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Wednesday, December 11, 2013

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Puzzling Streaks On Mars May Be From Flowing Water

Dark seasonal streaks on slopes near the Martian equator may be a sign of flowing salt water on Mars, liquid runoff that melts and evaporates during the planet's warmer months, scientists say. NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spotted the dark streaks on Mars as they formed and grew in the planet's late spring and summer seasons, when the Martian equatorial region receives the most sunlight. These seasonally occurring flows — known as Recurring Slope Lineae — were previously seen on Martian slopes at mid-latitudes, but the MRO spacecraft has now detected them near the equator of the Red Planet. While there have been no direct detections of liquid water, the new findings hint at a surprisingly active water cycle on Mars today, said study leader Alfred McEwen, a professor of planetary geology at the University of Arizona in Tucson.

Nobel awards ceremony held with many VIPs away for Mandela memorial

By Sven Nordenstam STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Sweden held its lavish annual Nobel awards ceremony on Tuesday attended by laureates and royals, but their ranks were depleted when many VIPs flocked to the memorial for anti-apartheid hero Nelson Mandela in South Africa. More than 1,300 guests at the banquet attended the Nobel dinner in Stockholm City Hall to dine, chat and listen to laureates including Britain's Peter Higgs and Francois Englert of Belgium, who won the Nobel Prize for physics - speak at Sweden's most prestigious social event. Swedish newspapers spotlighted the hastily rearranged seating at the table of honor after Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt and Princess Victoria cancelled their attendance to fly to South Africa. The ceremony was also missing Canadian Nobel-winning author Alice Munro, who was unable to attend because of ill health.

Some Tarantula Bites More Harmful Than Thought

A 45-year-old man went to an emergency room in Switzerland complaining of severe muscle spasms and chest pains, according to the case report. Those symptoms can appear with a number of conditions, said Dr. Joan Fuchs, a junior physician and specialist in venomous and poisonous animals at the Swiss Toxicological Information Center, who reported the man's case in the journal Toxicon in November.

Common Stomach Drugs May Increase Risk of Vitamin Deficiency

People who take common stomach acid-suppressing medications may be at increased risk of not getting enough vitamin B12, a new study suggests. In the study, people who took proton pump inhibitors — medications used to treat acid reflux and other stomach and esophageal conditions — for two or more years were 65 percent more likely to be diagnosed with vitamin B12 deficiency than those who did not take such medications. And people who took another type of acid-suppressing drug, called histamine 2 receptor antagonists, for two or more years were 25 percent more likely to have vitamin B12 deficiency, the study found. The findings held even after the researchers accounted for factors that might increase the risk of vitamin B12 deficiency, such as having diabetes or thyroid disease, or abusing alcohol.

Weapons watchdog receives Nobel Peace Prize

OSLO, Norway (AP) — Recalling the "burning, blinding and suffocating" horrors of chemical weapons, the head of a watchdog trying to consign them to history accepted the Nobel Peace Prize on Tuesday, as prize winners in medicine, physics and other categories also took bows for their awards.

NASA Spacecraft Captures Unprecedented Views of the Sun's Mystery Layer

During its first six months in space, NASA's IRIS telescope has snapped stunning images of an obscure layer of the sun, revealing previously unseen violence and complexity in the lowest slivers of our star's atmosphere, scientists say. The IRIS Observatory launched in June and its name is short for Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph. Researchers working on the mission presented some of the probe's observations thus far Monday (Dec. 9) at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco. [Photos: NASA's IRIS Sun Observatory Mission in Space] "We are seeing rich and unprecedented images of violent events in which gases are accelerated to very high velocities while being rapidly heated to hundreds of thousands of degrees," Bart De Pontieu, the IRIS science lead at Lockheed Martin, said in a statement.

