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Environmental Sciences - Earth Sciences - 1.02
Plant invasion triggered ice ages
They may have looked more like a green carpet than a forest but the first land plants really did change the world. New research led by scientists from Oxford University and Exeter University has shown that the invasion of the land by plants in the Ordovician Period (488-443 million years ago) cooled the climate and triggered a series of ice ages.

Environmental Sciences - Earth Sciences - 7.12.2011
Global sea surface temperature dataset provides new measure of climate sensitivity over the last half million years
Scientists at the Universities of Bristol and Southampton have developed important new insight into climate sensitivity - the sensitivity of global temperature to changes in the Earth's radiation balance - over the last half million years.

Earth Sciences - Medicine/Pharmacology - 11.10.2011
Acidic food and drink can damage teeth
Eating fruit such as apples could be up to four times more damaging to teeth than carbonated drinks, according to a new study led by Professor David Bartlett at the King's Dental Institute. Published in the Journal of Dentistry , the study looked at links between diet and tooth wear at several sites in the mouth, in more than 1,000 men and women aged 18 to 30.

Earth Sciences - Environmental Sciences - 25.09.2011
Plant Body Clock Observed in Tropical Forest Research
Predictions of the ground-level pollutant ozone will be more accurate in future according to research published today (25 September) by environment scientists at research centres including the University of Birmingham Geoscience.

Earth Sciences - History/Philosophy - 15.09.2011
Minerals from ocean-floor rocks found in ultra-deep diamonds
Mineral inclusions discovered in diamonds prove that surface rocks can be subducted into the deep part of the Earth's mantle. The isotopic composition of the diamonds confirms that recycling of crustal materials, including carbon, extends into the lower mantle.

Environmental Sciences - Earth Sciences - 9.09.2011
800,000 years of abrupt climate variability
An international team of scientists, led by Stephen Barker of Cardiff University, has produced a prediction of what climate records from Greenland might look like over the last 800,000 years. Drill cores taken from Greenland's vast ice sheets provided the first clue that Earth's climate is capable of very rapid transitions and have led to vigorous scientific investigation into the possible causes of abrupt climate change.

Earth Sciences - Medicine/Pharmacology - 19.07.2011
Ancient footprints show human-like walking began nearly four million years ago
Computer simulation was used to predict the footprints that would have been formed by the likely printmaker, a species called Australopithecus afarensis Scientists at the University of Liverpool have found that ancient footprints in Laetoli, Tanzania, show that human-like features of the feet and gait existed almost two million years earlier than previously thought.

Life Sciences - Earth Sciences - 6.07.2011
The rise and rise of the flying reptiles
Pterosaurs, flying reptiles from the time of the dinosaurs, were not driven to extinction by the birds, but in fact they continued to diversify and innovate for millions of years afterwards. A new study by Katy Prentice, done as part of her undergraduate degree (MSci in Palaeontology and Evolution) at the University of Bristol, shows that the pterosaurs evolved in a most unusual way, becoming more and more specialised through their 160 million years on Earth.

Physics/Astronomy - Earth Sciences - 15.06.2011
A step closer to solving one of the biggest mysteries in fundamental physics?
A step closer to solving one of the biggest mysteries in fundamental physics? Experts may be on the cusp of an important breakthrough in the study of neutrinos following the exciting results released today (15 June 2011) of an international T2K neutrino experiment in Japan involving the University of Sheffield.

Environmental Sciences - Earth Sciences - 3.06.2011
Frozen fjords found under Antarctic ice
Scientists have uncovered a landscape of deep fjords in Antarctica, carved by millions of years of ice movement. University researchers say the discovery, in a part of East Antarctica roughly the size of France, gives valuable insight into how the ice sheet formed.

Environmental Sciences - Earth Sciences - 25.05.2011
Experts quantify melting glaciers´ effect on ocean currents
Experts quantify melting glaciers´ effect on ocean currents A team of scientists from the University of Sheffield and Bangor University have used a computer climate model to study how freshwater entering the oceans at the end of the penultimate Ice Age 140,000 years ago affected the parts of the ocean currents that control climate.

Earth Sciences - Environmental Sciences - 3.05.2011
The sea dragons bounce back
The evolution of ichthyosaurs , important marine predators of the age of dinosaurs, was hit hard by a mass extinction event 200 million years ago, according to a new study from the University of Bristol.

Physics/Astronomy - Earth Sciences - 27.03.2011
From candy floss to rock: study provides new evidence about beginnings of the Solar System
The earliest rocks in our Solar System were more like candy floss than the hard rock that we know today, according to research published Geoscience. The work, by researchers from Imperial College London and other international institutions, provides the first geological evidence to support previous theories, based on computer models and lab experiments, about how the earliest rocks were formed.

Environmental Sciences - Earth Sciences - 16.02.2011
Insects hold atomic clues about the type of habitats in which they live
Researchers discover an ‘atmospheric imprint' in insects, revealing where they are most likely to survive should climate change alter their ecosystem. Scientists have discovered that insects contain atomic clues as to the habitats in which they are most able to survive.

Earth Sciences - 31.01.2011
Wealth of orchid varieties is down to busy bees and helpful fungi, says study
Wealth of orchid varieties is down to busy bees and helpful fungi, says study Orchids form intimate relationships with insect pollinators and underground fungi, which help them thrive and broaden their varieties Monday 31 January 2011 For immediate release Scientists have discovered why orchids are one of the most successful groups of flowering plants - it is all down to their relationships with the bees that pollinate them and the fungi that nourish them.