Futurity.org » University of Texas at Austin

Jersey-sized ice basin at risk of collapse

Marc Airhart-Texas — Fri, 11 May 2012 15:05:31 +0000

U. TEXAS-AUSTIN (US) — Scientists have uncovered a sub-glacial basin about the size of New Jersey under the West Antarctic Ice Sheet by using ice-penetrating radar instruments flown on aircraft.

The location, shape, and texture of the mile-deep basin suggest that this region of the ice sheet, near the Weddell Sea, is at a greater risk of collapse than previously thought.

Team members at the University of Texas at Austin compared data about the newly discovered basin to data they previously collected from other parts of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) that also appear highly vulnerable, including Pine Island Glacier and Thwaites Glacier.

Plants spring up sooner in warming climate

Sonia Fernandez-UCSB — Tue, 08 May 2012 15:47:49 +0000

UC SANTA BARBARA (US) — Plants may be reacting to climate change more than we think, and the uncertainty could leave us ill-prepared for the future effects of global warming, say scientists.

The team’s findings are published in the early online edition of the journal Nature.

“This suggests that predicted ecosystem changes—including continuing advances in the start of spring across much of the globe—may be far greater than current estimates based on data from experiments,” says the paper’s first author Elizabeth Wolkovich, an ecologist at the University of British Columbia, who led the study at the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS) at University of California, Santa Barbara.

Mastodons, humans were Florida neighbors

Danielle Torrent-Florida — Mon, 07 May 2012 14:12:08 +0000

U. FLORIDA (US) — During the last ice age 13,000 years ago, modern humans in North America lived alongside large, now extinct mammals, including mammoths, mastodons, and giant sloths.

A new study published online in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology addresses the century-long debate about whether human and mammal remains found at Vero Beach in the early 1900s date to the same time period.

Faster beasts evolve with larger eyeballs

Michelle Bryant-U. Texas — Thu, 03 May 2012 17:41:50 +0000

U. TEXAS-AUSTIN (US) — After body size, a mammal’s running speed is the most important influence on the size of its eyes.

Species with larger eyes usually have higher visual acuity, says Chris Kirk, associate professor in the department of anthropology at the University of Texas at Austin. But what are the ecological factors that cause some mammals to develop larger eyes than others?

At charter schools, more black teens drop out

Kay Randall-U. Texas — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 20:12:38 +0000

U. TEXAS-AUSTIN (US) — Despite being promoted as a viable alternative, charter schools in Texas have a higher attrition rate for black students than comparable urban public schools.

New research shows that, although many privately operated charter schools claim that 90 percent or more of their students go on to college and many, such as the Houston-based KIPP chain of schools, spend 30-60 percent more per pupil than comparable urban school districts, more black students drop out and leave charter schools.

Size of seed depends on mom

Lee Clippard-Texas — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 17:44:08 +0000

U. TEXAS-AUSTIN (US) — Seed size is controlled by small RNA molecules inherited from a plant’s mother, a discovery that has implications for agriculture and understanding plant evolution.

“Crop seeds provide nearly 70 to 80 percent of calories and 60 to 70 percent of all proteins consumed by the human population,” says Z. Jeff Chen, professor of plant molecular genetics at the University of Texas at Austin. “Seed production is obviously very important for agriculture and plant evolution.”

Teachers may doubt girls’ skills in math

Kay Randall-U. Texas — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 14:26:01 +0000

U. TEXAS-AUSTIN (US) — High school math teachers’ perceptions of their female students’ abilities may be skewed by bias.

The study, from the University of Texas at Austin, finds that high school math teachers tend to rate white girls’ math abilities lower than those of their white male peers, even when their grades and test scores are comparable.

The findings are published in the April issue of the journal Gender & Society.

Antarctic ice shelves tearing apart, satellite shows

Marc Airhart-Texas — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 16:31:47 +0000

U. TEXAS-AUSTIN (US) — An analysis of 40 years of satellite imagery shows the floating ice shelves of a critical portion of West Antarctica are tearing apart at the seams.

The ice shelves are steadily losing their grip on adjacent bay walls, potentially amplifying an already accelerating loss of ice to the sea.

Four-winged dino lured mates with long tail

Marc Airhart-Texas — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 14:59:01 +0000

U. TEXAS-AUSTIN (US) — Microraptor, a four-winged dinosaur, had an iridescent sheen and a narrow tail adorned with streamer feathers.

The new fossil specimen of Microraptor, a pigeon-sized dinosaur that lived about 120 million years ago, is the earliest record of iridescent color in feathers.

For pennies, origami sensor may detect HIV, malaria

Daniel Oppenheimer-U. Texas — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 14:18:12 +0000

U. TEXAS-AUSTIN (US) — Inspired by the paper-folding art of origami, a new 3-D sensor is designed to detect diseases for less than 10 cents a pop.

Such low-cost, “point-of-care” sensors could be useful in the developing world, where the resources often don’t exist to pay for lab-based tests, and where, even if the money is available, the infrastructure often doesn’t exist to transport biological samples to the lab.