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Mercury levels in Pacific fish likely to rise in coming decades

By Guest PostSeptember 4, 2013Environmentatmospheric problem, bacteria, bioaccumulation, China, coal burning, fish, India, isotopic fractionation, isotopic measurement technique, joel blum, lantern fish, mercury, mercury emission reductions, mercury pollution, methylmercury, moonfish, north pacific ocean, ocean surface, opah, open ocean fish, organic matter, pacific ocean, photochemical degradation, power plants, rainfall, source, toxic form, toxin, university of hawaii, university of michigan

ANN ARBOR — University of Michigan researchers and their University of Hawaii colleagues say they’ve solved the longstanding mystery of how mercury gets into open-ocean fish, and their findings suggest that levels of the toxin in Pacific Ocean fish will likely rise in coming decades.

Using isotopic measurement techniques developed at U-M, the researchers determined that up to 80 percent of the toxic form of mercury, called methylmercury, found in the tissues of deep-feeding North Pacific Ocean fish is produced deep in the ocean, most likely by bacteria clinging to sinking bits of organic matter. (more…)

Newly unearthed ruins challenge views of early Romans

By Guest PostAugust 24, 2013Culture, Scienceancient stereotype, andrew johnston, archaeologists, architectural style, bce, classical art, coliseum, colosseum, digging in italy, early romans, east of rome, gabii, geometrically patterned floors, historians, lego construction, lego like fashion, marcello mogetta, museum of archaeology, nicola terrenato, roman empire, roman republican history, ruins, site known, university of michigan, yale university

ANN ARBOR — In a long-buried Italian city, archaeologists have found a massive monument that dates back 300 years before the Colosseum and 100 years before the invention of mortar, revealing that the Romans had grand architectural ambitions much earlier than previously thought.

The structure, unearthed at the site known as Gabii, just east of Rome, is built with giant stone blocks in a Lego-like fashion. It’s about half the size of a football field and dates back 350-250 years BCE. It’s possibly the earliest public building ever found, said Nicola Terrenato, a University of Michigan classics professor who leads the project—the largest American dig in Italy in the past 50 years. (more…)

Smart enough to know better: Intelligence is not a remedy for racism

By Guest PostAugust 14, 2013Culture, Generalgeoffrey wodtke, high ability whites, intelligence, intelligent whites, low ability whites, modern america, practice, racial equality, racial inequality, racism, smart enough, university of michigan

ANN ARBOR — Smart people are just as racist as their less intelligent peers—they’re just better at concealing their prejudice, according to a University of Michigan study.

“High-ability whites are less likely to report prejudiced attitudes and more likely to say they support racial integration in principle,” said Geoffrey Wodtke, a doctoral candidate in sociology. “But they are no more likely than lower-ability whites to support open housing laws and are less likely to support school busing and affirmative action programs.” (more…)

Oldest European fort in the inland US discovered in Appalachians

By Guest PostAugust 11, 2013Culture, Scienceamerican south, appalachian mountains, appalachians, archaeologist, atlantic coast, carolina piedmont, catawba river, christopher rodning, city of morganton, coastal south carolina, colonial invasion, david moore, de aviles, earliest european fort, England, foothills, fort san juan, full scale, geophysical technique, inland us, jamestown, juan pardo, large scale excavations, latin america, lost colony, magnetometry, mound building mississippian, native americans, oldest european, pat berry, pedro menendez, robin beck, sir walter raleigh, spanish captain, spanish soldiers, team of archaeologists, tulane university, united states, university of michigan, warren wilson college

ANN ARBOR — The remains of the earliest European fort in the interior of what is now the United States have been discovered by a team of archaeologists, providing new insight into the start of the U.S. colonial era and the all-too-human reasons spoiling Spanish dreams of gold and glory.

