Search Results for: ocean

History of life on the Earth witnessed five mass extinctions of species as a result of natural calamities. Currently, biologists are talking more and more often about the sixth wave of extinction provoked in many respects by human beings. This opinion is shared by a Russian sea fauna diversity specialist A.V. Adrianov (Institute of Maritime Biology, Far-East Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences). Research in this area has been supported by the Far-East Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, CRDF,

That cardinal singing his heart out in your backyard has ancestors that left the neighborhood of Australia 45 million years ago. A comprehensive study of DNA from songbirds and their relatives shows that these birds, which account for almost half of all bird species, did not originate in Eurasia, as previously thought. Instead, their ancestors escaped from a relatively small area–Australasia (Australia, New Zealand and nearby islands) and New Guinea–about 45 million years ago and went on to popula

NASA will decommission the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) later this year. A highly successful scientific research mission, TRMM has provided data used worldwide in the monitoring and forecasting of hazardous weather on a demonstration basis. Originally intended to be a three-year mission when launched in 1997, TRMM is now in its seventh year of operation having completed all of its research and technology objectives four years ago. The extension of mission operations for nearly four add

An international team of scientists has completed the first comprehensive study of the ocean storage of carbon dioxide derived from human activity, called anthropogenic CO2, based on a decade-long survey of global ocean carbon distributions in the 1990s.

The findings, along with those detailed in a companion paper on the impacts of anthropogenic CO2 on the chemistry of the oceans and the potential response of marine animals and plants to changes in CO2 levels, will be published in the July

The gradual subduction of the Juan de Fuca plate beneath the North American plate puts tremendous stress on the seafloor, creating cracks and fissures, hydrothermal vents, seafloor spreading, and literally hundreds of small earthquakes on a near-daily basis.
Now a North American team of scientists has documented for the first time a new phenomenon – the creation of a void in the seafloor that draws in – rather than expels – surrounding seawater. They report their discovery in the July 15 issue

A drug derived from an ocean-growing sponge teams up to enhance the performance of the yew tree derivative Taxol® (paclitaxel) in preventing the growth of cancer cells, according to research published in the July 15 issue of the journal Cancer Research. Indeed, discodermolide, a novel drug isolated from the marine sponge Discodermia dissoluta, works with paclitaxel to thwart tumor cell growth–with several times the efficacy that either drug alone exerts on proliferating cancer cells.

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