Free Republic

There's a new twist to the perennial argument about which is smarter, cats or dogs. It has to do with their brains, specifically the number of neurons in their cerebral cortex: the "little gray cells" associated with thinking, planning and complex behavior -- all considered hallmarks of intelligence. The first study to actually count the number of cortical neurons in the brains of a number of carnivores, including cats and dogs, has found that dogs possess significantly more of them than cats. "In this study, we were interested in comparing different species of carnivorans to see how the numbers of...

Mauna Loa is showing persistent signs of volcanic unrest. Since 2014, increased seismicity and deformation indicate that Mauna Loa, the volcano that dominates more than half of the island of Hawaiʻi, may be building toward its first eruption since 1984. Thousands of residents and key infrastructure are potentially at risk from lava flows, so a critical question is whether the volcano will follow patterns of previous eruptions or return to its now historically unprecedented 33-year slumber. Mauna Loa has erupted 33 times since 1843, an average of one eruption every 5 years [Trusdell, 2012]. Typical of shield-building Hawaiian volcanoes, Mauna...

When volcanic mountains slide into the sea, they trigger tsunamis. How big are these waves, and how far away can they do damage? Ritter Island provides some answers. Early one March morning in 1888, a 4-cubic-kilometer chunk of the Ritter Island volcano collapsed into the Bismarck Sea northeast of New Guinea. This volume of land was about twice that of the Mount St. Helens landslide in 1980, and it is the largest historically recorded tsunami-causing volcanic sector collapse. The ensuing landslide triggered a tsunami tens of meters high. The waves were still 8 meters high when they reached parts of...

An international study led by researchers at Macquarie University has uncovered the ways in which giant meteorite impacts may have helped to kick-start our planet's global tectonic processes and magnetic field. The study, being published in the premier journal Nature Geoscience, explores the effect of meteorite bombardment, in geodynamic simulations of the early Earth. Our results indicate that giant meteorite impacts in the past could have triggered events where the solid outer section of the Earth sinks into the deeper mantle at ocean trenches – a process known as subduction. This would have effectively recycled large portions of the Earth's...

China has limited access to a nature reserve on its border with North Korea after mysterious seismic shakes at the rogue nation's nuclear test site were detected less than 10 minutes after it launched a missile earlier this month. Beijing reportedly closed the site over fears that underground detonations by the North Koreans at a facility near Punggye-ri could lead to rockslides and even trigger an eruption of the active volcano Mount Paektu, which is sacred to North Korea and located right on the border between the two countries.

Russian intercontinental ballistic missiles are believed to carry a total of approximately 1,000 strategic nuclear warheads that can hit the US less than 30 minutes after being launched. Of this total, about 700 warheads are rated at 800 kilotons; that is, each has the explosive power of 800,000 tons of TNT. What follows is a description of the consequences of the detonation of a single such warhead over midtown Manhattan, in the heart of New York City. The initial fireball. The warhead would probably be detonated slightly more than a mile above the city, to maximize the damage created by...

Humans may have exited out of Africa and arrived in Southeast Asia 20,000 years earlier than previously thought, a new study involving University of Queensland researchers suggests. Findings from the Macquarie University-led study also suggest humans could have potentially made the crossing to Australia even earlier than the accepted 60,000 to 65,000 years ago. Dr Gilbert Price of UQ School of Earth and Environmental Sciences said the dating of a cave site in West Sumatra, called Lida Ajer, provided first evidence for rainforest use of modern humans. "Rainforests aren't the easiest place to make a living, especially for a savannah-adapted...

When and how the first humans made their way to Australia has been an evolving story. While it is accepted that humans appeared in Africa some 200,000 years ago, scientists in recent years have placed the approximate date of human settlement in Australia further and further back in time, as part of ongoing questions about the timing, the routes and the means of migration out of Africa. Now, a team of researchers, including a faculty member and seven students from the University of Washington, has found and dated artifacts in northern Australia that indicate humans arrived there about 65,000 years...

Breaking news - car hits pedestrians near Logan Airport.

Robert Hazen's field -- mineralogy -- might seem like the most appropriate scientific specialty for studying what's happening below Earth's surface. But, he says, that job requires partnering with scientists from as many different disciplines as possible. Over more than two decades, NSF supported Hazen's research to address fundamental questions about what happens to minerals in hot, high-pressure environments as found in the deep interiors of Earth and other planets, and how minerals interact with the molecules of living beings. Now, Hazen is working in an area where NSF has also made significant investments: the study of "deep carbon," or...

Four people are feared dead after tsunami waves struck the coast of Greenland on Saturday night. A 4.1 magnitude earthquake, which struck 28 kilometres north of the northwest village of Nuugaatsiaq, is believed to have partially triggered the tsunami, according to a report from Kalaallit Nunaata Radioa, the national broadcaster in Greenland. The local newspaper, Sermitsiaq, reported that the four feared dead were inside their home in Nuugaatsiaq when waves struck and swept the structure into the ocean. KNR says Nuugaatsiaq has been evacuated, adding that the waves also struck the communities of Uummannaq and Illorsuit. A helicopter and boats...