Trippy! Chameleons Intimidate Rivals with Quick Color Change

Color-morphing may sound less intimidating than, say, baring teeth or dragging hooves, but male chameleons rely on such psychedelic intimidation to ward off male rivals, according to a new study. Chameleons are popularly thought to use their color-changing abilities to blend into their environments, but, in recent years, researchers have found this shade-shifting may play a larger role in social interactions than in camouflage. In particular, scientists have noted that many male chameleons make themselves more conspicuous to others by changing colors along the sides of their bodies and tops of their heads before and during competitions. Now, researchers at Arizona State University have shown that the faster and brighter a chameleon changes color, the more likely that male is to win a battle over territory.

Giant Blob of Hot Rock Hidden Under Antarctic Ice

SAN FRANCISCO — A big, hot blob hiding beneath the bottom of the world could be evidence of a long-sought mantle plume under West Antarctica, researchers said Monday (Dec. 9) here at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union. The possible hotspot — a plume of superheated rock rising from Earth's mantle — sits under Marie Byrd Land, a broad dome at West Antarctica's edge where many active volcanoes above and below the ice spit lava and ash. Beneath Marie Byrd Land, earthquake waves slow down, suggesting the mantle here is warmer than surrounding rocks. The strongest low-velocity zone sits below Marie Byrd Land's Executive Committee Range, directly under the Mount Sidley volcano, said Andrew Lloyd, a graduate student at Washington University in St. Louis.

What Lives in Antarctica's Buried Lake?

SAN FRANCISCO — A thriving community of single-celled microbes that consume carbon dioxide for food populate Antarctica's glacial Lake Whillans, the shallow lake buried under thousands of feet of ice, a researcher said here today (Dec. 10) at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union. Water sampled from Lake Whillans in January 2013 is dominated by a dozen species of Archaea chemoautotrophs — mainly organisms that eat carbon dioxide, iron, sulfur and ammonia for energy, said John Priscu, a biologist at Montana State University who led the Lake Whillans microbiology team. In January, drillers broke through Lake Whillans' surface and carefully brought uncontaminated water samples to the surface, after hauling more than a million pounds of equipment across Antarctica by tractor caravan. Scientists have also discovered methane bubbling up into Whillans from the lake bottom — about 7.7 lbs. (3.5 kilograms) per day, Priscu said.

Human-Caused Climate Change May Have Worsened Syrian Unrest

SAN FRANCISCO — Drought was a key factor contributing to unrest and civil war in Syria, and the severity of the drought was probably a result of human-caused climate change, new research presented here Monday (Dec. 9) at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union suggests. The study analysis suggests that the drought was too severe to be simply a result of natural variability in precipitation. "We don't have any observed evidence to support a 100-year trend in precipitation that we would prescribe as being natural," said study co-author Colin Kelley, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California at Santa Barbara. "He was making the case that in each case there was an overlooked environmental stress that was important," Kelley told LiveScience.

Climate Change May Worsen Mold Allergies

A common fungus tends to grow more allergenic traits in the presence of high carbon dioxide, Naama Lang-Yona, a doctoral candidate in environmental sciences at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, said here Monday (Dec. 9) at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union. The fungus, called Aspergillus fumigatus, is incredibly common. "Its natural habitat is decomposed biomass and soils, but you could find it in many other places, such as our walls, air-conditioning filters," Lang-Yona said in an email. Allergies have been on the rise in the past several decades, and Lang-Yona and her colleagues wondered how atmospheric changes influenced this trend.

Alan Alda's science contest asks: What is color?

MINEOLA, N.Y. (AP) — How do you explain color to an 11-year-old?

Russian Meteor, from Birth to Fiery Death: An Asteroid's Story

Scientists have pieced together the history of the space rock that slammed into the atmosphere over the Russian city of Chelyabinsk on Feb. 15, creating a shock wave that injured 1,200 people. It's a long, convoluted tale that picks up just after the solar system started coming together 4.56 billion years ago. Molten droplets that found their way into the Chelyabinsk object formed within the first four million years of solar system history, David Kring of the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston said here Monday (Dec. 9) at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union. Further, analysis of "shock veins" within Chelyabinsk meteorites indicate that the parent body suffered a major impact about 125 million years after the solar system started forming.

