EAST LANSING, Mich. — The huge changes in the Earth’s crust that influenced human evolution are being redefined, according to research published today in Nature Geoscience.
The Great Rift Valley of East Africa – the birthplace of the human species – may have taken much longer to develop than previously believed.
“We now believe that the western portion of the rift formed about 25 million years ago, and is approximately as old as the eastern part, instead of much younger as other studies have maintained,” said Michael Gottfried, Michigan State University associate professor of geological sciences. “The significance is that the Rift Valley is the setting for the most crucial steps in primate and ultimately human evolution, and our study has major implications for the environmental and landscape changes that form the backdrop for that evolutionary story.” (more…)
Conventional wisdom holds that during the Mesozoic Era, mammals were small creatures that held on at life’s edges. But at least one mammal group, rodent-like creatures called multituberculates, actually flourished during the last 20 million years of the dinosaurs’ reign and survived their extinction 66 million years ago.
New research led by a University of Washington paleontologist suggests that the multituberculates did so well in part because they developed numerous tubercles (bumps, or cusps) on their back teeth that allowed them to feed largely on angiosperms, flowering plants that were just becoming commonplace. (more…)
PASADENA, Calif. – A NASA-led science team has created an accurate, high-resolution map of the height of Earth’s forests. The map will help scientists better understand the role forests play in climate change and how their heights influence wildlife habitats within them, while also helping them quantify the carbon stored in Earth’s vegetation.
Scientists from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.; the University of Maryland, College Park; and Woods Hole Research Center, Falmouth, Mass., created the map using 2.5 million carefully screened, globally distributed laser pulse measurements from space. The light detection and ranging (lidar) data were collected in 2005 by the Geoscience Laser Altimeter System instrument on NASA’s Ice, Cloud and land Elevation Satellite (ICESat). (more…)
*Berkeley Lab scientists help verify science behind geologic carbon sequestration*
A demonstration project on the southeastern tip of Australia has helped to verify that depleted natural gas reservoirs can be repurposed for geologic carbon sequestration, which is a climate change mitigation strategy that involves pumping CO2 deep underground for permanent storage.
The project, which includes scientists from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), also demonstrated that depleted gas fields have enough CO2 storage capacity to make a significant contribution to reducing global emissions. (more…)
Washington, D.C. — Coral reefs are extremely diverse ecosystems that support enormous biodiversity. But they are at risk. Carbon dioxide emissions are acidifying the ocean, threatening reefs and other marine organisms. New research led by Carnegie’s Kenneth Schneider analyzed the role of sea cucumbers in portions of the Great Barrier Reef and determined that their dietary process of dissolving calcium carbonate (CaCO3) from the surrounding reef accounts for about half of at the total nighttime dissolution for the reef. The work is published December 23 by the Journal of Geophysical Research.
Reefs are formed through the biological deposition of calcium carbonate (CaCO3). Many of the marine organisms living on and around a reef contribute to either its destruction or construction. Therefore it is crucial that the amount of calcium carbonate remain in balance. When this delicate balance is disrupted, the reef ceases to grow and its foundations can be weakened. (more…)
*Procedure may reduce recurrence rates, lower tumor marker levels*
Papillary thyroid cancer accounts for the majority of all thyroid malignancies, which primarily impact women. A new study indicates that routinely removing lymph nodes in the neck in these cancer patients may help prevent the disease from coming back.
When thyroid cancer metastasizes, lymph nodes in the neck may be affected, but these lymph-node tumors can be tiny and may not be detected by ultrasounds done before surgery to remove the diseased thyroid — or even during the procedure itself. (more…)
AUSTIN, Texas — An international team of scientists that includes two University of Texas at Austin researchers has found that Ecuador’s Yasuní National Park, which sits on top of massive reserves of oil, is in the single most biodiverse region in the Western Hemisphere.
The announcement is part of a final push for the Yasuní-ITT Initiative at the United Nations General Assembly. The initiative proposes that Ecuador receive compensation for half of the revenues the nation would lose by protecting the estimated 846 million barrels of oil that lie beneath the forest. (more…)
*Plants and animals that live on Britain’s coasts could benefit from changes to the way coastal structures such as seawalls, breakwaters, rock armour and jetties are designed and built.*
*Research by the Universities of Exeter and Plymouth and Treweek Environmental Consultants, supported by the Environment Agency, has led to the development of recommendations for the design and construction of coastal defence structures.*
The team has produced guidance on how the ‘ecological enhancement’ of hard coastal structures can be embedded in the design and planning process, from conception through to construction.
Past research has found that hard structures are poor ecological substitutes for natural rocky shores, often supporting only a few dominant, opportunistic species such as green algae. The research team assessed the suitability of different materials, surface roughness, positioning and height for coastal habitats. They examined structures across the South West coast, including Ilfracombe in Devon and Newlyn in Cornwall, as well as looking further afield to work from Sydney Harbour in Australia and Seattle Harbour in the USA. They focused on organisms such as barnacles and limpets as these dominate many rocky shore environments and rapidly colonise hard surfaces placed in the sea, including harbour walls. Once these organisms have established themselves, other plants and animals typically follow, to the benefit of species such as salmon. (more…)
