For all the vastness of the universe, its real work occurs at the scale of elementary particles - subatomic entities with names like proton, positron, quark and baryon. These are the stuff of matter and the known universe. Yet these particles are so incredibly tiny that they are essentially invisible. Indeed, it has been only in the last several decades that technologies emerged to prove they existed at all. Among those technologies is the bubble ... [full story]

NEWPORT – A team of Oregon State University researchers has returned from Antarctica, where they retrieved an array of sensitive hydrophones they are using to listen for clues to the unique seismology, ice field movements and biology of the region. Their preliminary findings suggest that this remote region in the Bransfield Strait is much more seismically active than scientists previously thought and its ongoing earthquakes – in proximity to massive ice fields – create an ... [full story]

Jessica Hellmann discusses climate change, butterflies, March 27 at the Oregon Zoo PORTLAND - Global warming is "an inconvenient truth" for plants and animals as well as people: A rapidly changing climate has already forced at least 279 species to move closer to the poles. Other species have been driven to extinction by their inability to adapt. Jessica Hellmann, assistant professor of biological sciences at Notre Dame University, discusses the effects of climate change on ... [full story]

GREENBELT, Md. - Researchers from NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), Golden, Colo., have woven together more than a thousand images from the Landsat 7 satellite to create the most detailed, high-resolution map ever produced of Antarctica. The Landsat Image Mosaic of Antarctica (LIMA) offers views of the coldest continent on Earth in 10 times greater detail than previously possible. "These images give us incredibly detailed views of the Antarctic ice sheet surface and ... [full story]

Sci­en­tists were star­tled to find in 2004 that the cen­ter of our gal­axy is emit­ting gam­ma rays, the highest-en­er­gy form of light. Now as­t­ro­phys­i­cists say they’ve dis­cov­ered what might pro­duce these. A black hole be­lieved to lurk in that place, they pro­pose, could be a cos­mic form of par­t­i­cle ac­cel­er­a­tor—a ma­chine built to smash sub­a­to­mic par­t­i­cles to­geth­er in or­der to un­der­stand their com­po­nents.The black hole, ac­cord­ing to this view, would rev up par­t­i­cles known as ... [full story]

An Oregon Health & Science University researcher believes the discovery of a gene cluster from a bacterium that protects a moss-like marine invertebrate from predators may be the first step toward engineering cancer-fighting drugs.Margo Haygood, Ph.D., professor of environmental and biomolecular systems at OHSU's OGI School of Science & Engineering, has detailed her research team's discovery of the large gene cluster in a bacterium that protects the larvae of the bushy marine bryozoan Bugula neritina.The ... [full story]

Emmett Chappelle, retired research scientist from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md., has been named one of 16 inductees for 2007 into the National Inventors Hall of Fame. The honorees will be inducted during ceremonies May 4-5, in Akron, Ohio. The National Inventors Hall of Fame was founded in 1973. The recognition honors innovators who have changed society and improved the way we live. Chappelle was chosen for his work with Lyophilized Reaction Mixtures. ... [full story]

The International Space Station's Expedition 14 crew continued work this week on scientific experiments, station maintenance and clean up following a Feb. 22 Russian spacewalk.An altitude reboost engine firing planned for Friday was postponed following the launch delay of Space Shuttle Atlantis earlier this week. The STS-117 mission was targeted for liftoff on March 15. The shuttle mission was put on hold following a hail storm Monday. The storm caused damage requiring repair to the ... [full story]

Once upon an epoch, the forces of natural selection were pretty easy to spot: the lurking lion, the poisonous fruit, the deadly chill or prolonged drought. Early humans who recognized these dangers - who survived by being smarter, faster, stronger or simply luckier - lived long enough to reproduce. Over millions of years, they perpetuated a species that became, in many ways, even smarter, faster and stronger. To be sure, it's not so easy to ... [full story]

ELECTRON INK More Than Monarchs www.morethanmonarchs.org This Web site provides a platform for villagers, community leaders, government officials and others to debate the environmental issues facing Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve in central Mexico. TRUE FACTS - Charles Darwin was an authority on earthworms, which he studied assiduously for many years, even going so far as to calculate the number of worms in his garden. CNS Photo. WHERE IN THE WORLD - The 'island' of Bermuda ... [full story]

CORVALLIS, Ore. – A new study suggests that the iron-rich winter runoff from Pacific Northwest streams and rivers, combined with the wide continental shelf, form a potent mechanism for fertilizing the nearshore Pacific Ocean, leading to robust phytoplankton production and fisheries. The study, by three Oregon State University oceanographers, was just published by the American Geophysical Union in its journal, Geophysical Research Letters. West coast scientists have observed that ocean chlorophyll levels, phytoplankton production and ... [full story]

A type of co­los­sal cos­mic ex­plo­sion could beam le­thal ra­di­a­tion across a ga­laxy, fry­ing any life forms in its path, a new anal­y­sis has found.The blasts are thought to oc­cur rare­ly in our Milky Way gal­axy, but more of­ten in those where stars are born and die more fre­quent­ly. These in­clude ar­eas where as­tro­no­mers hope to find Earth-like plan­ets ripe for life. In a 1995 stu­dy, Steve Thor­sett of Prince­ton Uni­ver­si­ty in Prince­ton, N.J. cal­cu­lat­ed ... [full story]

CORVALLIS – A one-month delay in the annual spring “upwelling” of the California current in 2005 provided scientists with a sneak preview of what conditions may be like if global climate change models prove accurate. And those results, published this week online by the Proceedings of the National Academy, include numerous anomalies affecting West Coast marine ecosystems. Though the scientists stop short of saying the upwelling delay and its associated impacts were caused by global ... [full story]