Writing in the journal PLoS One, the scientists have used a high resolution form of CT scanning to reconstruct two 305-million year old juvenile insects. Without the pioneering approach to imaging, these tiny insects – which are three-dimensional holes in a rock – would have been impossible to study. By placing the fossils in a CT […]
Posts Tagged ‘WFS’
INDIAN OCEAN’S BREAK-UP SHOCKS US
September 27th, 2012
riffin Breaking up is hard to do. Even for Earth’s tectonic plates, separation is studded with sudden releases of pent up stress, such as the twin tremors that rocked the Indian Ocean on April 11, 2012. The magnitude 8.7 and 8.2 earthquakes that struck off the coast of Sumatra that day herald the breakup of the […]
Geothermal energy through Wire
September 26th, 2012
riffin A proposed high voltage electrical cable running across the floor of the North Atlantic Ocean to tap Iceland’s surplus volcanic geothermal energy would become the world’s longest underwater electrical cable, if it goes ahead. The cable would be a significant step towards a pan-European super grid, which may one day tap renewable sources as far […]
India: Fastest Continent Because Of Thinnest Lithosphere
September 25th, 2012
Riffin India’s lithosphere is only half as thick as others which is the reason for its high speed collision with Eurasia. Fifty million years ago the Indian sub-continent collided with the enormous Eurasian continent with a velocity of about 20 cm/year. With such a high velocity India was the fastest of the former parts of Gondwanaland, […]
Prehistoric “Movie Monster” Mollusk Re-created With 3-D Printer
September 24th, 2012
riffin A spiky, well-armored mollusk that lived in the ocean 390 million years ago has been brought back to life with the help of 3-D printers. Less than an inch long, the oval-shaped creature—a species of so-called multiplacophoran dubbed Protobalanus spinicoronatus—was previously known from only a few rare and incomplete specimens, which made for inaccurate reconstructions. “The […]
Evidence of Combat in Triceratops
September 23rd, 2012
Riffin Images of the three-horned dinosaur Triceratops battling with conspecifics or the predatorTyrannosaurus have become ingrained in both the scientific and the popular mind. Lesions (wounded or diseased areas) on the horns, frill, and face of Triceratops specimens have been cited as evidence in support of the defensive and offensive nature of the animal’s cranial ornamentation . An alternative interpretation posits that […]
Primitive birds shared dinosaurs’ fate
September 22nd, 2012
Riffin A new study puts an end to the longstanding debate about how archaic birds went extinct, suggesting they were virtually wiped out by the same meteorite impact that put an end to dinosaurs 65 million years ago. For decades, scientists have debated whether birds from the Cretaceous period – which are very different from today’s […]
What Made the 2004 Sumatra Earthquake the Deadliest in History?
September 21st, 2012
Riffin The Answser is in a Layer of Sediments An international team of geoscientists has discovered an unusual geological formation that helps explain how an undersea earthquake off the coast of Sumatra in December 2004 spawned the deadliest tsunami in recorded history. Instead of the usual weak, loose sediments typically found above the type of geologic […]
Climate Scientists Put Predictions to the Test
September 20th, 2012
riffin Climate-prediction models show skills in forecasting climate trends over time spans of greater than 30 years and at the geographical scale of continents, but they deteriorate when applied to shorter time frames and smaller geographical regions, a new study has found. Published in the Journal of Geophysical Research-Atmospheres, the study is one of the first to […]
Prehistoric Birds Were Poor Flyers, Research Shows
September 19th, 2012
riffin 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 scientists. Archaeopteryx, the theropod dinosaur believed to be the earliest bird, was discovered 150 years ago but debates about how flight evolved still persist. The two theories are that flight […]



Posted in
Tags: