News tagged with million years
Decline of carbon-dioxide-gobbling plankton coincided with ancient global cooling
Biology /
Jan 08, 2009 |
4.6 / 5 (12) |
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(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 ...
Scientists say comet killed off mammoths, saber-toothed tigers
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Jan 02, 2009 |
4.5 / 5 (24) |
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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 ...
New piece in the jigsaw puzzle of human origins
Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils
Jan 15, 2009 |
3.6 / 5 (5) |
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In an article in today's Nature, Uppsala researcher Martin Brazeau describes the skull and jaws of a fish that lived about 410 million years ago. The study may give important clues to the origin of jawed vertebrates, and th ...
Phoenix Site on Mars May be in Dry Climate Cycle Phase
Space & Earth / Space Exploration
Dec 15, 2008 |
4.4 / 5 (8) |
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(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 ...
Climate Change Alters Ocean Chemistry
Dec 11, 2008 |
3.2 / 5 (23) |
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(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 d ...
Discovery of virus in lemur could shed light on AIDS
Medicine & Health / HIV & AIDS
Dec 01, 2008 |
4.3 / 5 (10) |
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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 ...
Glacial Erosion Changes Mountain Responses To Plate Tectonics
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Nov 15, 2008 |
4.1 / 5 (10) |
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(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 ...
Sedimentary records link Himalayan erosion rates and monsoon intensity through time
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Nov 10, 2008 |
3 / 5 (5) |
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Throughout history, the changing fortunes of human societies in Asia have been linked to variations in the precipitation resulting from seasonal monsoons.
Sedimentary records link Himalayan erosion rates and monsoon intensity through time
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Nov 09, 2008 |
4.6 / 5 (8) |
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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 sugges ...
Scientist Uses Tracer to Predict Ancient Ocean Circulation
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Oct 20, 2008 |
3.6 / 5 (11) |
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(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 ...
Young planets stay hotter longer
Oct 14, 2008 |
4.3 / 5 (9) |
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(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.
Unique fossils capture 'Cambrian migration'
Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils
Oct 10, 2008 |
4.4 / 5 (15) |
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(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.
Extinction by asteroid a rarity: 'Sick Earth' extinctions more likely
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Oct 07, 2008 |
3.7 / 5 (18) |
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In geology as in cancer research, the silver bullet theory always gets the headlines and nearly always turns out to be wrong.
Earliest Animal Footprints Ever Found -- Discovered in Nevada
Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils
Oct 05, 2008 |
4.6 / 5 (30) |
6
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 ...
Study Pushes Appearance of Northern Hemisphere Ice Sheets Back By 22 Million Years
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Oct 02, 2008 |
4.3 / 5 (11) |
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(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 ...
