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) -- The evolutionary history of diatoms -- abundant oceanic plankton that remove billions of tons of carbon dioxide from the air each year -- needs to be rewritten, according to a new Cornell study. The findings suggest that after a sudden rise in species numbers, diatoms abruptly declined about 33 million years ago -- trends that coincided with severe global cooling. http://www.physorg.com/news150642726.html Biology Thu, 08 Jan 2009 13:12:06 EST news150642726 First an explosion as powerful as thousands of megatons of TNT rained meteorites down on North America. Then forest fires broke out across the continent, sending up a thick layer of soot and dust that blocked out the sun. A sudden ice age ensued, and some of the Earth's largest animals went extinct in a blink of geological time. http://www.physorg.com/news150097682.html Space & Earth Fri, 02 Jan 2009 05:48:02 EST news150097682 Italy's mountains, from the Apennines to the Alps, have fascinated University of California, Berkeley, geologist Walter Alvarez for more than 35 years, resulting in a new book, "The Mountains of Saint Francis," that traces Italy's billion-year geologic history with a focus on Italian geologists and their groundbreaking - and often overlooked - discoveries. http://www.physorg.com/news149170904.html Space & Earth Mon, 22 Dec 2008 12:21:44 EST news149170904 Two new high-resolution transmission electron microscopes, co-financed by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation), are set to open up new opportunities for research in physics and materials science. The new research microscopes at RWTH Aachen University and the University of Ulm will enable exceptional, state-of-the-art developments in the field of electron optics in Germany and be available to a broad group of users. http://www.physorg.com/news148816641.html Physics Thu, 18 Dec 2008 09:57:21 EST news148816641 The impact of a Big-3 bankruptcy and restructuring would be severe, but frequently-quoted job loss figures are misleading and overstated, according to a new projection by the University of Maryland's Inforum economic research unit. In the worse case scenario, peak job dislocation from restructuring would be half of the 3 million commonly cited in the media. http://www.physorg.com/news148661885.html Other Sciences Tue, 16 Dec 2008 14:58:05 EST news148661885 (PhysOrg.com) -- The Martian arctic soil that NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander dug into this year is very cold and very dry. However, when long-term climate cycles make the site warmer, the soil may get moist enough to modify the chemistry, producing effects that persist through the colder times. http://www.physorg.com/news148581442.html Space & Earth Mon, 15 Dec 2008 16:37:22 EST news148581442 (PhysOrg.com) -- Researchers have discovered that the ocean's chemical makeup is less stable and more greatly affected by climate change than previously believed. The researchers report in the December 12, 2008 issue of Science that during a time of climate change 13 million years ago the chemical makeup of the oceans changed dramatically. The researchers warn that the chemical composition of the ocean today could be similarly affected by climate changes now underway - with potentially far-reaching consequences for marine ecosystems. http://www.physorg.com/news148227653.html Space & Earth Thu, 11 Dec 2008 14:20:53 EST news148227653 Based on projected increases in the prevalence of diabetes, the number of people with diabetes-related retinal disease, with glaucoma and with cataracts is estimated to increase significantly by 2050, according to a report in the December issue of Archives of Ophthalmology, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. http://www.physorg.com/news147980017.html Medicine & Health Mon, 08 Dec 2008 17:33:37 EST news147980017 The genome of a squirrel-sized, saucer-eyed lemur from Madagascar may help scientists understand how HIV-like viruses coevolved with primates, according to new research from the Stanford University School of Medicine. The discovery, to be published online on Dec. 1 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, could provide insight into why non-human primates don't get AIDS and lead to treatments for humans. http://www.physorg.com/news147374817.html Medicine & Health Mon, 01 Dec 2008 17:26:57 EST news147374817 (PhysOrg.com) -- Intense glacial erosion has not only carved the surface of the highest coastal mountain range on earth, the spectacular St. Elias range in Alaska, but has elicited a structural response from deep within the mountain. http://www.physorg.com/news145940528.html Space & Earth Sat, 15 Nov 2008 03:02:08 EST news145940528 Throughout history, the changing fortunes of human societies in Asia have been linked to variations in the precipitation resulting from seasonal monsoons. http://www.physorg.com/news145545002.html Space & Earth Mon, 10 Nov 2008 13:10:02 EST news145545002 Throughout history, the changing fortunes of human societies in Asia have been linked to variations in the precipitation resulting from seasonal monsoons. A new paper published in the British journal Nature Geoscience suggests that variations in monsoon climate over longer time scales also influenced the evolution of the world's highest mountain chain, the Himalaya. http://www.physorg.com/news145458079.html Space & Earth Sun, 09 Nov 2008 13:01:19 EST news145458079 3.4 million deaths will be averted in the world's poorest countries through immunisation funded by the GAVI Alliance between 2000 and 2008, according to new data released by the World Health Organization (WHO). http://www.physorg.com/news144484422.html Medicine & Health Wed, 29 Oct 2008 07:33:42 EST news144484422 (PhysOrg.com) -- Even though the Cretaceous Period ended more than 65 million years ago, clues remain about how the ocean water circulated at that time. Measuring a chemical tracer in samples of ancient fish scales, bones and teeth, University