Seeing in the dark: how plant roots perceive water through growth
Washington, DC— Without eyes, ears, or a central nervous system, plants can perceive the direction of environmental cues and respond to ensure their survival. (more…)
Tag Archives: water
Where does water go when it doesn’t flow?
Study shows how much enters air from plants, soil, surface water
More than a quarter of the rain and snow that falls on continents reaches the oceans as runoff. Now a new study helps show where the rest goes: two-thirds of the remaining water is released by plants, more than a quarter lands on leaves and evaporates and what’s left evaporates from soil and from lakes, rivers and streams. (more…)
NASA’s Curiosity Rover Finds Clues to How Water Helped Shape Martian Landscape
Observations by NASA’s Curiosity Rover indicate Mars’ Mount Sharp was built by sediments deposited in a large lake bed over tens of millions of years.
This interpretation of Curiosity’s finds in Gale Crater suggests ancient Mars maintained a climate that could have produced long-lasting lakes at many locations on the Red Planet. (more…)
Skin Care Tips to Look Attractive In Winter
A person’s psyche and skin may rebel against seasonal changes, the skin thus needs to be nurtured to give it the healthy characteristics to boost one’s psyche. A change in the skin care routine is thus necessary during winter to prevent drying up and flaking of the skin. To look attractive in the winter the following skin care tips should be practiced:
Use of good moisturizers
Heavier, richer moisturizers help prevent environmental conditions and prevent moisture loss in over-heated rooms. Moisturizers with lanolin oils restores the skin’s natural protective layer and moisture balance to keep the skin soft. Products with alpha hydroxyl acids should be substituted with products enriched with natural cocoa butter and vitamin E which provides deep and long-lasting moisture and smoothies away dullness. (more…)
Familiar yet strange: Water’s ‘split personality’ revealed by computer model
Seemingly ordinary, water has quite puzzling behavior. Why, for example, does ice float when most liquids crystallize into dense solids that sink? (more…)
NASA Data Find Some Hope for Water in Aral Sea Basin
A new study using data from NASA satellite missions finds that, although the long-term water picture for the Aral Sea watershed in Central Asia remains bleak, short-term prospects are better than previously thought.
Once the fourth largest inland sea in the world, the Aral Sea has lost 90 percent of its water volume over the last 50 years. Its watershed — the enormous closed basin around the sea — encompasses Uzbekistan and parts of Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. (more…)
Exoplanet study finds ‘super-Earths’ likely have oceans and continents
Massive terrestrial planets, called “super-Earths,” are known to be common in Earth’s galaxy, the Milky Way. Now a Northwestern University astrophysicist and a University of Chicago geophysicist report the odds of these planets having an Earth-like climate are much greater than previously thought.
Nicolas B. Cowan and Dorian Abbot’s new model challenges the conventional wisdom, which says super-Earths actually would be very unlike Earth—each would be a waterworld, with its surface completely covered in water. They conclude that most tectonically active super-Earths—regardless of mass—store most of their water in the mantle and will have both oceans and exposed continents, enabling a stable climate such as Earth’s. (more…)
Natural Gas Saves Water and Reduces Drought Vulnerability, Even When Factoring in Water Lost to Hydraulic Fracturing
AUSTIN, Texas – A new study finds that in Texas, the U.S. state that annually generates the most electricity, the transition from coal to natural gas for electricity generation is saving water and making the state less vulnerable to drought.
Even though exploration for natural gas through hydraulic fracturing requires significant water consumption in Texas, the new consumption is easily offset by the overall water efficiencies of shifting electricity generation from coal to natural gas. The researchers estimate that water saved by shifting a power plant from coal to natural gas is 25 to 50 times as great as the amount of water used in hydraulic fracturing to extract the natural gas. Natural gas also enhances drought resilience by providing so-called peaking plants to complement increasing wind generation, which doesn’t consume water. (more…)