G8 summit calls for AIDS-style fight against dementia

By Ben Hirschler LONDON (Reuters) - The world needs to fight the spread of dementia in the same way it mobilized against AIDS, a British government minister told a special summit on the disease on Wednesday, saying failure to tackle it would wreck state health budgets. Global cases of dementia are expected to treble by 2050, yet scientists are still struggling to understand the basic biology of the memory-robbing brain condition, and the medicine cupboard is bare. "In terms of a cure, or even a treatment that can modify the disease, we are empty-handed," World Health Organisation (WHO) Director-General Margaret Chan told ministers, campaigners, scientists and drug industry executives from the Group of Eight leading economies at the summit in London. British Health Minister Jeremy Hunt said there were lessons to be learnt from the fight against AIDS, where a 2005 G8 summit played a key role in pushing for better and more widely available drugs.

Terracotta Warriors Inspired by Ancient Greek Art

The Terracotta Warriors, along with other life-size sculptures built for the First Emperor of China, were inspired by Greek art, new research indicates. About 8,000 Terracotta Warriors, which are life-size statues of infantryman, cavalry, archers, charioteers and generals, were buried in three pits less than a mile to the northeast of the mausoleum of Qin Shi Huangdi, the first emperor. He unified the country through conquest more than 2,200 years ago. Now, new research points to ancient Greek sculpture as the inspiration for the emperor's afterlife army. "It is perfectly possible and actually likely that the sculptures of the First Emperor are the result of early contact between Greece and China," writes Lukas Nickel, a reader with the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London, in the most recent edition of the journal Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies.

People Who Fear Single Life Settle for Less, Study Finds

Confirming a bit of conventional wisdom, a new study finds that people who fear being single often settle for less in love; they're more likely to cling to unhappy relationships and more willing to date duds, the research suggests.

G8 summit calls for AIDS-style fight against dementia

By Ben Hirschler LONDON (Reuters) - The world needs to fight the spread of dementia in the same way it mobilised against AIDS, a British government minister told a special summit on the disease on Wednesday, saying failure to tackle it would wreck state health budgets. Global cases of dementia are expected to treble by 2050, yet scientists are still struggling to understand the basic biology of the memory-robbing brain condition, and the medicine cupboard is bare. "In terms of a cure, or even a treatment that can modify the disease, we are empty-handed," World Health Organisation (WHO) Director-General Margaret Chan told ministers, campaigners, scientists and drug industry executives from the Group of Eight leading economies at the summit in London. British Health Minister Jeremy Hunt said there were lessons to be learnt from the fight against AIDS, where a 2005 G8 summit played a key role in pushing for better and more widely available drugs.

Canada Makes North Pole Claim

Move over, Santa — Canada's claiming the North Pole. In a move has nothing to do with Christmas, Canada filed its claim Friday (Dec. 6) to the United Nations Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf, according to AFP. The claims hinge on the extent of Canada's continental shelf under the Atlantic Ocean — the underwater extent of the North American continent that ends in an abrupt escarpment — and the nation is working to map the continental shelf under the Arctic to bolster their North Pole claim. Canada's claim will not go unchallenged.

Undersea Cliff May Hold Clues to Dinosaur-Killing Cosmic Impact

Scientists have mapped a dramatic undersea cliff in the southern Gulf of Mexico that could hold clues to the ancient cosmic collision that wiped out the dinosaurs. Stretching some 372 miles (600 kilometers) long with steep sides that rise about 13,100 feet (4,000 meters), the so-called Campeche Escarpment might rival a wall of the Grand Canyon in its splendor were it not underwater.