of Missouri and University of Florida researchers have studied circulation in the Late Cretaceous North Atlantic Ocean. http://www.physorg.com/news143730119.html Space & Earth Mon, 20 Oct 2008 14:01:59 EST news143730119 (PhysOrg.com) -- Young planets around other stars may be easier to spot because they stay hotter way longer than astronomers have thought, according to new work by MIT planetary scientist Linda Elkins-Tanton. http://www.physorg.com/news143211269.html Space & Earth Tue, 14 Oct 2008 13:54:29 EST news143211269 (PhysOrg.com) -- A unique set of fossils indicates that 525 million years ago marine animals congregated in Earth`s ancient oceans, most likely for migration, according to an international team of scientists. http://www.physorg.com/news142862015.html Other Sciences Fri, 10 Oct 2008 12:53:35 EST news142862015 A study published today concludes that in the ten years since its initiation, the international effort to eliminate lymphatic filariasis (LF) has made a large impact towards ridding the world of one of its most debilitating diseases. The analysis found that the LF elimination programme has prevented 6.6 million children from acquiring LF and stopped another 9.5 million people already infected with the disease from progressing to more debilitating stages. These efforts are the result of the most rapid scale-up of a drug administration programme in public health history, delivering what the study calls a "best buy in public health". http://www.physorg.com/news142656435.html Medicine & Health Wed, 08 Oct 2008 03:47:15 EST news142656435 In geology as in cancer research, the silver bullet theory always gets the headlines and nearly always turns out to be wrong. http://www.physorg.com/news142595837.html Space & Earth Tue, 07 Oct 2008 10:57:17 EST news142595837 The fossilized trail of an aquatic creature suggests that animals walked using legs at least 30 million years earlier than had been thought. The tracks -- two parallel rows of small dots, each about 2 millimeters in diameter -- date back some 570 million years, to the Ediacaran period. http://www.physorg.com/news142431582.html Other Sciences Sun, 05 Oct 2008 13:19:42 EST news142431582 (PhysOrg.com) -- Climatologist Robert DeConto of the University of Massachusetts Amherst and colleagues at four institutions are reporting in the Oct. 2 issue of the journal Nature that their latest climate model of the Northern Hemisphere suggests conditions would have allowed ice sheets to form there for the last 25 million years, or about 22 million years earlier than generally assumed. Their research has implications for the evaluation of global climate change. http://www.physorg.com/news142184049.html Space & Earth Thu, 02 Oct 2008 16:34:09 EST news142184049 Reporting in Biology Letters, Steve Brusatte, Professor Michael Benton, and colleagues at the University of Bristol show that dinosaurs did not proliferate immediately after they originated, but that their rise was a slow and complicated event, and driven by two mass extinctions. http://www.physorg.com/news141994803.html Biology Tue, 30 Sep 2008 12:00:03 EST news141994803 (PhysOrg.com) -- Jan Zalasiewicz, a lecturer in geology at the University of Leicester, has published a new study looking at the lasting impression made by mankind -100 million years hence. He takes the perspective of alien explorers arriving on earth - their geologists study the layers of rock, using the many clues to piece together its history over several billion years. http://www.physorg.com/news141637556.html Space & Earth Fri, 26 Sep 2008 08:45:56 EST news141637556 Two species of giraffe, several rhinos and five elephant relatives, along with multitudes of rodents, bush pigs, horses, antelope and apes, once inhabited what is now northern Pakistan. http://www.physorg.com/news141314839.html Biology Mon, 22 Sep 2008 15:07:19 EST news141314839 When the world's land was congealed in one supercontinent 240 million years ago, Antarctica wasn't the forbiddingly icy place it is now. But paleontologists have found a previously unknown amphibious predator species that probably still made it less than hospitable. http://www.physorg.com/news140410277.html Other Sciences Fri, 12 Sep 2008 03:51:17 EST news140410277 By comparing early dinosaurs to their closest competitors, the curuotarsans, Steve Brusatte of the American Museum of Natural History and colleagues have found that dinosaurs had no special ability to dominate the landscape for 160 million years. Curuotarsans looked better during the Triassic, having twice the disparity (or variation in body plans) and evolving at similar rates until rapid global warming spurred extinction of most groups (except crocodiles) while nearly all dinosaur groups survived. http://www.physorg.com/news140359371.html Other Sciences Thu, 11 Sep 2008 13:42:51 EST news140359371 The precise timing of the origin of life on Earth and the changes in life during the past 4.5 billion years has been a subject of great controversy for the past century. The principal indicator of the amount of organic carbon produced by biological activity traditionally used is the ratio of the less abundant isotope of carbon, 13C, to the more abundant isotope, 12C. http://www.physorg.com/news140266859.html Space & Earth Wed, 10 Sep 2008 12:00:59 EST news140266859 (PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists from Oregon State University and the Natural History Museum in London have announced the discovery of the oldest known fossil of a gecko, with body parts that are forever preserved in life-like form after 100 million years of being entombed in amber. http://www.physorg.com/news139071357.html Other Sciences Wed, 27 Aug 2008 15:55:57 EST news139071357 There have been many reports in the media about the effects of global warming on the Greenland ice-sheet, but there is still great uncertainty as to why there is an ice-sheet there at all. http://www.physorg.com/news139060720.html Space & Earth Wed, 27 Aug 2008 12:58:40 EST news139060720