky Way, stars such as the sun can migrate great distances. http://www.physorg.com/news140715343.html Space & Earth Mon, 15 Sep 2008 16:35:43 EST news140715343 (PhysOrg.com) -- Looking in detail at the composition of stars with ESO's VLT, astronomers are providing a fresh look at the history of our home galaxy, the Milky Way. They reveal that the central part of our Galaxy formed not only very quickly but also independently of the rest. http://www.physorg.com/news140363426.html Space & Earth Thu, 11 Sep 2008 14:50:26 EST news140363426 How do galaxies form? The most widely accepted answer to this fundamental question is the model of 'hierarchical formation', a step-wise process in which small galaxies merge to build larger ones. One can think of the galaxies forming in a similar way to how streams merge to form rivers, and how these rivers, in turn, merge to form an even larger river. This theoretical model predicts that massive galaxies grow through many merging events in their lifetime. But when did their cosmological growth spurts finish? When did the most massive galaxies get most of their mass? http://www.physorg.com/news138965763.html Space & Earth Tue, 26 Aug 2008 10:36:03 EST news138965763 (PhysOrg.com) -- Mining the far reaches of the universe for clues about its past, a team of scientists including Philipp Kronberg of Los Alamos National Laboratory has proposed that magnetic fields of ancient galaxies like ours were just as strong as those existing today, prompting a rethinking of how our galaxy and others may have formed. http://www.physorg.com/news136041939.html Space & Earth Wed, 23 Jul 2008 14:25:39 EST news136041939 Astronomers have uncovered an extreme stellar machine -- a galaxy in the very remote universe pumping out stars at a surprising rate of up to 4,000 per year. In comparison, our own Milky Way galaxy turns out an average of just 10 stars per year. http://www.physorg.com/news134922376.html Space & Earth Thu, 10 Jul 2008 15:26:16 EST news134922376 Imagine having three clocks in your house, each chiming at a different time. Astronomers have found the equivalent of three out-of-sync "clocks" in the ancient open star cluster NGC 6791. The dilemma may fundamentally challenge the way astronomers estimate cluster ages, researchers said. http://www.physorg.com/news134909180.html Space & Earth Thu, 10 Jul 2008 11:46:20 EST news134909180