October 11, 2006, 5:14 AM CT

Uncovering Mysteries Of Memory

Keeping track of one set of keys is difficult enough, but imagine having to remember the locations of thousands of sets of keys. Do you use landmarks to remember where you put them? Do you have a mental map of their locations?

Scientists at the University of New Hampshire hope to learn more about memory and its evolution by studying the Clark's nutcracker, a bird with a particularly challenging task: remembering where it buried its supply of food for winter in a 15-mile area. Like many animals preparing for the winter, every fall the Clark's nutcracker spends several weeks gathering food stores. What makes it unique is that it harvests more than 30,000 pine nuts, buries them in up to 5,000 caches, and then relies almost solely on its memory of where those caches are located to survive through winter.

Brett Gibson, a scientist studying animal behavior, began studying Clark's nutcrackers in graduate school and is continuing his research into memory and the behavior of nutcrackers as an assistant professor in UNH's psychology department.

"Nutcrackers are almost exclusively dependent upon cache recovery for their survival so if they don't remember where they've made those caches, then they are in trouble," Gibson says. "During winter, their cache locations are covered with snow so many of the small local features in the landscape during fall are no longer available to them. What's clear is that they are using spatial memory to recover these caches. They are remembering these caches based on landmarks and other features of the terrain".........

Posted by: Ashley      Permalink         Source

October 9, 2006, 8:59 PM CT

Why Unexpected Dennis Surge Occurred?

When Hurricane Dennis passed North Florida on July 10, 2005, it caused a 10-foot storm surge in some areas along Apalachee Bay -- about 3 to 4 feet more than forecasted-- that couldn't be explained only by the local winds that conventionally drive storm surge.

Now, researchers at Florida State University and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have observed that the surge in Apalachee Bay was amplified by a "trapped wave" that originated off the southwest Florida coast. The discovery of this previously undocumented storm surge phenomenon has changed how NOAA's National Hurricane Center prepares storm surge models for the Gulf of Mexico. New modeling procedures will help improve the accuracy of storm surge forecasts for the entire Gulf coast from Florida to Texas.

Researchers Steven Morey, Mark Bourassa, Dmitry Dukhovskoy and James O'Brien of FSU's Center for Ocean Atmospheric Prediction Studies and Stephen Baig of NOAA's Tropical Prediction Center of the National Hurricane Center drew their conclusions after conducting numerical experiments with storm surge models. Their research was reported in the Oct. 4 issue of the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

Hurricane Dennis formed from a tropical depression that originated near the southern Windward Islands on July 4, 2005. It strengthened as it traveled northwest through the Caribbean Sea until it made landfall in Cuba as a Category 4 hurricane. It then traveled west of the Florida Shelf, and the storm's maximum sustained winds weakened to 54 mph before it made landfall on the western Florida Panhandle.........

Posted by: Tyler      Permalink         Source

October 5, 2006, 9:55 PM CT

Plenty Of Carbon Dioxide Storage Capacity

As concern has grown over the effects of the human release of carbon dioxide (CO2) gas into the atmosphere, so too has research into technologies to manage CO2. One such research project, overseen by geologist Brandon Nuttall at the Kentucky Geological Survey (KGS) at the University of Kentucky, has investigated the option for geologic sequestration of captured CO2 in Devonian black shales, organic-rich rocks found beneath about two thirds of Kentucky.

Geologic sequestration refers to the process of permanent underground storage of carbon dioxide captured from sources such as coal-fired power plants, cement plants, and others manufacturing plants. Widespread deposits of shale are generally thought to be the seal or cap for deeper storage reservoirs that would prevent sequestered CO2 from leaking to the surface. Injection of CO2 into black gas-producing shales may have an additional value of enhancing the recovery of natural gas.

In the three year project funded by National Energy Technology Laboratory of the U.S. Department of Energy, Nuttall determined that the deeper and thicker parts of the Devonian shales in Kentucky could provide a potentially large geologic storage reservoir for captured CO2. In fact, the extensive occurrence of shales in geologic basins across North America would make them an attractive regional reservoir for economic CO2 sequestration.........

