In the new GSA BULLETIN, Matteo Maggi and colleagues from Italy and Brazil present a new model of the development of fractures showing a stairway trajectory, commonly occurring in finely laminated rock, such microbialites and travertines.

These fractures strongly enhance permeability by connecting several highly porous zones enveloped in tight impermeable levels. Understanding and predicting this fracture pattern geometry, distribution, and interconnection is valuable not only for locating water supplies, but also for oil, gas, and geothermal exploration.

Seafloor sediment cores reveal abrupt, extensive loss of oxygen in the ocean when ice sheets melted roughly 10,000-17,000 years ago, according to a study from the University of California, Davis. The findings provide insight into similar changes observed in the ocean today.

In the study, published in the journal PLOS ONE, researchers analyzed marine sediment cores from different world regions to document the extent to which low oxygen zones in the ocean have expanded in the past, due to climate change.

From the subarctic Pacific to the Chilean margins, they found evidence of extreme oxygen loss stretching from the upper ocean to about 3,000 meters deep. In some oceanic regions, such loss took place over a time period of 100 years or less.

Some babies seem to have a genetic predisposition to a higher risk of being born too soon, according to a paper being presented Thursday at the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine's annual meeting in San Diego.

The study Birth found that variants in the fetus's DNA - not the mother's - may be what triggers some early births. 

Red galaxies may be 'dying' young because they have prematurely ejected the gas they need to make new stars.  There are two main types of galaxies; 'blue' galaxies that are still actively making new stars and 'red' galaxies that have stopped growing. Most galaxies transition slowly as they run out of raw materials needed for growth over billions of years but a pilot study looking at galaxies that die young has found some might shoot out this gas early on, causing them to redden and kick the bucket prematurely.

Swedish studies show that mice that receive a supplement of the "appetite hormone" ghrelin increase their sexual activity. Whether the hormone has the same impact on humans is unknown - but if it does, the researchers may have found the key to future treatments for sex abuse.

Ghrelin is a gastrointestinal hormone that is released from the stomach, and is involved in the stimulation of our appetite by activating the brain's reward system.

Since the brain's reward system also motivates us to seek a partner and to have sex, a group of researchers at the Sahlgrenska Academy decided to investigate whether ghrelin may also affect sexual behaviors.

Confirmed effect

The answer is: yes, at least in mice.

Globe Conservation Horizon Scanning, which involves collaboration of the worldwide conservation community, focuses on identifying potential environmental problems across the planet that have not yet been noticed by society as a whole. This scanning of the environmental horizons has been conducted every year since 2010.

Although scientific findings and reports are issued - in English - based on these global scans, the limited proportion of the worldwide populace that has advanced English reading skills limits the readership of these materials. Less than one fifth of the world population speaks English; even less can read English.