RIP Comet ISON: Scientists Declare Famous 'Sungrazer' Dead After Sun Encounter

SAN FRANCISCO — It's time to accept reality: Comet ISON is dead. "At this point, it seems like there's nothing left," comet expert Karl Battams, of the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C., said here today at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union. "Comet ISON is dead; Comet ISON, which was discovered by two Russian amateur astronomers in September 2012, was making its first trip to the inner solar system from the distant and frigid Oort Cloud.

Stronger Tornadoes May Be Menacing US

SAN FRANCISCO — The trail of twisted metal and torn roofs left behind by massive twisters is growing longer and wider, a sign that tornadoes may be growing stronger, climate scientist James Elsner said here Tuesday (Dec. 10) at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union. Beginning in 2000, tornado intensity — as measured by a twister's damage path — started rising sharply, said Elsner, of Florida State University. "I'm not saying this is climate change, but I do think there is a climate effect," he said. Devastating tornado outbreaks in recent years, such as the massive storm that injured hundreds in Moore, Okla., this summer, have focused attention on whether climate change is altering tornado frequency and strength.

US Navy's Submarine-Launched Drone Paves Way For Future Military Tech

The U.S. Navy recently launched a drone from a submerged submarine, successfully demonstrating a new way for the military to use unmanned vehicles to conduct surveillance missions in the future. The drone was fired from a torpedo tube on the USS Providence using a specially designed launch system known as "Sea Robin," according to a statement from the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory detailing the test flight. The Sea Robin system is built to fit inside an empty canister aboard the submarine, which is normally used to deploy Tomahawk cruise missiles. Once fired from the submarine, the Sea Robin launch vehicle carries the drone to the ocean surface.

Actor Alan Alda Challenges Scientists to Explain Color to Kids

Actor Alan Alda has a question: "What is color?" Alda is famous for starring in "M*A*S*H" and "The West Wing," but he is also a founding member of the Center for Communicating Science at Stony Brook University in New York.

Amateur Astronomer Sees Jupiter, 2 Moons & a Shadow (Photo)

Jupiter, the largest planet in the solar system, reigns supreme in an eye-catching photo captured by a veteran amateur astronomer. The planet's icy moon Europa and volcanic satellite Io also make an appearance in the image. Astrophotographer Andrew Kwon snapped the stunning photo of Jupiter on Nov. 20 from his backyard observatory in Mississauga, Ontario in Canada.

Raw Milk: 1 in 6 Who Drink It Gets Sick

On average, one in six people who drink raw milk becomes ill with bacterial or parasite infections, according to researchers at the Minnesota Department of Health. The researchers found 530 laboratory-confirmed cases of infections — including bacterial infections from Salmonella, E. coli and Campylobacter, as well as parasitic infections called cryptosporidiosis — among Minnesota patients who reported drinking raw milk between 2001 and 2010. Raw milk is milk that has not been pasteurized (heated to kill germs and then cooled quickly). Based on known rates of underdiagnosing these infections, the researchers estimated that 20,502 Minnesotans, or 17 percent of raw milk consumers, actually became ill during the study period after consuming raw milk, according to the study, published today (Dec. 11) in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases, a public health journal of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

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Tuesday, December 10, 2013

FeedaMail: Science News Headlines - Yahoo! News

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To the Cold, Bed Bugs Say 'Bite Me'

To survive in cold environments, the bugs use "freeze-intolerant" strategies, such as lowering the freezing point of their bodily fluids. In the study, researchers measured the supercooling point (the temperature below the normal freezing point at which supercooled liquids become solid) and lower lethal temperature (the body temperature below which an organism cannot survive) for bed bugs of all life stages, from egg through several nymph forms to adult. The team also studied the bugs' ability to feed after being exposed to sublethal temperatures. A minimum exposure of 80 hours at 3.2 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 16 degrees Celsius) was needed to kill 100 percent of the bed bugs, the researchers found.

