news 2012

Deforestation can have a significant effect on tropical rainfall, new research confirms. The findings have potentially devastating impacts for people living in and near the Amazon and Congo forests. A team from the University of Leeds and the NERC Centre for Ecology & Hydrology found that for the majority of the Earth’s tropical land surface, air passing over extensive forests produces at least twice as much rain as air passing over little vegetation.

A new study, by scientists from the Universities of York, Glasgow and Leeds, involving analysis of fossil and geological records going back 540 million years, suggests that biodiversity on Earth generally increases as the planet warms. But the research says that the increase in biodiversity depends on the evolution of new species over millions of years, and is normally accompanied by extinctions of existing species.

A new study involving analysis of fossil and geological records going back 540 million years, suggests that biodiversity on Earth generally increases as the planet warms. But the research by scientists from the Universities of York, Glasgow and Leeds says that the increase in biodiversity depends on the evolution of new species over millions of years, and is normally accompanied by extinctions of existing species.

An archaeologist from the University of Sheffield has revealed the origin and trading routes of razor-sharp stone tools 4,200 years ago in Syria. Ancient sites and cultural heritage are under threat in Syria due to the current conflict. An interdisciplinary research team hopes this new discovery, which has major implications for understanding the world's first empire, will help to highlight the importance of protecting Syria's heritage.

Tsunamis are caused by earthquakes under the seabed. Some tsunamis - including the disaster that hit Japan last year - are unexpectedly large. Cambridge scientists suggest that their severity is caused by a release of gravitational energy as well as elastic energy. We hope that our research represents a step forward in understanding how large tsunamis occur." —Professor James Jackson Scientists at Cambridge University have developed a model that may show why some tsunamis - including the one that devastated Japan in March 2011 - are so much larger than expected.

University of Sheffield researchers have shown, for the first time, that a method of storing nuclear waste normally used only for High Level Waste (HLW), could provide a safer, more efficient, and potentially cheaper, solution for the storage and ultimate disposal of Intermediate Level Waste (ILW). ILW makes up more than three quarters of the volume of material destined for geological disposal in the UK.

Study successfully reconstructed temperature from the deep sea to reveal how global ice volume has varied over the glacial-interglacial cycles of the past 1.5 million years. The only way we can work out what the likely effects of the changes we are making to the climate will be is by finding analogues in the geological past.

Research published today in the journal Nature gives a detailed picture of how scientists are looking to the much warmer Antarctic climate of the distant past to learn more about how the planet could look in the future if climate change continues unchecked. The University of Glasgow's James Bendle is one of the authors of the paper, which is part of a major international research project to examine the Earth's climate during the 'Greenhouse world' of the early Eocene epoch, between 48 and 55 million years ago.

Researchers from the University of Birmingham and TERI University are working together to identify which emissions might best be controlled in order to reduce harmful ozone production in New Delhi. Ozone is a major air pollution problem in the Delhi area, where levels exceed World Health Organisation guidelines for around 50 days per year.

High-tech technology, traditionally usually used to design racing cars and aeroplanes, has helped researchers to understand how plant-eating dinosaurs fed 150 million years ago. A team of international researchers, led by the University of Bristol and the Natural History Museum , used CT scans and biomechanical modelling to show that Diplodocus - one of the largest dinosaurs ever discovered - had a skull adapted to strip leaves from tree branches.

A volcanic eruption around 579 million years ago buried a 'nursery' of the earliest-known animals under a Pompeii-like deluge of ash, preserving them as fossils in rocks in Newfoundland, new research suggests. A team from the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, in collaboration with the Memorial University of Newfoundland, looked for evidence of life from the mysterious Ediacaran period (635-542 million years ago) in which the first 'animals' - complex multicellular organisms -appeared.

A rare kind of mineral which scientists hope could be used to remove toxic metals and radioactive species from the environment played a similar, crucial role early in Earth's history. Research carried out by an international team of leading biogeochemists suggests for the first time that ‘green rust’ was likely widespread in ancient oceans and may have played a vital role in the creation of our early atmosphere.

Tiny microbes are at the heart of a novel agricultural technique to manage harmful greenhouse gas emissions. Scientists have discovered how microbes can be used to turn carbon dioxide emissions into soil-enriching limestone. Their technique uses help from a type of tree that thrives in tropical areas, such as West Africa.

Ice extended further across the UK than previously thought and played a part in sculpting the rocky landscape of Dartmoor in South West England during the last Ice Age, according to new research which challenges previously held theories. A study of the National Park area of Dartmoor, UK, shows for the first time that an ice cap and  valley glaciers were present in its centre and that the naturally castellated stone outcrops, known as tors, were survivors.

Scientists have developed a new technique to accurately measure the weight and size of dinosaurs and discovered they are not as heavy as previously thought. University of Manchester biologists used lasers to measure the minimum amount of skin required to wrap around the skeletons of modern-day mammals, including reindeer, polar bears, giraffes and elephants.

A forensic approach that links changes deep below a volcano to signals at the surface is described by scientists from the University of Bristol in a paper published today in Science. The research could ultimately help to predict future volcanic eruptions with greater accuracy. Using forensic-style chemical analysis, Kate Saunders and colleagues directly linked seismic observations of the deadly 1980 Mount St. Helens eruption to crystal growth within the magma chamber, the large underground pool of liquid rock beneath the volcano.

Volcanoes on the seafloor can grow or collapse tens of metres in just a few days, a new study has found, suggesting that that the seabed is much more unstable than previously thought. Researchers, led by Professor Tony Watts of Oxford University's Department of Earth Sciences, report how they surveyed the topography of the active Monowai volcano, a submarine volcano on the southwest Pacific Ocean floor near Tonga, in May and June 2011.

A project to map part of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet has shown that the region may be on the threshold of change. Scientists from the University have mapped the ice-covered, largely unexplored landscape from the air. They uncovered a deep sub-glacial basin close to the edge of the ice sheet near the Weddell sea.

Scientists at the University of Glasgow have been collaborating with colleagues at the University of Nevada, Reno to watch the Sierra Nevada mountain range grow in real time. Using cutting-edge measurement technology, they have concluded that the range, which stretches for 400 miles between California and Nevada, is rising at a relatively fast rate of one to two millimetres each year.

A volcanic super-eruption in America's Yellowstone National Park two million years ago was actually two smaller eruptions 6,000 years apart, new research has revealed. Scientists at the Scottish Universities Environmental Research Centre (SUERC) and Washington State University in the USA have used a 'rock clock' dating technique to more precisely determine when volcanic rock samples from the Huckleberry Ridge Tuff were created.