The 'fixed' hotspot that created Hawaii was not stationary after all, study finds
...they formed. Age was determined by the radiometric dating of two chemical elements potassium and argon. When a rock forms, atoms of potassium start decaying into argon at a constant rate, regardless of changes in the rock's temperature, chemistry or pressure. By measuring the number of potassium-derived a...Early hominids may have behaved more 'human' than we had thought
... 'humanness' in these early hominids dating back 3 million to 4 million years," he said....Borneo elephants: A high priority for conservation
...nger subject to debate. Applying DNA analysis and dating techniques to investigate the elephants' evolutionary path, researchers from the United States, India, and Malaysia, led by Don Melnick of the Center for Environmental Research and Conservation at Columbia, demonstrate that Borneo's elephants are not...Fruit odors lure some flies to evolve into new species
GENEVA, N.Y. -- For apple maggots, the dating scene is simple -- flies only mate on a specific host fruit. Using new technology developed at the New York State Agricultural Experiment Station, Cornell University researchers have demonstrated that this fact of fly life has resulted in the emergen...Earliest European modern humans found
...ion, Trinkaus and colleagues performed radiocarbon dating of the jawbone (dating of the other remains is in progress) and a comparative anatomical analysis of the sample. The jawbone dates from between 34,000 and 36,000 years ago, placing the specimens in the period during which early modern humans overlapp...Northern climate, ecosystems driven by cycles of changing sunlight
...earchers wrote. The presence of predictable cycles dating back thousands of years provides data that are not detectable in instrumental records, which are largely restricted to just the last 100 years, Hu said....Rocks could reveal secrets of life on Earth and Mars
...t has not been tapped before. Analysis of material dating from the time before the Earth's fossil record became extensive is a major project aim. This could significantly enhance our knowledge of the development of life on Earth. The initiative is being led by Dr John Parnell of the University of Aberdeen'...Story tips from the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory, November 2003
... The stock consists of more than 900 strains, some dating back to the 1940s. Strains for which there is funding about 300 -- will be brought back to life. The new mice will be housed in ORNL's brand new 30,000-square-foot pathogen-free Russell Laboratory for Comparative and Functional Genomics. Because the...Plans finalised for satellites to help safeguard gorilla habitats
...vities. But the GIS is currently based on old maps dating back as far as 1936. BeGO will create new maps on a 1 to 50000 scale to serve as a more accurate GIS basis. "Great stress has been placed on the importance of more accurate maps for the conservation effort," explained Mario Hernandez of UNESCO. "Usin...Computer model offers new tool to probe Woburn toxic waste site
...groundwater samples. Just as scientists use carbon dating to calculate the age of ancient organic material, geologists can measure the decay of tritium, a radioactive isotope of hydrogen, to gauge how long a sample of water has been in the ground. Metheny then compared Solomons results to the groundwater ag...The common cold as cancer fighter? SLU prof's lifetime work moving into clinical trials
...earch at Saint Louis University School of Medicine dating back to the 1950s, and it can be argued that SLU is the birthplace of adenovirus molecular virology," Wold said....The Lions of Tsavo: Exploring the Legacy of Africa's Notorious Man-eaters
...samples are analyzed and compared with collections dating back more than a century. Other analyses take place at the New York State Museum, where co-principal investigator on the Earthwatch project Roland Kays, PhD, is Curator of Mammals. Further analyses take place in Tsavo National Park, where co-PI of t...Sediment samples suggest how plants would fare in hotter, drier future
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- Sediment samples dating back thousands of years and taken from under the deep water of West Olaf Lake in Minnesota have revealed an unexpected climate indicator that can be factored into future projections. In the Jan. 13 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of...Oxygen triggered the evolution of complex life forms
... from Pennsylvania State University used molecular dating methods to create a new timeline of eukaryotic evo...ferent organisms using all the available molecular dating methods. All the methods gave similar results. The pattern and timing of the rise of complex multic...New 'bumpy' jelly found in deep sea
... oceans, with two major oceanographic institutions dating from the late 1800s. Yet we are still discovering new species there. Who knows what else we might find?" Raskoff adds, "It's heartwarming to know that there's still a lot of mystery in the deep ocean. There are still a lot of big things moving around...Dirty air from Asia can push U.S. air pollution to unhealthy levels
...easurements from the 110 interagency network sites dating back to the mid-1980s show just one comparable event, in 1998. Asian pollution comes across on winds pulled by a sort of high-speed conveyor belt, with a low-pressure system over the Aleutian Islands and a high-pressure cell near Hawaii acting like ...Researcher identifies Irish potato famine pathogen
... specimens from six different regions of the world dating from as early as 1845 to as late as 1982. The specimens included ones from late-blight epidemics in Ireland, the United States and continental Europe, and came from collections housed in England, Ireland and the United States. About 90 percent of th...East African artifacts support evolution of symbolic thinking in Middle Stone Age
...have been precisely dated as of yet using advanced dating techniques. Presenting the paper are J.C. Thompson...a tantalizing find and once we get some definitive dating it could have a major impact on the issue of the evolution of symbolic thinking. We hope that furthe...Shared gene switch for all plants found
A gene-switching mechanism dating back 400 million years to the very first plants that made it onto land has been found by plant biologists at UC Davis. A family of genes required for stem and leaf development in flowering plants is controlled in the same way in everything from mosse...... and European squirrels held in museum collections dating back to 1861 to determine their genetic constitution. The research suggested red squirrels in the North-east have adapted really well to the man-made conifer plantations of the region. It also showed many squirrels have recent European ancestry du...