Tea Kettles Stop Whistling In The Dark

More than a century after relativity, physics can now explain how a tea kettle whistles. Wayt Gibbs reports.

New Device Bypasses Destroyed Area in Rat's Brain

A device called a "neural prosthesis" can bypass an injured part of the brain, and connect two distant brain regions, according to new research. In experiments, the device allowed rats with brain injuries to regain the ability to move their forelimbs, said the researchers who conducted the proof-of-concept study. The researchers mimicked traumatic brain injury in 16 rats by severing communication across the communication hub between the motor and sensory areas that control the limb movements. The prosthesis is a microchip connected to microelectrodes that are implanted in the two disconnected brain regions.

Drugs Used in Newborns Need Better Study, Docs Say

Many medications commonly given to newborns still have not been officially approved for use in this very young population, despite recent law changes encouraging the study of drugs in children, a new study finds. That means that drug labels often do not have information about the correct dose that should be used in newborns, and doctors instead must use their best guesses based on their experience and information from adults and older children, said study researcher Dr. Matthew Laughon, an associate professor in the Department of Pediatrics at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine. But researchers must find a way around such obstacles, because such studies are critical to understanding how to most effectively use drugs in newborns, Laughon said. Children and babies have a unique physiology and will not necessarily respond to drugs the way adults do, Laughon said.

Moon May Outshine Geminid Meteor Shower Peak This Week

This week marks the peak of what is usually considered the most satisfying of all annual meteor displays: the Geminid meteor shower. Unfortunately, as luck would have it, the moon will turn full on Dec. 17, and as such, will seriously hamper viewing the peak of the Geminids, predicted to occur in the overnight hours of Dec. 13 to 14. Bright moonlight will flood the sky through much of that night, playing havoc with any serious attempts to observe the usually spectacular meteor shower.

Does Age Bring Death? Not For All Species

"Evolution has come up with a huge diversity of different ways of arranging one's demographic schedule," said study researcher Owen Jones, a biologist at the University of Southern Denmark. The findings are intriguing, Jones told LiveScience, because classical evolutionary theory explains only one of these ways of aging.

Coldest Places on Earth Found, In Antarctica, Of Course

SAN FRANCISCO — Where is the coldest temperature ever measured on Earth? "It's in Antarctica of course," Ted Scambos, lead scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colo., said here today (Dec. 9) at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union.

Healthier Fatty Acids Found in Organic Milk

Organic milk contains a healthier balance of omega-6 and omega-3 fatty acids compared with milk from cows raised on conventionally managed dairy farms, according to a new study. The healthier fatty acid profile of organic milk is likely a result of cows foraging on grass, the researchers said. The scientists took 400 samples of organic and conventional milk from multiple regions in the United States over an 18-month period, and looked for the levels of various fatty acids in the milk. In particular, they looked for the balance between omega-6 and omega-3 contents , essential fatty acids that the human body cannot make from other raw materials and needs to obtain from diet.

Record low temperature recorded in Antarctica: scientists

By Irene and Klotz SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - The Arctic air blasting the eastern United States is positively balmy compared to the record minus 136 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 93 degrees Celsius) temperature measured in Antarctica in August 2010, according to research released on Monday. Scientists made the discovery while analyzing 32 years of global surface temperatures recorded by satellites. They found that a high ridge in the East Antarctic Plateau contains pockets of trapped air that dipped as low as minus 136 Fahrenheit on August 10, 2010, researchers said at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco. The previous record low was minus 128.6 F (minus 89.2 C), set in 1983 at the Russian Vostok Research Station in East Antarctica, said Ted Scambos, lead scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado.

Nearly 1 in 4 Women Are Obese Before Pregnancy

Nearly 1 in 4 women now are obese when they becomes pregnant, according to a new study that includes information from most of the United States.

New Orchid Species Found on 'Lost World' Volcano in the Azores

For years, there was only one formally recognized species of orchid on the Azores, a cluster of volcanic islands west of Spain, though some claimed there were two species. However, a recent, three-year study to describe these Azorean flowers found that three species of orchids exist on the islands, including two that are newly recognized. One of the new species was found atop a remote volcano and is arguably Europe's rarest orchid, said Richard Bateman, a botanist at Kew Royal Botanic Gardens in London. Researchers were surprised to find the new species atop the volcano, which had "a really 'Lost World' feel to it," he told LiveScience.

Binge Drinking Rates Lower in States with Strong Alcohol Policies

States with lower rates of binge drinking have stronger policies toward alcohol, a new study suggests. This is the first study to relate alcohol policies within each U.S. state to the levels and likelihood of binge drinking in adults. "We found that states with stronger and more effective alcohol policies had less binge drinking than states with weaker alcohol policies," said study researcher Dr. Timothy Naimi, an associate professor of medicine at Boston University's Schools of Medicine and of Public Health. "Most states could be doing a lot better to address a leading cause of preventable deaths," Naimi said.

Elusive Dark Matter May Have Already Been Found

The mysterious dark matter that makes up most of the matter in the universe may already have been detected with superconducting circuits, researchers say. The scientific consensus right now is that dark matter is composed of a new type of particle, one that interacts very weakly at best with all the known forces of the universe, except gravity. As such, dark matter is invisible and nearly completely intangible, mostly only detectable via the gravitational pull it exerts. A number of ongoing experiments based on massive sensor arrays buried underground are attempting to identify the weak signals dark matter is expected to give off when it experiences a rare collision with other particles.

Orbital Sciences Names Next Private Space Station Freighter for NASA Astronaut

The next U.S. private spacecraft to fly to the International Space Station has been named for Gordon Fullerton, the late NASA astronaut who helped to deploy air-launched rockets built by the company behind the space freighter. Orbital Sciences Corp. is preparing to launch its second Cygnus unmanned spacecraft to the station Dec. 18 from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport at the NASA Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. Continuing a 25-year company tradition, Orbital's officials named their maiden Cygnus after someone who played an early role in its success. "We named our first Cygnus spacecraft to go to the space station the G. David Low, in honor of a former astronaut, a classmate of mine and former Orbital employee who was involved in the early days of COTS [Commercial Orbital Transportation Services] from the very beginning and who we lost a few years ago unfortunately," Frank Culbertson, Orbital executive vice president and former astronaut, said in a media briefing.

Private Mars Colony Project Unveils 1st Private Robotic Mission to Red Planet

WASHINGTON — An ambitious project that aims to send volunteers on a one-way trip to Mars unveiled plans for the first private unmanned mission to the Red Planet today (Dec. 10), a robotic vanguard to human colonization that will launch in 2018. The non-profit Mars One foundation has inked deals with Lockheed Martin Space Systems and Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd. (SSTL) to draw up mission concept studies for the private robotic flight to Mars. Under the plan, Lockheed Martin will build the Mars One lander, and SSTL will build a communications satellite, the companies' representatives announced at a news conference here today. "We're very excited to have contracted Lockheed Martin and SSTL for our first mission to Mars," Mars One co-founder and CEO Bas Lansdorp said in a statement.

Why Eerie Green Lightning Zapped an Erupting Volcano

SAN FRANCISCO — A storm of charged particles coursing through a volcanic ash cloud sparked the spectacular green lightning seen at Chile's Chaiten Volcano in 2008, a researcher said here Monday (Dec. 9) at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union. "It probably occurs in all thunderstorms, but you never see it," Few said.

