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News | Archive (June 2007)
Tectonic signatures at Aeolis Mensae
— 28 Jun 2007 | AstronomyThe High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) on board Mars Express has provided snapshots of the Aeolis Mensae region. This area, well known for its wind-eroded features, lies on a tectonic transition zone, characterised by incised valleys and unexplained linear features. Illuminated by the Sun from the west, the pictures are of a ground resolution of approximately 13 metres per pixel…
Earth and Mars are different to the core
— 28 Jun 2007 | AstronomyResearch comparing silicon samples from Earth, meteorites and planetary materials, published in Nature (28 June 2007), provides new evidence that the Earth's core formed under very different conditions from those that existed on Mars. It also shows that the Earth and the Moon have the same silicon isotopic composition supporting the theory that atoms from the two mixed in the early stages of their development…
Wood ant queen has no egg-laying monopoly
— 28 Jun 2007 | BiologyThe reproductive monopoly of the ant queen is not as strong as is often thought. Dr Heikki Helantera and Prof Lotta Sundstrom, biologists working at the University of Helsinki, Finland, investigated worker ovary development and egg laying in nine Northern European wood ant species of the genus Formica, and revealed wide spread reproductive endeavours by workers. For example, in species such as Formica cinerea, Formica pratensis, and Formica truncorum approximately one in five workers is fully equipped to lay eggs. Furthermore, genetic analysis of egg parentage showed that these workers are really laying eggs on a large scale. For example in the species with the most worker reproduction, Formica truncorum, as many as one in four of eggs are indeed laid by the workers…
Female iguanas pay high costs to choose a mate
— 27 Jun 2007 | BiologyPicking a mate is not easy - if you are a female iguana. In a study published in the 27th June issue of the online, open-access journal PLoS ONE, Maren Vitousek of Princeton University and colleagues found that female Galapagos marine iguanas spend a lot of energy picking a mate from a wide range of suitors - energy they could otherwise spend foraging, producing eggs, or avoiding predators…
Swift sees double supernova in galaxy
— 26 Jun 2007 | AstronomyIn just the past six weeks, two supernovae have flared up in an obscure galaxy in the constellation Hercules. Never before have astronomers observed two of these powerful stellar explosions occurring in the same galaxy so close together in time. The galaxy, known as MCG +05-43-16, is 380 million light-years from Earth. Until this year, astronomers had never sighted a supernova popping off in this stellar congregation. A supernova is an extremely energetic and life-ending explosion of a star. Making the event even more unusual is the fact that the two supernovae belong to different types…
Atlantis due to return to Earth
— 22 Jun 2007 | AstronomyFollowing an 8-day visit to the International Space Station, Space Shuttle Atlantis is due to land in Florida later today. Yesterday's landing opportunities at NASA's Kennedy Space Centre (KSC), Florida, were passed over due to continuing bad weather at the preferred landing site…
Samba and Tango flying closer than ever for better science
— 22 Jun 2007 | AstronomyAfter weeks of manoeuvres, Samba and Tango, two of ESA's four Cluster satellites are now orbiting in formation, separated by only 17 km. This is the closest two ESA satellites have ever been in routine operations and will enable new scientific discoveries. Cluster, ESA's mission comprising four identical satellites, relays the most detailed information ever about how the solar wind affects our planet, and is the first mission to study the Sun-Earth connection in 3D…
Bone-crushing wolves of Alaska disappeared long ago
— 22 Jun 2007 | Geology and palaeontologyThe ancient grey wolves that once roamed the icy expanses of Alaska represented a specialised form that apparently died out along with other big animals at the end of the Pleistocene, many thousands of years ago, researchers report online on 21 June in the journal Current Biology, a publication of Cell Press. The extinct Alaskan wolves had robust bodies, strong jaws, and massive canine teeth for killing prey larger than themselves and regularly consuming large bones, according to the researchers…
Northern forests less effective than tropical ones in reducing global warming
— 22 Jun 2007 | EnvironmentForests in the United States and other northern mid- and upper-latitude regions are playing a smaller role in offsetting global warming than previously thought, according to a study appearing in this week's issue of Science. The study, which sheds light on the so-called missing carbon sink, concludes that intact tropical forests are removing an unexpectedly high proportion of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, thereby partially offsetting carbon entering the air through industrial emissions and deforestation…
New view of lower mantle of the Earth
— 22 Jun 2007 | Geology and palaeontologyLaboratory measurements of a high-pressure mineral believed to exist deep within the Earth show that the mineral may not, as geophysicists hoped, have the right properties to explain a mysterious layer lying just above the planet's core. A team of scientists, led by Sebastien Merkel, of the University of California, Berkeley, made the first laboratory study of the deformation properties of a high-pressure silicate mineral named post-perovskite…
Pinwheel of star birth
How to weigh a star using a moon