ScienceDaily: Top Science News

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• Earth's magnetic field could flip within a human lifetime
• Dinosaur breathing study shows that noses enhanced smelling and cooled brain
• Rediscovering Venus to find faraway Earths: Measuring gravitational pull of a planet should speed search
• NASA study finds 1934 had worst North American drought of last thousand years
• NASA mission provides its first look at Martian upper atmosphere
• Electric vehicle technology packs more punch in smaller package
• Earliest-known lamprey larva fossils unearthed in Inner Mongolia
• Scientists create new protein-based material with some nerve
• Is matter falling into the massive black hole at the center of the Milky Way or being ejected from it?
• Rising sea levels of 1.8 meters in worst-case scenario, researchers calculate
• Some sections of the San Andreas Fault system in San Francisco Bay Area are locked, overdue

Earth's magnetic field could flip within a human lifetime Posted: 14 Oct 2014 02:08 PM PDT Earth's last magnetic reversal took place 786,000 years ago and happened very quickly, in less than 100 years -- roughly a human lifetime. The rapid flip, much faster than the thousands of years most geologists thought, comes as new measurements show the planet's magnetic field is weakening 10 times faster than normal and could drop to zero in a few thousand years.

Dinosaur breathing study shows that noses enhanced smelling and cooled brain Posted: 14 Oct 2014 02:08 PM PDT It's been millions of years since T. rex took its last breath, but a team led by Ohio University scientists is breathing life back into dinosaurs using high-powered computer simulations to model airflow through dinosaur snouts. The research has important implications for how dinosaurs used their noses to not only breathe but to enhance the sense of smell and cool their brains.

Rediscovering Venus to find faraway Earths: Measuring gravitational pull of a planet should speed search Posted: 14 Oct 2014 12:25 PM PDT As the search for Earth-like planets wages on, a team of researchers may have found a way to speed up the process. The team is developing a new laser-based technology known as the green astro-comb to obtain information about the mass of a distant planet. Using this information, astronomers will be able to determine whether distant exoplanets are rocky worlds like Earth or less dense gas giants like Jupiter.

NASA study finds 1934 had worst North American drought of last thousand years Posted: 14 Oct 2014 12:07 PM PDT A new study using a reconstruction of North American drought history over the last 1,000 years found that the drought of 1934 was the driest and most widespread of the last millennium. Using a tree-ring-based drought record from the years 1000 to 2005 and modern records, scientists found the 1934 drought was 30 percent more severe than the runner-up drought (in 1580) and extended across 71.6 percent of western North America.

NASA mission provides its first look at Martian upper atmosphere Posted: 14 Oct 2014 12:03 PM PDT NASA's Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) spacecraft has provided scientists their first look at a storm of energetic solar particles at Mars, produced unprecedented ultraviolet images of the tenuous oxygen, hydrogen, and carbon coronas surrounding the Red Planet, and yielded a comprehensive map of highly variable ozone in the atmosphere underlying the coronas.

Electric vehicle technology packs more punch in smaller package Posted: 14 Oct 2014 11:23 AM PDT Using 3-D printing and novel semiconductors, researchers have created a power inverter that could make electric vehicles lighter, more powerful and more efficient.

Earliest-known lamprey larva fossils unearthed in Inner Mongolia Posted: 14 Oct 2014 09:40 AM PDT Few people devote time to pondering the ancient origins of the eel-like lamprey, yet the evolutionary saga of the bloodsucker holds essential clues to the biological roots of humanity. Scientists now have a description of fossilized lamprey larvae that date back to the Lower Cretaceous -- at least 125 million years ago. They're the oldest identified fossils displaying the creature in stages of pre-metamorphosis and metamorphosis.

Scientists create new protein-based material with some nerve Posted: 14 Oct 2014 09:39 AM PDT Scientists have taken proteins from nerve cells and used them to create a 'smart' material that is extremely sensitive to its environment. The work could lead to new types of biological sensors, flow valves and controlled drug release systems, they report.

Is matter falling into the massive black hole at the center of the Milky Way or being ejected from it? Posted: 14 Oct 2014 08:47 AM PDT Is matter falling into the massive black hole at the center of the Milky Way or being ejected from it? No one knows for sure, but astrophysicists are searching for an answer.

Rising sea levels of 1.8 meters in worst-case scenario, researchers calculate Posted: 14 Oct 2014 05:59 AM PDT The climate is getting warmer, the ice sheets are melting and sea levels are rising -- but how much? The report of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2013 was based on the best available estimates of future sea levels, but the panel was not able to come up with an upper limit for sea level rise within this century. Now researchers have calculated the risk for a worst-case scenario. The results indicate that at worst, the sea level would rise a maximum of 1.8 meters.

Some sections of the San Andreas Fault system in San Francisco Bay Area are locked, overdue Posted: 13 Oct 2014 04:06 PM PDT Four urban sections of the San Andreas Fault system in Northern California have stored enough energy to produce major earthquakes, according to a new study that measures fault creep. Three fault sections -- Hayward, Rodgers Creek and Green Valley -- are nearing or past their average recurrence interval, according to the new study.

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