Bacterial Bubble Hitchhikers Could Help Keep Greenhouse Gas in Check

SAN FRANCISCO — Seafloor-dwelling bacteria may hitch a ride on methane bubbles seeping from deep-sea vents, preventing the methane from reaching the atmosphere by eating it up, new research suggests. The findings, presented here today (Dec. 9) at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union, could help explain how such huge amounts of the greenhouse gas methane are belched from the ocean floor, yet somehow never reach the atmosphere. "Above these methane seeps, you have these bubbles released from the sediment and you can see a higher abundance of these microbes in the water column," said study co-author Oliver Schmale, a geologist and marine chemist at the Leibniz Institute for Baltic Sea Research in Germany. "The microbes consume methane from these seeps before it escapes into the atmosphere." [Earth in the Balance: 7 Crucial Tipping Points]

Forests Recover Quickly After Bark Beetles Attack

SAN FRANCISCO — A forest ravaged by the "red hand of death" — also known as a bark beetle attack — recovers quickly with little ecosystem damage, scientists said here today (Dec. 9) at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union. A species called the mountain pine beetle is one of the primary culprits, leaving large swaths of forest dying of a fungus carried by the tiny insects. Forests look awful after a beetle attack, but the wound isn't as terrible as it looks, according to two separate studies by researchers from the University of Wyoming and the U.S. Forest Service (USFS). In Wyoming's Medicine Bow National Forest, botanist Brent Ewers of the University of Wyoming examined whether tree deaths sent more water into streams (because there is less vegetation to suck up precipitation), as well as released additional carbon and nitrogen from dead, decaying trees.

Floating Seismic Devices Peer Deep Beneath Ocean Floor

The idea, described here Monday (Dec. 9) at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union, is to place hundreds of floating seismic devices into the seas to measure the vibrations of earthquakes coming from the seafloor. And the floating seismic stations have now passed their first tests on two real excursions, showing they can distinguish the sounds of relatively small-magnitude earthquakes from the din of whale calls, ships passing and other ocean noise. Though seismologists track earthquakes from thousands of devices on land, just a few permanent island stations record earthquakes at sea. As a result, when waves from a deep earthquake travel through the Earth's mantle and core, most of a wave's path goes unrecorded, hidden in the depths of the ocean.

China-Brazil satellite launch fails, likely fell back to Earth

A Chinese-Brazilian satellite launched by China on Monday failed to reached its planned orbit and likely fell back to Earth, Brazil's Ministry of Science said. The satellite was the fourth in a series designed to monitor land use in Brazil, including forest cover in the Amazon basin. Brazil's space program is seeking to reduce the country's dependence on U.S. and European space equipment and launch vehicles and expand the domestic aerospace industry, already the world's No. 3 producer of commercial jet aircraft. The CBERS-3 satellite developed by China and Brazil was carried to space on Monday morning aboard a Long March 4B rocket from China's Taiyuan satellite launch center, the Brazilian ministry said in a statement.

Spinning Trap Measures 'Roundness' of an Electron

A new technique could one day provide the most precise measurement yet of the roundness of an electron, scientists say. That measurement, in turn, could help scientists test extensions of the standard model, the reigning particle physics model that describes the behavior of the very small, said study co-author Eric Cornell, a physicist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the JILA Center for Atomic, Molecular & Optical Physics in Boulder, Colo. An electron's shape comes from a cloud of virtual particles surrounding a dimensionless point; Past measurements have suggested the positive and negative charges are at equal distances from the center of the electron, Cornell said.

NASA Mars rover finds evidence of life-friendly ancient lake

By Irene Klotz SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Scientists have found evidence of an ancient freshwater lake on Mars well suited to support microbial life, the researchers said Monday. The lake, located inside Gale Crater where the rover landed in August 2012, likely covered an area 31 miles long and 3 miles wide, though its size varied over time. Analysis of sedimentary deposits gathered by NASA's Mars rover Curiosity shows the lake existed for at least tens of thousands of years, and possibly longer, geologist John Grotzinger, with the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, told reporters at the American Geophysical Union conference in San Francisco. Analysis of clays drilled out from two rock samples in the area known as Yellowknife Bay show the freshwater lake existed at a time when other parts of Mars were dried up or dotted with shallow, acidic, salty pools ill-suited for life.

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