Spanish Captain Juan Pardo and his men built Fort San Juan in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains in 1567, nearly 20 years before Sir Walter Raleigh’s “lost colony” at Roanoke and 40 years before the Jamestown settlement established England’s presence in the region. (more…)

From obscurity to dominance: Tracking the rapid evolutionary rise of ray-finned fish

By Guest PostAugust 6, 2013Nature, Scienceadaptive radiation, age of fish, backboned animals, darwins comment, devonian era, end devonian extinction, evolutionary biologist, evolutionary rise, fossils from scotland, fouldenia, glaciers, hangenberg extinction, japanese amberjack, john megahan, lauren sallan, long extinct fish, mass extinctions, michael coates, misclassified fouldenia, oceans, post devonian tetrapods, predatory fish, ray finned fish, romers gap, sea levels, shell crushing, styracopterus, tropics, university of chicago, university of michigan, vertebrate species, yellowtail

ANN ARBOR — Mass extinctions, like lotteries, result in a multitude of losers and a few lucky winners. This is the story of one of the winners, a small, shell-crushing predatory fish called Fouldenia, which first appears in the fossil record a mere 11 million years after an extinction that wiped out more than 90 percent of the planet’s vertebrate species.

The extinction that ended the Devonian Era 359 million years ago created opportunities quickly exploited by a formerly rare and unremarkable group of fish that went on to become—in terms of the sheer number of species—the most successful vertebrates (backboned animals) on the planet today: the ray-finned fish. (more…)

Sea level rise: New iceberg theory points to areas at risk of rapid disintegration

By Guest PostAugust 6, 2013Environmentantarctic ocean, Antarctica, catastrophic breakup, catastrophic disintegration, coast, diverse calving patterns, glacier geometry, greenland, helheim glacier, ice shelf, iceberg calving, jakobshavn glacier, jeremy bassis, larsen b, new iceberg theory, new model, physics, pine island glacier, rapid disintegration, risk, sea-level rise, thwaites, university of michigan

ANN ARBOR — In events that could exacerbate sea level rise over the coming decades, stretches of ice on the coasts of Antarctica and Greenland are at risk of rapidly cracking apart and falling into the ocean, according to new iceberg calving simulations from the University of Michigan.

“If this starts to happen and we’re right, we might be closer to the higher end of sea level rise estimates for the next 100 years,” said Jeremy Bassis, assistant professor of atmospheric, oceanic and space sciences at the U-M College of Engineering, and first author of a paper on the new model published in the current issue of Nature Geoscience. (more…)

How Mars’ atmosphere got so thin: New insights from Curiosity

By Guest PostJuly 29, 2013Scienceadditional neutron, carbon 12, carbon 13, carbon isotope, curiosity rover, heavier stable isotope, insights from curiosity, isotopes, lighter isotopes, mahli, mars atmosphere, martian air, NASA, sam, samples, solar system, sushil atreya, thin, university of michigan

ANN ARBOR — New findings from NASA’s Curiosity rover provide clues to how Mars lost its original atmosphere, which scientists believe was much thicker than the one left today.

“The beauty of these measurements lies in the fact that these are the first really high-precision measurements of the composition of Mars’ atmosphere,” said Sushil Atreya, professor of atmospheric, oceanic and space sciences at the University of Michigan. (more…)

World’s melting glaciers making large contribution to sea rise

By Guest PostMay 29, 2013Environmentalaska, alex gardner, antarctic ice sheets, arctic canada, clark university, climate experiment, coastal greenland, columbia glacier, contribution, glacier mass changes, grace, gravity recovery, greenland, icesat, john wahr, melting glaciers, NASA, sea rise, sea-level rise, tad pfeffer, the himalayas, the southern andes, university colorado boulder, university of michigan, world

While 99 percent of Earth’s land ice is locked up in the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, the remaining ice in the world’s glaciers contributed just as much to sea rise as the two ice sheets combined from 2003 to 2009, says a new study led by Clark University and involving the University Colorado Boulder.

The new research found that all glacial regions lost mass from 2003 to 2009, with the biggest ice losses occurring in Arctic Canada, Alaska, coastal Greenland, the southern Andes and the Himalayas. The glaciers outside of the Greenland and Antarctic sheets lost an average of roughly 260 billion metric tons of ice annually during the study period, causing the oceans to rise 0.03 inches, or about 0.7 millimeters per year. (more…)

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