Academic Minute (WAMC in Albany, NY), July 18, 2012 Featuring: Joe MacGregor
Carbon & Geobiology News Archive
Researchers from Harvard University, The University of Texas at Austin and elsewhere have found evidence that the evolution of birds is the result of a drastic change in how dinosaurs developed. Scientists have long understood that modern birds descended from dinosaurs. Rather than take years to reach sexual maturity, as many dinosaurs did, birds sped…
A team of American and Chinese researchers has revealed the detailed feather pattern and color of Microraptor, a pigeon-sized, four-winged dinosaur that lived about 120 million years ago. A new specimen shows the dinosaur had a glossy iridescent sheen and that its tail was narrow and adorned with a pair of streamer feathers, suggesting the…
The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded The University of Texas at Austin and six other universities $3 million to establish the Delta Dynamics Collaboratory (DDC), a network of researchers working to build a comprehensive set of computer models that can reliably predict the physical and ecological evolution of river deltas. Deltas, which host highly…
A team of scientists announced the first evidence of feather color in Archaeopteryx, a feathered dinosaur that has also long been considered one of the earliest birds. The first fossil remains, consisting of a single feather, were discovered in 1861. It’s this single feather that was analyzed using a technique developed by Jakob Vinther, a…
Scientists from the U.S., U.K. and Australia have used ice-penetrating radar to create the first high- resolution topographic map of one of the last uncharted regions of Earth, the Aurora Subglacial Basin, an immense ice-buried lowland in East Antarctica larger than Texas. The map reveals some of the largest fjords or ice cut channels on…
A report from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and The University of Texas at Austin urges the U.S. to accelerate efforts to pursue carbon capture and storage (CCS) in combination with enhanced oil recovery (EOR), a practice that could increase domestic oil production while significantly curbing emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2). For decades the oil…
Mammals first evolved their characteristic large brains to enable a stronger sense of smell, according to a new study published this week in the journal Science by paleontologists from The University of Texas at Austin, Carnegie Museum of Natural History and St. Mary’s University in San Antonio. This latest study is the first to use CT…
When Peter Flaig returned home from Antarctica, he found it pretty amusing that the city of Austin was shut down by an inch of snow, a little bit of ice, and low temperatures in the 20s. The university was closed, as were public schools and many businesses and government agencies. But in what can be…
Researchers at The University of Texas at Austin and colleagues will use a three-year, $1.5 million grant from NASA to develop computer models to study how changes in climate and land use affect watersheds and coastal ecosystems, seeking to improve understanding of the Texas coast, including dead zones that form in the Gulf of Mexico….
