Dinosaurs

Bakker blogs: You can’t have a dinosaur as a pet, but you sure can pet a dinosaur!

Updated: 2012-05-31 17:00:55

You know that saying, “You can pick your friends, you can pick your nose, but you can’t pick your friend’s nose”? Well this is like that. Sort of. We know you can’t actually adopt a dinosaur for a pet, but you can pet a dinosaur at HMNS’ new Hall of Paleontology! Curator Dr. Bob Bakker [...]

Highway through Amazon worsens effects of climate change, provides mixed economic gains

Updated: 2012-05-31 16:30:20

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Paving a highway across South America is providing lessons on the impact of road construction elsewhere. That's what a University of Florida researcher and his international colleagues have determined from analyzing communities along the Amazonian portion of the nearly 4,200-mile Interoceanic Highway, a coast-to-coast road that starts at ports in Brazil and will eventually connect to ones in Peru.read more

Drug companies moving toward green goals

Updated: 2012-05-31 16:00:16

Many pharmaceutical companies in a new survey are making progress in embracing the guiding principles of green chemistry, which seek to minimize the use of potentially hazardous substances in producing medications, reduce the generation of waste and operate in other environmentally friendly ways. That's the conclusion of the cover story in the current edition of Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), the weekly newsmagazine of the American Chemical Society (ACS), the world's largest scientific society.read more

'Like a jet through solid rock': Volcanic arc fed by rapid fluid pulses

Updated: 2012-05-31 15:30:35

Explaining Stevia's bitter side

Updated: 2012-05-31 15:00:14

The human tongue has just one receptor type for detecting sweetness but about25 different ones for bitter flavors. Scientists at Technische Universitaet Muenchen (TUM) and the German Institute of Human Nutrition Potsdam-Rehbruecke (DIfE) have now identified the two receptors, hTAS2R4 and hTAS2R14, that detect the bitter after taste of Stevia. read more

Great Half-term Dinosaur Hunt

Updated: 2012-05-31 11:06:57

31 May 2012 The Great Half-term Dinosaur Hunt is on every day from Saturday 2nd to Sunday 10th June at the Dinosaur Museum. Its great fun and there are prize certificates for all children taking part. The Dinosaur Museum features fossils, skeletons and liife-size reconstructions of dinosaurs, prehistoric reptiles and mammals plus hands on, interactive and cinematic displays

Super-eruptions may have surprisingly short fuses

Updated: 2012-05-30 23:00:51

Enormous volcanic eruptions with potential to end civilizations may have surprisingly short fuses, researchers have discovered.read more

Iowa State, Ames Lab researchers find new properties of the carbon material graphene

Updated: 2012-05-30 22:00:18

AMES, Iowa – Graphene has caused a lot of excitement among scientists since the extremely strong and thin carbon material was discovered in 2004. Just one atom thick, the honeycomb-shaped material has several remarkable properties combining mechanical toughness with superior electrical and thermal conductivity.read more

Landslides linked to plate tectonics create the steepest mountain terrain

Updated: 2012-05-30 19:30:13

Some of the steepest mountain slopes in the world got that way because of the interplay between terrain uplift associated with plate tectonics and powerful streams cutting into hillsides, leading to erosion in the form of large landslides, new research shows. The work, presented online May 27 in Nature Geoscience, shows that once the angle of a slope exceeds 30 degrees – whether from uplift, a rushing stream carving away the bottom of the slope or a combination of the two – landslide erosion increases significantly until the hillside stabilizes.read more

Current focus of veterinary medical profession leaves research, food security, public health needs underserved

Updated: 2012-05-30 19:00:35

Debated: Wave-Cut or Weathering or Both?

Updated: 2012-05-30 19:00:08

Boulder, Colorado, USA – The June GSA TODAY science article is now online and open access at http://www.geosociety.org/gsatoday/. In this issue, Gregory Retallack and Joshua Roering of the University of Oregon enter the long-standing debate as to whether rock platforms along coasts and rivers are the product of physical erosion or chemical weathering above the water table. read more

New observations on the San Andreas Fault in Santa Cruz Mountains, Seattle Fault Zone

Updated: 2012-05-30 18:30:03

San Andreas Fault in Santa Cruz Mountains – large quakes more frequent than previously thoughtread more

New materials could slash energy costs for CO2 capture

Updated: 2012-05-30 18:00:28

HOUSTON -- (May 30, 2012) -- A detailed analysis of more than 4 million absorbent minerals has determined that new materials could help electricity producers slash as much as 30 percent of the "parasitic energy" costs associated with removing carbon dioxide from power plant emissions. The research by scientists at Rice University, the University of California, Berkeley, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) and the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) was published online this week in the journal Nature Materials.read more

The finest gold dust in the world

Updated: 2012-05-30 15:30:25

Most people value large chunks of gold – but scientists at the Vienna University of Technology are interested in gold at the smallest possible scale, because single gold atoms are potentially the most reactive catalysts for chemical reactions. However, when gold atoms are placed on a surface they tend to ball up into tiny nuggets consisting of several atoms. A team of surface scientists now managed to fix single gold atoms on special sites of an iron-oxide surface. This could open the door to more efficient catalysts, requiring less of the precious material.read more

The Fantastic Gliding Stegosaurus

Updated: 2012-05-30 14:35:07

Stegosaurus was as aerodynamic as a brick, but one writer thought the prickly dinosaur used its huge plates for gliding

Sandia Labs technology used in Fukushima cleanup

Updated: 2012-05-29 21:00:26

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — A Sandia National Laboratories technology has been used to remove radioactive material from more than 43 million gallons of contaminated wastewater at Japan's damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Sandia researchers had worked around the clock following the March 2011 disaster to show the technology worked in seawater, which was pumped in to cool the plant's towers.read more

Discovery of historical photos sheds light on Greenland ice loss

Updated: 2012-05-29 20:00:16

COLUMBUS, Ohio - A chance discovery of 80-year-old photo plates in a Danish basement is providing new insight into how Greenland glaciers are melting today. Researchers at the National Survey and Cadastre of Denmark - that country's federal agency responsible for surveys and mapping - had been storing the glass plates since explorer Knud Rasmussen's expedition to the southeast coast of Greenland in the early 1930s.read more

Is California preparing for climate change?

Updated: 2012-05-29 19:00:21

A majority of California's coastal planners and resource managers now view the threats from climate change as sufficiently likely that practical steps on the ground need to be taken to protect against growing threats, according to results from a new survey published by Stanford University's Center for Ocean Solutions (COS) and the California Sea Grant. read more

Member mania over the new Hall of Paleontology: Read their feedback and get here yourself!

Updated: 2012-05-29 16:30:59

Since our new Hall of Paleontology opened to museum members on Friday we’ve received an outpouring of responses from museum-goers of all ages. It was starting to make our head spin, so we compiled some choice reactions here to share with you! See what your fellow Houstonians are saying about what’s being called one of [...]

EARTH: Better warnings for consequences of earthquakes

Updated: 2012-05-29 16:00:36

Alexandria, VA – Global seismic hazard maps exist to help societies and decision-makers anticipate and prepare for earthquakes. These maps are supposed to depict the maximum level of ground shaking likely to be produced by an earthquake in a given area. In the past decade, however, ground motions and death tolls in areas struck by earthquakes have far exceeded these maps' projections. Thus, scientists are calling into question the standard methods used to estimate seismic risk, and accepted assumptions and calculations have come under fire. read more

VTT researcher finds explanation for friction

Updated: 2012-05-29 15:00:55

Friction is a key phenomenon in applied physics, whose origin has been studied for centuries. Until now, it has been understood that mechanical wear-resistance and fluid lubrication affect friction, but the fundamental origin of sliding friction has been unknown. Dr. Lasse Makkonen, Principal Scientist at VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, has now presented an explanation for the origin of sliding friction between solid objects. According to his theory, the amount of friction depends on the surface energy of the materials in question.read more

CryoSat goes to sea

Updated: 2012-05-29 14:30:03

CryoSat was launched in 2010 to measure sea-ice thickness in the Arctic, but data from the Earth-observing satellite have also been exploited for other studies. High-resolution mapping of the topography of the ocean floor is now being added to the ice mission's repertoire.read more

