Tag Archives: computer model

Scientists Define New Limits of Microbial Life in Undersea Volcanoes

A third of Earth’s organisms live in rocks and sediments, but their lives have been a mystery

By some estimates, a third of Earth’s organisms live in our planet’s rocks and sediments, yet their lives are almost a complete mystery.

This week, the work of microbiologist James Holden of the University of Massachusetts-Amherst and colleagues shines a light into this dark world.

In the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), they report the first detailed data on methane-exhaling microbes that live deep in the cracks of hot undersea volcanoes. (more…)

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Mather Lecture

Renowned expert Charles J. Vörösmarty addresses global water crisis

The world’s streams, rivers and lakes are under increasing stress because of human water management – and mismanagement – that threaten aquatic biodiversity and the water supply, Charles J. Vörösmarty said recently during the second annual John R. Mather Visiting Scholars Lecture.

Vörösmarty, professor of civil engineering with the City College of New York, presented “Global Water Crisis: The Slippery Slope” on May 3 at the University of Delaware’s Roselle Center for the Arts.

“The contemporary water system is really defined increasingly by the actions of humans,” he said. (more…)

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New U-M Computer Model Predicts Cholera Outbreaks Up To 11 Months in Advance

ANN ARBOR, Mich.— A new University of Michigan computer model of disease transmission in space and time can predict cholera outbreaks in Bangladesh up to 11 months in advance, providing an early warning system that could help public health officials there.

The new forecast model applies specifically to the capital city of Dhaka and incorporates data on both year-to-year climate variability and the spatial location of cholera cases at the district level. This allowed the researchers to study both local variation in disease transmission and response to climate factors within the megacity of 14 million people. (more…)

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Just Four Percent of Galaxies Have Neighbors Like the Milky Way

*Our home galaxy belongs to a rare subset among the billions that populate the cosmos*

How unique is the Milky Way?

To find out, a group of researchers led by Stanford University astrophysicist Risa Wechsler compared the Milky Way to similar galaxies and found that just four percent are like the galaxy Earth calls home. (more…)

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