news 2010

Catch a falling star and find out where it came from Second meteorite in Australian desert revealed by 'star gazing' cameras ? News Tuesday 13 December 2010 by Colin Smith Scientists are celebrating the discovery of a second meteorite in the Western Australian desert using 'star gazing' cameras. The images from the cameras will reveal the space rock's original orbit in the Solar System.

When German archaeologists discovered bones in the tomb of Queen Eadgyth in Magdeburg Cathedral, they looked to Bristol to provide the crucial scientific evidence that the remains were indeed those of the English royal. Dr Alistair Pike in the Department of Archaeology and Anthropology tells Hannah Johnson how tiny samples of tooth enamel proved the identity of a Saxon queen.

Science 07 Oct 10 Oxford University scientists have discovered the explanation for why the world's explosive volcanoes are confined to bands only a few tens of kilometres wide, such as those along the Pacific 'Ring of Fire'. Most of the molten rock that comes out of these volcanoes is rich in water, but the Oxford team has shown that the volcanoes are aligned above narrow regions in the mantle where water-free melting can take place.

Plate tectonics may not have operated on a younger and hotter Earth according to new research from the University of Bristol carried out on preserved remnants of ancient continental crust in the Hudson Bay region of Canada. The processes that formed and shaped the early Earth's crust are still poorly understood, and the onset of plate tectonics has been estimated as being as early as the Hadean (4.6-3.8 billion years ago) or as late as the Neoproterozoic (1,000-542 million years ago).

Palaeontologists are forever claiming that their latest fossil discovery will 'rewrite evolutionary history'. Is this just boasting or is our 'knowledge' of evolution so feeble that it changes every time we find a new fossil? A team of researchers at the University of Bristol decided to find out, with investigations of dinosaur and human evolution.

Archaeologists working on Stone Age remains at a site in North Yorkshire say it contains Britain's earliest surviving house. team from the Universities of Manchester and York reveal today that the home dates to at least 8,500 BC - when Britain was part of continental Europe. The research has been made possible by a grant from the Natural Environment Research Council, early excavation funding from the British Academy, and from English Heritage who are about to schedule the site as a National Monument.

Scientists studying the largest drainage basin in the world have used satellite technology to provide the first detailed measurements of water flow between the Amazon River and its floodplains. Every year, 285 billion metric tons, or 285 cubic kilometres of water by volume, rises and falls in the Amazon floodplain, accounting for just five per cent of the total water flow into the ocean.

Ancient blob-like creature of the deep revealed by scientists 3D model breathes new life into extinct ancient creature of the deep A unique blob-like creature that lived in the ocean approximately 425 million years ago is revealed in a 3D computer model in research published today in the journal Biology Letters.

History is set to be rewritten after an archaeology team led by the University of Birmingham and the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Archaeological Prospection and Virtual Archaeology in Austria discovered a major ceremonial monument less than one kilometre away from the iconic Stonehenge. The incredible find has been hailed by Professor Vince Gaffney, from the University's IBM Visual and Spatial Technology Centre | , as one of the most significant yet for those researching the UK's most important prehistoric structure.

Excavations of a hill fort located near one of the largest burial mounds in Eastern France have been carried out by an archaeologist from the University of Bristol. Among the many finds is a bronze brooch: a masterpiece of early Celtic art with a duck's head motif, its eyes inlaid with Mediterranean coral.

A major conference, organised by scientists at The University of Manchester to showcase vital work on the effect of geographic chemicals begins today. The 'Geographic Chemicals in Groundwaters and Soils' event will showcase the work of researchers in the AquaTRAIN Marie Curie Research Training Network.

That's what Juliet Biggs, of Oxford University's Department of Earth Sciences , and colleagues have been doing by using satellites to investigate volcanic rifts in intimate detail. I asked Juliet about how satellite radar images are giving insights into what's happening beneath our feet, and could even help us to tap geothermal energy from inside the planet.

New insights into volcanic activity on the ocean floor New research explains why some parts of the world saw massive volcanic activity while others did not New research reveals that when two parts of the Earth's crust break apart, this does not always cause massive volcanic eruptions. The study, published today , explains why some parts of the world saw massive volcanic eruptions millions of years ago and others did not.

Three thousand kilometres beneath our feet, the Earth's solid rock ? known as the mantle ? gives way to the swirling liquid iron of the outer core (the 'core-mantle boundary'). The last few hundred kilometres of the lowermost mantle is also known as D? (pronounced 'dee-double-prime'). D? is one of the most enigmatic parts of the Earth which scientists have struggled to understand for decades; it can only be measured remotely, using seismic waves from earthquakes.

Scientists have found the possible source of a huge carbon dioxide 'burp' that happened some 18,000 years ago and which helped to end the last ice age. The results provide the first concrete evidence that carbon dioxide (CO2) was more efficiently locked away in the deep ocean during the last ice age, turning the deep sea into a more 'stagnant' carbon repository - something scientists have long suspected but lacked data to support.

Baby corals find their way home in their first days as free-swimming larvae by listening to the noise of animals on the reef and actively swimming towards it, an international team of researchers working in the Caribbean has discovered. These findings raise new concerns for the future of coral reefs as increasing human noise pollution in the world's oceans is masking reef sounds.

In a three-year project, Oxford researchers analysed the effects of ivy growing on buildings in five different parts of England and discovered that the plant plays a protective role. They found that an ivy canopy was like a thermal shield, combating the extremes of temperature which often cause walls to crack.

The evolution of flight took longer than previously thought with the ancestors of modern birds "rubbish” at flying, if they flew at all, according to a Manchester scientist. Archaeopteryx , the theropod dinosaur believed to be the earliest bird, was discovered 150 years ago but debates about how flight evolved still persist.

New research by The University of Manchester and the Carnegie Institution of Washington is to make scientists rethink their understanding of how Earth formed. The team have found that volatile elements - most likely to include water - were present during the violent process of the Earth's birth between 30 and 100 million years after the solar system was created - a minute period in geological terms The findings mean that comets and asteroids were unlikely to have brought the bulk of volatile elements to Earth - as commonly thought.

Archaeologists have disproved the fifty-year-old theory underpinning our understanding of how the famous stone statues were moved around Easter Island. Fieldwork led by researchers at University College London and The University of Manchester, has shown the remote Pacific island's ancient road system was primarily ceremonial and not solely built for transportation of the figures.