News tagged with sand

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Study reveals sandfish tucks legs and swims like a snake through desert sand

Study Reveals Small Lizard Tucks Legs and Swims Like a Snake Through Desert Sand (w/ Video)

Physics / General Physics

created Jul 16, 2009 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (11) | comments 0

(PhysOrg.com) -- A study published in the July 17 issue of the journal Science details how sandfish -- small lizards with smooth scales -- move rapidly underground through desert sand. In this first thorou ...


Hydrophobic Sand

Hydrophobic Sand Could Combat Desert Water Shortages

Nanotechnology / Nanomaterials

created Feb 16, 2009 | popularity 3.8 / 5 (12) | comments 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 ...


Cassini Maps Global Pattern of Titan's Dunes

Cassini Maps Global Pattern of Titan's Dunes

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Feb 27, 2009 | popularity 4.9 / 5 (8) | comments 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 ...


Bizarre bird gets private beach in Indonesia (AP)

Bizarre bird gets private beach in Indonesia

Biology / Ecology

created May 15, 2009 | popularity 4.9 / 5 (8) | comments 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.


Martian rock arrangement not alien handiwork

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Jan 07, 2009 | popularity 4.4 / 5 (8) | comments 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, ...


Mars Rover Update

Mars Rover Update

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Mar 26, 2009 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (7) | comments 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 ...


Sand dunes reveal unexpected dryness during heavy monsoon

Sand dunes reveal unexpected dryness during heavy monsoon

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Oct 06, 2009 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (6) | comments 2

(PhysOrg.com) -- The windswept deserts of northern China might seem an odd destination for studying the heavy monsoon rains that routinely drench the more tropical regions of Southeast Asia.


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

Biology /

created Sep 24, 2008 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (6) | comments 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 ...


Mice living in sandy hills quickly evolved lighter coloration

Mice living in sandy hills quickly evolved lighter coloration

Biology / Evolution

created Aug 27, 2009 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (5) | comments 9

In a vivid illustration of natural selection at work, scientists at Harvard University have found that deer mice living in Nebraska's Sand Hills quickly evolved lighter coloration after glaciers deposited ...


It's a grind to make Mars red

It's a grind to make Mars red

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Sep 18, 2009 | popularity 4.6 / 5 (5) | comments 2

(PhysOrg.com) -- The widespread idea that Mars is red due to rocks being rusted by the water that once flooded the red planet may be wrong. Recent laboratory studies show that the red dust may be formed by ...


MSU Archaeology Team's latest find: 16,000-year-old sand dune

MSU Archaeology Team's latest find: 16,000-year-old sand dune

Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils

created Sep 21, 2009 | popularity 4.6 / 5 (5) | comments 0

(PhysOrg.com) -- A team of MSU researchers and archaeology students has confirmed the existence of an undisturbed, prehistoric sand dune beneath a grove of pine trees between Demonstration Hall and Munn Ice ...


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

Biology /

created Aug 14, 2008 | popularity 4.4 / 5 (5) | comments 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 ...


Ancient mammal tracks found at national monument (AP)

Ancient mammal tracks found at national monument

Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils

created Jul 24, 2009 | popularity 5 / 5 (4) | comments 0

(AP) -- Hundreds of tiny footprints left by mammals some 190 million years ago have been found on a canyon wall in a remote part of Dinosaur National Monument, park officials said Thursday.


First 'nanorust' field test slated in Mexico

First 'nanorust' field test slated in Mexico

Nanotechnology / Bio & Medicine

created May 27, 2009 | popularity 5 / 5 (3) | comments 2

Rice University researchers today announced that the first field tests of "nanorust," the university's revolutionary, low-cost technology for removing arsenic from drinking water, will begin later this year ...


Scientists explore the physics of bumpy roads

Scientists explore the physics of bumpy roads

Physics / General Physics

created Jul 07, 2009 | popularity 3.5 / 5 (4) | comments 2

sand or gravel or snow -- develops ripples that make driving a very shaky experience. A team of physicists from Canada, France and the United Kingdom have recreated this "washboard" phenomenon in the lab with ...