Search Results for: ocean

Ecologists know that when it comes to habitats, size matters, and now a new study finds that contrary to earlier beliefs, that maxim holds true right down to the tiny plants at the bottom of many oceanic and freshwater food chains.

The study, conducted by University of Florida, University of Kansas and University of Texas researchers, is important because it shows that tiny microbes follow the same diversity patterns as larger organisms, said Robert D. Holt, a UF professor of zoolog

Researchers have long suspected that fertilizer runoff from big farms can trigger sudden explosions of marine algae capable of disrupting ocean ecosystems and even producing “dead zones” in the sea. Now a new study by Stanford University scientists presents the first direct evidence linking large-scale coastal farming to massive algal blooms in the sea.

Writing in the March 10 issue of the journal Nature, the authors conclude that some highly productive regions of the ocean are mu

New NSF plane will go higher and farther on environment studies

A new aircraft with exceptional research capabilities is scheduled to arrive at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Colo., this Friday. Known as HIAPER (High-performance Instrumented Airborne Platform for Environmental Research), the $81.5 million aircraft will serve the environmental research needs of the National Science Foundation, (NSF), NCAR’s primary sponsor and owner of the aircraft, for t

Two centuries ago, it took Lewis and Clark three years to cross half of North America. It’s taking Michigan Technological University’s Russell Alger and his teammates only a little longer to blaze a trail to the South Pole.

Of course, Antarctica poses special challenges. Ninety-eight percent of the continent is buried under thousands of feet of ice. And it doesn’t help that the trail builders can only work for a few weeks during the summer and have to start over again every year f

Students from Duke University’s Pratt School of Engineering are partnering with Carnegie Mellon University’s “Red Team” in an effort to win a $2 million prize from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). All they have to do is complete the toughest ground course ever devised for a self-guided robotic vehicle.

The contest, called the DARPA Grand Challenge, is a race between fully self-guided ground vehicles to be conducted in the Southwestern United States on Oct. 8,

The engineers who built the massive external fuel tank that will power the shuttle Discovery into orbit this spring used sophisticated X-ray detectors developed by UF researchers to reduce the chance of a defect in the foam insulation covering the tank. The detectors, first invented as a new technology to find land mines, can identify tiny gaps, or air-filled voids, in the insulating foam without causing any damage. It is believed that such a gap – possibly located between the foam and the ta