Posted by: Tyler      Permalink         Source

October 4, 2006, 10:21 PM CT

Alaskans Feel The Heat Of Global Warming

A new study finds that most Alaskans believe global warming is happening and is a serious threat to the state. The statewide survey, with funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Center for Research on Environmental Decisions (CRED) at Columbia University, was commissioned by Dr. Anthony Leiserowitz of Decision Research and conducted this summer by the Craciun Research Group.

Jean Craciun, research director for CRG said, "Across the board, no matter what political affiliation or ethnic background, Alaskans are united in their concern about the impacts of global warming."

Highlights of the survey include:

• Most Alaskans believe global warming is already having major impacts, including the loss of sea ice, melting permafrost, coastal erosion, and forest fires, among other impacts.

• A number of expect that global warming will have dangerous impacts on Alaskans within the next 10 years.

• Majorities of Alaskans report that global warming is a serious threat to themselves and their families, their local communities, Alaska as a whole, the United States, other countries, and to plants and animals.

• Most Alaskans support the regulation of greenhouse gas emissions from power plants and the signing of international treaties to reduce emissions, but oppose higher taxes on electricity or gasoline.

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Posted by: Tyler      Permalink         Source

October 4, 2006, 10:03 PM CT

Ice Age Climate-change And Ocean Salinity

Sudden decreases in temperature over Greenland and tropical rainfall patterns during the last Ice Age have been linked for the first time to rapid changes in the salinity of the north Atlantic Ocean, according to research published Oct. 5, 2006, in the journal Nature. The results provide further evidence that ocean circulation and chemistry respond to changes in climate.

Using chemical traces in fossil shells of microscopic planktonic life forms, called formanifera, in deep-sea sediment cores, scientists reconstructed a 45,000- to 60,000-year-old record of ocean temperature and salinity. They compared their results to the record of abrupt climate change recorded in ice cores from Greenland. They found the Atlantic got saltier during cold periods, and fresher during warm intervals.

"The freshening likely reflects shifts in rainfall patterns, mostly in the tropics," Howard Spero of the University of California at Davis said. "Suddenly, we're looking at a record that links moisture balance in the tropics to climate change. And the most striking thing is that a measurable transition is happening over decades".

Spero, who is currently on leave at the National Science Foundation's Marine Geology and Geophysics Program, worked with lead author Matthew Schmidt of the Georgia Institute of Technology and Maryline Vautravers of Cambridge University in the United Kingdom to conduct the research.........

Posted by: Tyler      Permalink         Source

October 3, 2006, 5:21 AM CT

Reintroducing Megafauna To North America

Dozens of megafauna (large animals over 100 pounds) such as giant tortoises, horses, elephants, and cheetah went extinct in North America13,000 years ago during the end of the Pleistocene. As is the case today in Africa and Asia, these megafauna likely played keystone ecological roles via predation, herbivory, and other processes. What are the consequences of losing such important components of America's natural heritage?

In the recent issue of The American Naturalist, a group of 12 ecologists and conservationists provide a detailed proposal for the restoration of North America's lost megafauna. Using the same species from different locales or closely related species as analogs, their project "Pleistocene Rewilding" is conceived as carefully managed experiments in an attempt to learn about and partially restore important natural processes to North American ecosystems that were present for millennia until humans played a significant role in their demise 13,000 years ago.

"Over the past 30 years, more and more evidence suggests that if we lose large animals from ecosystems, they often collapse and biodiversity, along with society, are the ultimate losers," says Josh Donlan (Cornell University). "For millions of years, large animals were the norm all over the world we should start thinking about reintroducing these large animals and restoring these important processes back to ecosystems".........

Posted by: Ashley      Permalink         Source

October 2, 2006, 9:47 PM CT

Alaskan Storm Cracks Giant Iceberg

A severe storm that occurred in the Gulf of Alaska in October 2005 generated an ocean swell that six days later broke apart a giant iceberg floating near the coast of Antarctica, more than 8,300 miles away. A team of scientists led by Professors Douglas MacAyeal at the University of Chicago and Emile Okal at Northwestern University present evidence connecting the two events in the recent issue of the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

"We are reporting on a unique kind of seismological signal picked up by seismometers we deployed on the iceberg, which is generated by sea swell when it rocks the iceberg," said Okal, professor in geological sciences at Northwestern.

Oceanographers have known since the early 1960s that ocean swells can travel half way around the world. But the new study, funded by the National Science Foundation, raises the possibility that an increase in storms driven by climate change could affect far-flung parts of the globe.

"One of the things we're debating in the world right now is whether global warming might increase the storminess in the oceans," said MacAyeal, professor in geophysical sciences at the University of Chicago.

"The question we then pose is: Could global storminess have an influence on the Antarctic ice sheet that had never been thought of?".........

Posted by: Tyler      Permalink         Source

September 27, 2006, 8:14 PM CT

Study Of Toxins In Houston Air

A new report recommends immediate action to reduce levels of four toxic air pollutants because exposure to them poses a high risk to community health. Released today by Rice University and funded by Houston Endowment, the study proposes a new set of air quality standards based on the underlying toxicology of the four pollutants investigated.

Baylor College of Medicine, Texas Southern University, University of Houston Law Center and The University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) at Galveston collaborated with Rice on the study, which focused on benzene, 1,3-butadiene, formaldehyde and diesel particulate matter.

"Based on the results of our study, we strongly recommend immediate action to lower the ambient concentrations of the four hazardous air pollutants we researched," said principal investigator Matt Fraser, associate professor in civil and environmental engineering at Rice. "The level of air toxics concentration that we're seeing in the Houston area poses a dangerously high risk of cancer and other health problems".

As per the report, the ultimate goal is the adoption of enforceable ambient air quality standards for which only one more person in a million would be expected to develop cancer from a lifetime of exposure to individual hazardous air pollutants.........

Posted by: Tyler      Permalink         Source

September 26, 2006, 7:00 PM CT

Featured Content For Google Earth

Google Inc. recently released Featured Content for Google Earth, a new showcase of multimedia overlays in Google Earth that connect users to information about the world around them from a variety of premium content providers.

Users can access these informative overlays by clicking on the "Featured Content" checkbox in the Google Earth sidebar. In doing so, icons for each Featured Content provider will span the globe, enabling users to click on individual locations and learn about the area's significance. The Featured Content showcase will be routinely updated to include innovative and diverse contributions from additional content providers.

"We are excited to provide users with the opportunity to learn more about the natural wonders and manmade landmarks of the world with Featured Content for Google Earth," said John Hanke, director, Google Earth and Maps. "We believe Google Earth is an excellent medium for organizing and sharing the world's geographic information and we continue to explore opportunities to bring visually compelling and informative content into Google Earth".

Initial Featured Content for Google Earth partners include:

• United Nations Environmental Program - The UNEP overlay for Google Earth includes successive time-stamped images illustrating 100 areas of extreme environmental degradation around the world. From the deforestation of the Amazon to the fallout of raging forest fires in Sub-Sahara Africa and the decline of the Aral Sea in Central Asia, this before-and-after imagery spanning the past 30 years offers users an online resource for learning about the environmental crisis zones around the world.
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Posted by: Kevin      Permalink         Source

September 25, 2006, 9:26 PM CT

World Warmth Edging Ancient Levels

A new study by NASA climatologists finds that the world's temperature is reaching a level that has not been seen in thousands of years.

The study appears in the current issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, authored by James Hansen of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, N.Y. and his colleagues from Columbia University, Sigma Space Partners, Inc., and the University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB). The study concludes that, because of a rapid warming trend over the past 30 years, the Earth is now reaching and passing through the warmest levels in the current interglacial period, which has lasted nearly 12,000 years. This warming is forcing a migration of plant and animal species toward the poles.

The study includes worldwide instrumental temperature measurements during the past century. These data reveal that the Earth has been warming at the remarkably rapid rate of approximately 0.2 degree Celsius (.36 degree Fahrenheit) per decade for the past 30 years. This observed warming is similar to the warming rate predicted in the 1980s in initial global climate model simulations with changing levels of greenhouse gases.

"This evidence implies that we are getting close to dangerous levels of human-made (anthropogenic) pollution," said Hansen. In recent decades, human-made greenhouse gases (GHGs) have become the dominant climate change factor.........

Posted by: Tyler      Permalink         Source