Humans And Climate Both Contributed To Large Ice-Age Mammal Extinction
Climate change and humans were responsible for extinction of the woolly mammoth and other large ice-age mammals, according to an international group of scientists. (more)
Still Life
Lady Lions win Big Ten championship
THON 2012 breaks $10 million
THON 2012 going strong
THON 2012 under way
Rube Goldberg Competition: Feb. 11, 2012
We ... are Penn State (December 19, 2011)
Penn State's creamery, from the cow to the cone
Researchers use balloons to unlock mysteries posed by dying stars
Everyday virus proves potent against cancer cells.
Earth and Environment
Environment Canada cuts threaten science, international agreements
Recent cuts to the scientific workforce of Environment Canada, a government agency responsible for meteorological services and environmental research, threaten scientific research related to the ozone layer in the upper atmosphere and pollution in the lower atmosphere, according to environmental scientists in the U.S. These reductions in personnel and projected budget cuts also threaten existing international agreements. (more)
Integrated weed management best response to herbicide resistance
Over-reliance on glyphosate-type herbicides for weed control on U.S. farms has created a dramatic increase in the number of genetically-resistant weeds, according to a team of agricultural researchers, who say the solution lies in an integrated weed management program. "I'm deeply concerned when I see figures that herbicide use could double in the next decade," said David Mortensen, professor of weed ecology at Penn State. Since the mid-1990s, agricultural seed companies developed and marketed seeds that were genetically modified to resist herbicides such as Roundup -- glyphosate -- as a more flexible way to manage weeds, Mortensen said. About 95 percent of the current soybean crop is modified by inserting herbicide-resistant genes into the plants. (more)
Tree rings may underestimate climate response to volcanic eruptions
Some climate cooling caused by past volcanic eruptions may not be evident in tree-ring reconstructions of temperature change, because large enough temperature drops lead to greatly shortened or even absent growing seasons, according to climate researchers who compared tree-ring temperature reconstructions with model simulations of past temperature changes. (more)
Hardy bacteria help make case for life in the extreme
The bottom of a glacier is not the most hospitable place on Earth, but at least two types of bacteria happily live there, according to researchers. The bacteria -- Chryseobacterium and Paenisporosarcina -- showed signs of respiration in ice made in the laboratory that was designed to simulate as closely as possible the temperatures and nutrient content found at the bottom of Arctic and Antarctic glaciers, said Corien Bakermans, assistant professor of microbiology, Penn State Altoona. She said that carbon dioxide levels in the laboratory-made ice containing the bacteria, which were collected from glaciers in Greenland and Antarctica, indicated that respiration was occurring at temperatures ranging from negative 27 to positive 24 degrees Fahrenheit. (more)
Climate balancing: sea-level rise vs. surface temperature change rates
Engineering our way out of global climate warming may not be as easy as simply reducing the incoming solar energy, according to a team of University of Bristol and Penn State climate scientists. Designing the approach to control both sea level rise and rates of surface air temperature changes requires a balancing act to accommodate the diverging needs of different locations. "Basic physics and past observations suggest that reducing the net influx of solar energy will cool the Earth," said Peter J. Irvine, graduate student, University of Bristol, UK, and participant in the Worldwide Universities Network Research Mobility Programme to Penn State. "However, surface air temperatures would respond much more quickly and sea levels will respond much more slowly." (more)
Probing Question: Are invasive plants always a threat?
"A relatively small percentage of introduced species are truly problematic and a threat to native biodiversity," says Tomas A. Carlo, Penn State assistant professor of biology. "Most introduced species become 'naturalized' and fully integrated into their new communities." (more)
Disease-causing fungi prevalent in sink drains, study finds
A study examining the prevalence of the fungus Fusarium in bathroom sink drains suggests that plumbing systems may be a common source of human infections. In the first extensive survey of its kind, researchers in Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences sampled nearly 500 sink drains from 131 buildings -- businesses, homes, university dormitories and public facilities -- in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida and California. They analyzed fungal DNA to compare the spectrum of Fusarium species and sequence types found in drains with those recovered from human infections. (more)
Satellite images of nighttime lights help track disease outbreaks
Satellite images of nighttime lights, which normally are used to detect population centers, also can help keep tabs on diseases in developing nations, according to new research. An international research team that includes Matthew Ferrari, an assistant professor of biology at Penn State, found that the new technique accurately indicates fluctuations in population density -- and thus the corresponding risk of epidemic -- that can elude current methods of monitoring outbreaks. The research, reported in the current issue of the journal Science, is expected to help medical professionals to synchronize vaccination strategies with increases in population density. (more)
Rise of atmospheric oxygen more complicated than previously thought
The appearance of oxygen in the Earth's atmosphere probably did not occur as a single event, but as a long series of starts and stops, according to an international team of researchers who investigated rock cores from the FAR DEEP project.
The Fennoscandia Arctic Russia - Drilling Early Earth Project (FAR DEEP) took place during the summer of 2007 near Murmansk in the northwest region of Russia. The project, part of the International Continental Scientific Drilling Program, drilled a series of shallow, two-inch diameter cores and, by overlapping them, created a record representing stone deposited during the Proterozoic Eon -- 2,500 million to 542 million years ago. (more)