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Over Half the Plant Species in Europe at Risk Because of Climate Change

Written by Everything Science

Apr 13, 2006 at 12:00 AM

Over half of all plant species in Europe are at serious risk because of climate change. This is the finding of an international team of scientists working on the ALARM project led by the Centre for Environmental Research in Leipzig-Halle (UFZ). Preliminary findings have recently been presented in connection with the UN Conference on Biological Diversity in Curitiba, Brazil.

Ranunculus glacialis photo: Uwe Lochstampfer www.botanikus.de

The situation is expected to become particularly dramatic at middle to high altitudes in mountainous areas. The mountain flora there is very specialised and would therefore be less able to adapt. As well as the Alps and Pyrenees, this primarily affects large stretches around the Mediterranean and in Eastern Europe. The loss of species diversity would be less severe in Scandinavia and along the Atlantic. The scientists assessed the impact of various climate forecasts on 1350 European plant species. The climate forecasts assume an increase in carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere to up to twice today’s values and a rise in the average temperature of up to 4 degrees by 2080.

ALARM is one of five research projects with a total budget of 60 million euros, which the EU delegation presented at a meeting of the Biodiversity Convention in mid March 2006. Dr. Josef Settele from the UFZ is a member of the delegation and in Curitiba he reported on the content and interim results of the ALARM research project which he coordinates. The project focuses in particular on four areas which are thought to play a role in the loss of biological diversity: climate change, the loss of pollinators like bees, bumblebees and butterflies, harmful substances present in the environment and the invasion of non-native animal and plant species. The scientists work in over 40 different research regions spread across the whole of Europe and South America. By the end of the project in 2009, the project initiators expect fundamental advances in knowledge – in particular because of the unparalleled scale and complexity of the investigations.

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Everything Earth Science

Written by Everything Science

Apr 06, 2006 at 12:00 AM

Climate researchers predict that the approximately 1,600 Norwegian glaciers could melt completely away in course of the next 100 years. This would mean that only 28 glaciers would remain in the country.

Glacier in Norway.

The background for this prediction comes from new calculations from the Norwegian climate programme RegClim. They have developed a new "long-term outlook" for Norway, in which they calculate that the average temperature in summer will rise by 2.3 degrees Celsius.

Researchers at The Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research at the University of Bergen have estimated the consequences of this for Norwegian glaciers. They have presented the results in the most recent edition of the Norwegian journal for climate research, Cicerone.

"It’s even more dramatic than we expected," says professor Atle Nesje.

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Everything Archaeology

Written by Everything Science

Apr 01, 2006 at 12:00 AM

New Discoveries Point to "Cave of John the Baptist" as Important Site in the Time of Isaiah Recently completed digging at Israel's Suba Cave, an archaeological site that is possibly connected with John the Baptist, or Jewish groups of his time has revealed features that deepen the mystery of the site's ancient origins, according to University of North Carolina at Charlotte archaeologist James D. Tabor, associate director of the excavation.

The interior of Suba Cave Credit: UNC Charlotte

The site was brought to international attention in 2004 with the publication of The Cave of John the Baptist, a controversial book by Israeli archaeologist Shimon Gibson, the site's director. The initial connection with John the Baptist was based on some of the earliest Christian drawings related to John on the cave walls as well as the location of the cave near Ein Kerem, John's birthplace. In particular, the most recent excavations point to the possible existence of a second, still unexcavated cave at the site, suggesting that the location may have been a major complex of uncertain function during the Iron Age

In the 2004 book, Gibson discussed discoveries from the cave and underground reservoir at Suba, 15 miles west of Jerusalem, focusing on the finding that it had seen particularly heavy use during the early Roman period, around the time of John the Baptist and Jesus. In particular, the discovery in 1st. Century AD stratigraphic levels of thousands of small pottery vessels, all apparently ritually broken, led Gibson to theorize that the cave had been a site for baptismal rituals, possibly performed by John the Baptist or Jesus, or other Jewish groups of a similar nature who practices ritual water purification rites. Towards the end of the cave excavation, Gibson also found evidence that the cave's large (24 meters long, 4 meters wide and 5 meters high) plastered reservoir had originally been constructed in the 7th Century BC, near the time of Isaiah. Because the massive cave had been professionally cut from solid rock, Gibson concluded that it must have been a project of the Kingdom of Judah. Because it was not conveniently located in an urban area (the nearest town was Suba, which was more than a kilometer away) and because it contained features that were inconsistent with a storage reservoir or cistern (its unusual shape and broad stairs descending to the water), Gibson theorized that part of its original function might have included ritual rites of water purification.

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Everything Physical Science

Written by Everything Science

Apr 01, 2006 at 12:00 AM

Physicists at Harvard University, George Mason University and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have discovered new quantum effects in ultracold gases that may lead to improved understanding of electrical conductivity in metals.

The image above represents the interference of wave patterns created by simulated atoms that have been "trapped" by intersecting laser beams. The complex shape of peaks and valleys is an example of a natural fractal pattern, a pattern that continues to reveal new details no matter how many times it is magnified. Credit: A.M. Rey/Harvard University

In work presented at the March meeting of the American Physical Society* in Baltimore, Md., the researchers calculated the properties of an "artificial crystal" of ultracold atoms in a lattice formed by intersecting laser beams. The wave patterns in the laser light form the equivalent of row upon row of stadium seating for the atoms, an appropriate analogy given that the work was debuted during the height of college basketball's "March Madness" tournament.

In metals like copper, two mutually exclusive types of effects tend to slow down the flow of electrons and reduce electrical conductivity, namely disorder in the crystal structure or blocking of electrons by other electrons that are already occupying a given space.

"In March Madness terms," says NIST physicist Charles Clark, "fans who arrive early to an empty stadium can move relatively quickly down any row unless they encounter a railing, wall or other barrier (crystal disorder) but once the game begins a fan's movements are constrained along rows by other fans already occupying seats (electron blocking)." Even though Phillip Anderson and Sir Neville Mott won the Nobel Prize in 1977 for explaining these phenomena in metals, it has been difficult to observe the effects in real materials.

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