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. In finding answers to the mystery of the origin of life, scientists may not have to dig too deep. New research is shedding light on shallower waters as a possible location for where life on Earth began. http://www.physorg.com/news180726917.html Space & Earth Tue, 22 Dec 2009 18:40:01 EST news180726917 In the long term, the Earth's temperature may be 30-50% more sensitive to atmospheric carbon dioxide than has previously been estimated, reports a new study published in Nature Geoscience this week. http://www.physorg.com/news179328817.html Space & Earth Sun, 06 Dec 2009 13:34:02 EST news179328817 (PhysOrg.com) -- Much of our planet's mineral wealth was deposited billions of years ago when Earth's chemical cycles were different from today's. Using geochemical clues from rocks nearly 3 billion years old, a group of scientists including Andrey Bekker and Doug Rumble from the Carnegie Institution have made the surprising discovery that the creation of economically important nickel ore deposits was linked to sulfur in the ancient oxygen-poor atmosphere. http://www.physorg.com/news177863954.html Space & Earth Thu, 19 Nov 2009 15:30:01 EST news177863954 Long-term variations in volcanism help explain the birth, evolution and death of striking geological features called oceanic core complexes on the ocean floor, says geologist Dr Bram Murton of the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton. http://www.physorg.com/news177243136.html Space & Earth Thu, 12 Nov 2009 10:30:02 EST news177243136 (PhysOrg.com) -- The scalding-hot sea that supposedly covered the early Earth may in fact never have existed, according to a new study by Stanford University researchers who analyzed isotope ratios in 3.4 billion-year-old ocean floor rocks. Their findings suggest that the early ocean was much more temperate and that, as a result, life likely diversified and spread across the globe much sooner in Earth's history than has been generally theorized. http://www.physorg.com/news177168552.html Space & Earth Wed, 11 Nov 2009 14:00:01 EST news177168552 Volcanic activity may split the African continent in two owing to a recent geological crack in northeastern Ethiopia, researchers said on Tuesday. http://www.physorg.com/news176486243.html Space & Earth Tue, 03 Nov 2009 16:30:01 EST news176486243 (PhysOrg.com) -- One major threat of planetary warming is the melting of the great polar ice sheets, and the resulting rise in global sea level. Particularly worrisome to researchers is the fragility of the West Antarctic ice sheet (WAIS), whose bed lies well below sea-level, accelerating the natural flow between the grounded ice sheet itself and the floating ice shelves that make up its boundary. http://www.physorg.com/news170690352.html Space & Earth Fri, 28 Aug 2009 15:00:03 EST news170690352 A team of scientists from Oregon State University has created the first global three-dimensional map of electrical conductivity in the Earth's mantle and their model suggests that that enhanced conductivity in certain areas of the mantle may signal the presence of water. http://www.physorg.com/news169906990.html Space & Earth Wed, 19 Aug 2009 13:23:46 EST news169906990 Forty miles off the Jersey Shore, an international team of scientists is grappling with a worrisome phenomenon: The oceans are slowly rising. The researchers are not studying the sea itself. Living for weeks at a time on this drilling platform, they are burrowing down into the past, pulling up cores of prehistoric sediment from nearly half a mile below the ocean floor. http://www.physorg.com/news167211051.html Space & Earth Sun, 19 Jul 2009 08:31:32 EST news167211051 (PhysOrg.com) -- Wind energy over the planet's oceans is a vastly underutilized renewable resource, according to UC Irvine researchers. http://www.physorg.com/news165594303.html Space & Earth Tue, 30 Jun 2009 15:26:01 EST news165594303 Predation is one of the most fundamental and fascinating interactions in nature, and sharks are some of the fiercest predators on Earth. However, their hunting pattern is difficult to study because it is rarely observed in the wild. As a result, shark predatory behavior has remained much of a mystery. Now, researchers from the United States and Canada are using geographic profiling -- a criminal investigation tool used to track a connected series of crimes and locate where serial criminals live -- to examine the hunting patterns of white sharks in South Africa. http://www.physorg.com/news164886597.html Biology Mon, 22 Jun 2009 23:50:01 EST news164886597 Twenty years ago, the oil tanker Exxon Valdez was exiting Alaska's Prince William Sound when it struck a reef in the middle of the night. What happened next is considered one of the nation's worst environmental disasters: 10.8 million gallons of crude oil spilled into the pristine Alaskan waters, eventually covering 11,000 square miles of ocean. http://www.physorg.com/news161440137.html Space & Earth Wed, 13 May 2009 13:29:27 EST news161440137 Researchers have discovered where basking sharks - the world's second largest fish - hide out for half of every year, according to a report published today in Current Biology. The discovery revises scientists' understanding of the iconic species and highlights just how little we still know about even the largest of marine animals, the researchers said. http://www.physorg.com/news160921814.html Biology Thu, 07 May 2009 13:30:52 EST news160921814 (PhysOrg.com) -- Sea urchins dig themselves hiding holes in the limestone of the ocean floor using teeth that don`t go blunt. Weizmann Institute scientists have now revealed their secrets, which might give engineers insights into creating ever-sharp tools or mechanical parts. http://www.physorg.com/news160670680.html Biology Mon, 04 May 2009 15:45:19 EST news160670680 (PhysOrg.com) -- Making its home near extreme temperatures of thermal vents on the ocean floor, the organism Methanopyrus kandleri harbors a molecular secret that intrigues evolutionary biologists and even HIV researchers. http://www.physorg.com/news160326843.html Chemistry Thu, 30 Apr 2009 16:14:41 EST news160326843 (PhysOrg.com) -- Fossilised corals from tropical Tahiti show that the behaviour of ice sheets is much more volatile and dynamic than previously thought, a team led by Oxford University scientists has found. http://www.physorg.com/news159794635.html Space & Earth Fri, 24 Apr 2009 12:26:16 EST news159794635 (PhysOrg.com) -- Two miles below the surface of the Sargasso Sea lies a depression in the Earth`s crust filled with sediment and, scientists believe, teeming with life - exotic, microscopic, and very likely never before seen by human eyes. http://www.physorg.com/news153678729.html Space & Earth Thu, 12 Feb 2009 16:32:40 EST news153678729 In the era of global warming, when many scientists say we are experiencing a human-caused mass extinction to rival the one that killed off the dinosaurs, one might think that the discovery of a host of new species would be cause for joy. Not entirely so, says Paul Ehrlich, co-author of an analysis of the 408 new mammalian species discovered since 1993. http://www.physorg.com/news153422411.html Biology Mon, 09 Feb 2009 17:22:30 EST news153422411 (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 Groove-like tracks on the ocean floor made by giant deep-sea single-celled organisms could lead to new insights into the evolutionary origin of animals, says biologist Mikhail "Misha" Matz from The University of Texas at Austin. http://www.physorg.com/news146406170.html Biology Thu, 20 Nov 2008 12:22:50 EST news146406170 An international team of earth scientists report movement of warmed sea water through the flat, Pacific Ocean floor off Costa Rica. The movement is greater than that off midocean volcanic ridges. The finding suggests possible marine life in a part of the ocean once considered barren. http://www.physorg.com/news141314645.html Space & Earth Mon, 22 Sep 2008 15:04:05 EST news141314645