Birds Have Juvenile Dinosaur Skulls

Updated: 2012-05-29 01:49:01

The peculiar way birds grow up got its start among feathery non-avian dinosaurs

Climate change led to collapse of ancient Indus civilization, study finds

Updated: 2012-05-28 21:01:04

A new study combining the latest archaeological evidence with state-of-the-art geoscience technologies provides evidence that climate change was a key ingredient in the collapse of the great Indus or Harappan Civilization almost 4000 years ago. The study also resolves a long-standing debate over the source and fate of the Sarasvati, the sacred river of Hindu mythology.read more

10 million years to recover from mass extinction

Updated: 2012-05-27 19:00:35

It took some 10 million years for Earth to recover from the greatest mass extinction of all time, latest research has revealed. Life was nearly wiped out 250 million years ago, with only 10 per cent of plants and animals surviving. It is currently much debated how life recovered from this cataclysm, whether quickly or slowly.read more

Computer model pinpoints prime materials for efficient carbon capture

Updated: 2012-05-27 19:00:28

When power plants begin capturing their carbon emissions to reduce greenhouse gases – and to most in the electric power industry, it's a question of when, not if – it will be an expensive undertaking. Current technologies would use about one-third of the energy generated by the plants – what's called "parasitic energy" – and, as a result, substantially drive up the price of electricity.read more

T cells 'hunt' parasites like animal predators seek prey, a Penn Vet-Penn Physics study reveals

Updated: 2012-05-27 19:00:23

PHILADELPHIA — By pairing an intimate knowledge of immune-system function with a deep understanding of statistical physics, a cross-disciplinary team at the University of Pennsylvania has arrived at a surprising finding: T cells use a movement strategy to track down parasites that is similar to strategies that predators such as monkeys, sharks and blue-fin tuna use to hunt their prey. read more

'Unzipped' carbon nanotubes could help energize fuel cells and batteries, Stanford scientists say

Updated: 2012-05-27 19:00:18

Multi-walled carbon nanotubes riddled with defects and impurities on the outside could replace some of the expensive platinum catalysts used in fuel cells and metal-air batteries, according to scientists at Stanford University. Their findings are published in the May 27 online edition of the journal Nature Nanotechnology.read more

"The sale of this next lot will be contingent on a satisfactory resolution of a court proceeding dealing with this matter."

Updated: 2012-05-27 12:16:42

On May 20th, the fossil remains of a Tarbosaurus (aka, Tyrannosaurus bataar) were sold for $1,052,500. The auction was carried out despite objections from the President of Mongolia and a court order. The problem? The remains may have been poached. #187; riginal news

Social Sauropods?

Updated: 2012-05-25 15:43:09

A bonebed in Argentina with three sauropods of different sizes adds new evidence that some of these dinosaurs were social creatures

Thousands of invisibility cloaks trap a rainbow

Updated: 2012-05-25 01:00:22

Many people anticipating the creation of an invisibility cloak might be surprised to learn that a group of American researchers has created 25 000 individual cloaks. But before you rush to buy one from your local shop, the cloaks are just 30 micrometres in diameter and are laid out together on a 25 millimetre gold sheet. read more

A nanoclutch for nanobots

Updated: 2012-05-24 22:00:28

Sound increases the efficiency of boiling

Updated: 2012-05-24 22:00:24

Slip-and-slide power generators

Updated: 2012-05-24 22:00:21

New Dinosaur Signifies Dawn of Stubby-Armed Predators

Updated: 2012-05-24 14:32:08

A newly described abelisaurid pushes back the history of the blunt-skulled, stubby-armed predators

Utahceratops Debut

Updated: 2012-05-21 01:47:52

There was a full artistic reconstruction in the 2010 paper that described the dinosaur, but it's another thing altogether to see the dinosaur's reconstructed skeleton

Sometimes we don't know how important some research could be

Updated: 2012-05-19 06:13:24

Tipped off by an ancient poem, and supported by both historical and paleontological/geological research, Koji Minoura et al. found evidence of historic and prehistoric tsunamis[PDF] devastating north-east Japan just as that of March 2011 did -- and he had been saying for years that it could happen again. (via PRI's The World's science podcast) #187; riginal news