Geologists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) say the massive, 8.8-magnitude earthquake that struck Chile last week occurred in an offshore zone that was under increased stress caused by a 1960 magnitude 9.5 earthquake.

 Some 300-500 times more powerful than the magnitude 7.0 quake in Haiti Jan. 12,  the earthquake ruptured at the boundary between the Nazca and South American tectonic plates. The temblor was triggered when the "subducting" Nazca plate was thrust under the South American plate, uplifting a large patch of the seafloor and prompting tsunami warnings throughout the Pacific Ocean. The two plates are converging at a rate of 80 mm per year, says WHOI geologist Jian Lin, "which is one of the fastest rates on Earth."

Researchers analyzing mitochondrial DNA extracted from a polar bear fossil discovered in Norway in 2004 say the species is relatively young, splitting off from brown bears approximately 150,000 years ago and rapidly evolving during the late Pleistocene. The findings are published in the Proceedings of The National Academy of Sciences

"Very few polar bear fossils have been found, leading to widely varying estimates of exactly when and how polar bears evolved," explains Øystein Wiig, polar bear expert and co-author at the University of Oslo's Natural History Museum. "Because polar bears live on the ice, their dead remains fall to the bottom of the ocean or get scavenged. They don't get deposited in the sediments like other mammals."

Climate Change Debate Ends In Global Accord


I would so love to see that headline for real; wouldn't you?


I can just imagine some of the big names on both sides of the debate coming together for a meeting in a Berlin beer cellar, perhaps the famous Kuhfurz Klimakeller.  After a few beers, a heated debate and a modicum of fisticuffs they conclude their cordial get-together with a joint news release.  The news release spells out the scientific points on which both sides are agreed.  It is issued at 03:00 am local time.  It is picked up rapidly by the British hapless haploid tabloids and misreported at 05:00 gmt to an eagerly awaiting world:

MEDIEVAL MEDICINE

Green jobs—great. But gray jobs, maybe an even better bet.

If there is a single graphic that everyone concerned with the nation’s future should have tattooed on their eyeballs, my vote goes to this one:



Here is its central message: Forty years from now, one out of four Americans will be 65 or older.

Twenty million will be over 85.

One million will be over 100.

IPCC Seeks Independent Review Committee For 5th Report



The IPCC has started work on the preparation of its Fifth Assessment Report (AR5). 

They are currently looking for experts who can act as authors: http://www.ipcc.ch/


The IPCC is also seeking to establish an independent review committee:

While embarking on the preparation of its Fifth Assessment Report it was the intention of the IPCC that an independent committee of distinguished experts evaluate means by which IPCC procedures must be implemented fully and that they should also examine any changes in procedure that may be required.

Glacier Sticks Out Tongue - Scientists Say Aaaah!


Ice tongues are a fascinating area of study.
They have much to teach us about the life cycles of glaciers.

The CDF collaboration has recently released new results from a search for what is probably the clearest signature of Higgs boson decay: pairs of high-mass photon candidates. I am very glad to see this new analysis out for publication, since so far only DZERO, CDF's competitor at the Tevatron, had produced results on this particular final state.

“Is religion a science?” This may seem an odd question with which to start, but this is the very first question Aquinas asks in his monumental Summa Theologica. “Among the philosophical sciences one is speculative the other practical [natural philosophy], nevertheless sacred doctrine [Roman Catholicism] includes both; as God, by one and the same science, knows both Himself and His works.” For Aquinas, not only is theology both a speculative and natural philosophy but it is also superior to both, in as much as it is guided by divine knowledge, which cannot be misled, and has as its end ultimate bliss, towards which all other sciences strive too.