Before a volcano erupts, there are usually signs of what’s to come; small earthquakes, heat emission, and ground swelling, to name a few, have all been observed to precede eruptions. Volcanologists also monitor the changing composition of gas emissions at volcanoes in the months leading up to an eruption. However, precursory variations in gas have not yet been verified to occur in volcanoes hosting active lava lakes. To find out if volcanic gas emissions might also be used to predict eruptions at lava lake–hosting, carbon-poor volcanoes, Aiuppa et al. looked at Chile’s Villarrica volcano. Villarrica towers 2847 meters over the...

June 6th, 1912 The morning of June 6th arrived on the Alaska peninsula to find the area which is now Katmai National Monument being shaken by numerous strong, shallow earthquakes. The most powerful volcanic eruption of the 20th Century was about to begin – but very few people knew about it. The Alaska peninsula has a low population density today, but in 1912 it was even lower. Beyond the land shaken by the earthquake activity, the beginnings of this event were almost unnoticed. On June 6th, 1912, a tremendous blast sent a large cloud of ash skyward, and the eruption...

An international team, including University of Southampton scientists, has found unusually high temperatures, greater than 100°C, close to Earth's surface in New Zealand -- a phenomenon typically only seen in volcanic areas such as Iceland or Yellowstone, USA. The researchers made the discovery while boring almost a kilometre into the Alpine Fault, the major tectonic boundary between the Australian and Pacific plates -running the length of the country's South Island. The team was working to better understand what happens at a tectonic plate boundary in the build-up to a large earthquake. The Deep Fault Drilling Project (DFDP) borehole, was drilled...

More than 90% of Earth's continental crust is made up of silica-rich minerals, such as feldspar and quartz. But where did this silica-enriched material come from? And could it provide a clue in the search for life on other planets? Conventional theory holds that all of the early Earth's crustal ingredients were formed by volcanic activity. Now, however, McGill University earth scientists Don Baker and Kassandra Sofonio have published a theory with a novel twist: some of the chemical components of this material settled onto Earth's early surface from the steamy atmosphere that prevailed at the time. First, a bit...

Research published today in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General has shown that learning to read by sounding out words (a teaching method known as phonics) has a dramatic impact on the accuracy of reading aloud and comprehension. There has been intense debate concerning how children should be taught to read. Researchers from Royal Holloway, University of London and the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit tested whether learning to read by sounding out words is more effective than focusing on whole-word meanings. In order to assess the effectiveness of using phonics the researchers trained adults to read in a...

Recovered minerals that originated in the deep mantle can give scientists a rare glimpse into the dynamic processes occurring deep inside of Earth and into the history of the planet's mantle layer. A team led by Yingwei Fei, a Carnegie experimental petrologist, and Cheng Xu, a field geologist from Peking University, has discovered that a rare sample of the mineral majorite originated at least 235 miles below Earth's surface. Their findings are published by Science Advances. Majorite is a type of garnet formed only at depths greater than 100 miles. Fascinatingly, the majorite sample Fei's team found in Northern China...

The oral history of the Heiltsuk Nation, an Aboriginal group based on the Central Coast of British Columbia, tells of a coastal strip of land that did not freeze during the ice age, making it a place of refuge for early inhabitants of the territory. As Roshini Nair reports for the CBC, a recent archaeological discovery attests to an ancient human presence in the area associated with the tradition. While digging on British Columbia’s Triquet Island, archaeologists unearthed a settlement that dates to the period of the last ice age. The archaeological team, supported by the Hakai Institute, sifted through...

The Australian Research Centre for Human Evolution (ARCHE) team, based in Griffith's Environmental Futures Research Institute, together with Indonesian colleagues, have shed new light on 'Ice Age' human culture and symbolism in a paper published today in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). The study was co-led by Associate Professor Adam Brumm, an Australian Research Council (ARC) Future Fellow, and Dr Michelle Langley, who also holds a fellowship from the ARC, analysed the recovered artefacts, and is the country's leading expert in the study of ancient ornaments and bone technology. "Scientists have long been curious about the cultural...

Lunar colonization isn’t mere science fiction anymore. Billionaires plan to send tourists on once-in-a-lifetime trips, and politicians say that they hope to colonize the Moon in the next few decades. There may even be ways for human colonists to harvest water from ice that may be permanently shadowed in certain caves. But where could a human colony actually live? The Moon has no atmosphere or magnetic field to shield it from solar radiation and micrometeorites that constantly rain onto its surface. That’s no environment for our squishy, earthling bodies. Scientists studying the Moon’s surface may have found the answer: shelter...