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Potentially Habitable Planet Discovered

By Guest PostSeptember 29, 2010Scienceastronomers, astronomical units, d c, gliese 581, gravitational tug, habitable planet, lick-carnegie exoplanet survey, Milky Way, paul butler, planet, potentially habitable earth-sized planet, stellar energy, steven vogt, u c santa cruz, Washington

Washington, D.C. Astronomers have found a new, potentially habitable Earth-sized planet. It is one of two new planets discovered around the star Gliese 581, some 20 light years away. The planet, Gliese 581g, is located in a “habitable zone”—a distance from the star where the planet receives just the right amount of stellar energy to maintain liquid water at or near the planet’s surface. The 11- year study, published in the Astrophysical Journal and posted online at arXiv.org, suggests that the fraction of stars in the Milky Way harboring potentially habitable planets could be greater than previously thought—as much as a few tens of percent.

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Complexity Not So Costly After All, Analysis Shows

By Guest PostSeptember 27, 2010Sciencecomplex, complex organisms, Environment, geneticist, h allen orr of rochester, jianzhi george zhang, pleiotropy, ronald fishe, taiwan

ANN ARBOR, Mich.—The more complex a plant or animal, the more difficulty it should have adapting to changes in the environment. That’s been a maxim of evolutionary theory since biologist Ronald Fisher put forth the idea in 1930.

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New Species of Multi-horned Dinosaurs Unearthed in Utah

By Guest PostSeptember 23, 2010Scienceceratopsian horns, horned creatures, horned dinosaurs, multi horned dinosaurs, prehistoric monsters, southern utah

“A giant rhino with a ridiculously supersized head”

“Fifteen long, pointed sideways oriented eye horns: one over the nose, one atop each eye, one at the tip of each cheek bone, and ten across the rear margin of the bony frill” (more…)

Parting The Waters: Computer Modeling Applies Physics to Red Sea Escape Route

By Guest PostSeptember 22, 2010Sciencealexei androsov, animation, Bible, biblical account, biblical account of the red sea parting, carl drews, coastal lagoon, computer modeling, cu, divine miracle, exodus, fluid dynamics, mediterranean sea, miracles, moses, mud flats, nathan paldor, national center for atmospheric research, naum voltzinger, ncar, nile delta, parting of the red sea, pharaoh, suez canal, tsunami, university of colorado at boulder, waters, wind setdown

The biblical account of the parting of the Red Sea has inspired and mystified people for millennia. A new computer modeling study by researchers at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and the University of Colorado at Boulder (CU) shows how the movement of wind as described in the book of Exodus could have parted the waters.

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Earth’s Highest Coastal Mountain on the Move

By Guest PostSeptember 20, 20101 commentScienceagustin cardona, camilo montes, caribbean sea, coastal mountain, Colombia, earth, ecopetrol energy company, geological basin, geological evolution, german ojeda, paleomagnetic, panama, peru, santa marta, sierra nevada de santa marta, smithsonian scientists, smithsonian tropical research institute, stri, volcanoes

The rocks of Colombia’s Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta—the highest coastal mountain on Earth—tell a fascinating tale: The mountain collides and then separates from former super-continents. Volcanoes are born and die. The mountain travels from Peru to northern Colombia and finally rotates in a clockwise direction to open up an entirely new geological basin. Smithsonian scientists were part of a four-year project to study Santa Marta’s geological evolution. Their findings are published in the October 2010 special issue of the Journal of South American Earth Sciences.

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American Institute of Physics Reveals Us More Efficient Selenium Photovoltaic Cells

By Guest PostSeptember 20, 2010Environment, Scienceapplied physics letters, carbon-free electricity, less energy, light-catching elements, marie mayer, oxide elements, photo voltaic, photo-electrochemical water splitting, photovoltaic electricity, photovoltaic units, Rosalind, rosalind sanders, sanders, selenium, solar cover, solar power, sun energy, zinc oxide

Did you know that many analysts would like to identify light-catching elements in order to transform more of the sun’s energy into carbon-free electricity?

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Optimizing Climate Change Reduction

By Guest PostSeptember 18, 20101 commentEnvironment, Scienceaerosols, carnegie institution, carnegie institution for science, carnegie researchers, climate, computer model, earth climate, geoengineering ideas, george ban-weiss, global climate model, global ecology, global sunshade, global temperature, hydrological cycle, ken caldeira, runoff, solar radiation, stratosphere, sulfate, tropical regions, warming planet

Palo Alto, CA — Scientists at the Carnegie Institution’s Department of Global Ecology have taken a new approach on examining a proposal to fix the warming planet. So-called geoengineering ideas—large-scale projects to change the Earth’s climate—have included erecting giant mirrors in space to reflect solar radiation, injecting aerosols of sulfate into the stratosphere making a global sunshade, and much more. Past modeling of the sulfate idea looked at how the stratospheric aerosols might affect Earth’s climate and chemistry.

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Why “Scientific Consensus” Fails to Persuade

By Guest PostSeptember 18, 2010Culture, Scienceamerican public, climate change, dan kahan, donald bramand, egalitarian values, Environment, environmental risks, fictional author, hank, jenkins-smith, nuclear waste disposal, scientific consensus, university of oklahoma, yale university

Suppose a close friend who is trying to figure out the facts about climate change asks whether you think a scientist who has written a book on the topic is a knowledgeable and trustworthy expert. You see from the dust jacket that the author received a Ph.D. in a pertinent field from a major university, is on the faculty at another one, and is a member of the National Academy of Sciences. Would you advise your friend that the scientist seems like an “expert”? (more…)

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