News tagged with sand

Bizarre bird gets private beach in Indonesia

May 15, 2009 | 4.9 / 5 (8) | 0

(AP) -- A species of birds able to fly immediately after hatching from eggs buried beneath the tropical sand has just been given its own private beach in eastern Indonesia, a conservation group said Friday.

Mars Rover Update

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

Mar 26, 2009 | 4.3 / 5 (7) | 5

In January 2004, NASA landed two identical robotic rovers named Spirit and Opportunity on the surface of Mars. The twins were primed for a brief 3-month mission to tell us a story of water and possibly life ...

Cassini Maps Global Pattern of Titan's Dunes

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

Feb 27, 2009 | 4.9 / 5 (8) | 0

(PhysOrg.com) -- Titan's vast dune fields, which may act like weather vanes to determine general wind direction on Saturn's biggest moon, have been mapped by scientists who compiled four years of radar data ...

Hydrophobic Sand Could Combat Desert Water Shortages

Nanotechnology / Nanomaterials

Feb 16, 2009 | 3.8 / 5 (12) | 12

(PhysOrg.com) -- Water scarcity is a major problem for people living in desert areas, including much of the Middle East and Africa. According to the United Nations, more than 1.6 million people die every year ...

Martian rock arrangement not alien handiwork

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

Jan 07, 2009 | 4.4 / 5 (8) | 2

At first, figuring out how pebble-sized rocks organize themselves in evenly-spaced patterns in sand seemed simple and even intuitive. But once Andrew Leier, an assistant geoscience professor at the U of C, started observing, ...

So-called 'sandfish' could help materials handling and process technology specialists

Biology /

Oct 03, 2008 | 4 / 5 (2) | 0

It moves as quickly in sand as a fish moves through water, which is why this lizard, a species of skink (Scincus scincus) that grows to about 15 cm long and lives in the deserts of North Africa and the Near East, is common ...

Biological sand filters, a practical approach to combat poverty and inequality

Biology /

Sep 24, 2008 | 4.3 / 5 (6) | 1

Microbiologically contaminated water plagues approximately 1.1 billion people in rural and peri-urban populations in developing countries. Roughly 2.2 million people without safe access to drinking water die each year from ...

Leishmaniasis parasites evade death by exploiting the immune response to sand fly bites

Biology /

Aug 14, 2008 | 4.4 / 5 (5) | 0

Cutaneous leishmaniasis, a disease characterized by painful skin ulcers, occurs when the parasite Leishmania major, or a related species, is transmitted to a mammalian host by the bite of an infected sand fly. In a new st ...