Ancient Mass Extinction Linked to Volcanic Eruptions
	The mass extinction of the marine life nearly 93 million years ago would have been most likely determined by the lack of oxygen in the oceanic waters as an intense underwater volcanic activity was triggered, says a study co-authored by Steven Turgeon of the University of Alberta. For a long time volcanism was thought to have been the culprit of the catastrophe, although this is the first time researchers find direct evidence that magma coo ... [read more >>]
	17 July 2008, 10:29GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

The Ocean Floor Has Great Potential to Store Carbon Dioxide
	For the last two centuries or so people have been continuously emitting large quantities of carbon dioxide into Earth's atmosphere, a careless action currently considered the number one factor triggering the global warming phenomenon. The burning of fossil fuels isn't going to stop any time soon, which is likely to exacerbate the effects of climate change, but since we are so self-important, we are determined to do something so t ... [read more >>]
	16 July 2008, 05:45GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Astronomers Set Record for Smallest Found Exoplanet
	The newly discovered object, dubbed MOA-2007-BLG-192Lb, is a terrestrial planet roughly three times as heavy as Earth orbiting a star called MOA-2007-BLG-192L located about 3,000 light years away from us. The finding also marks the discovery of the smallest star to have a planet orbiting around it, since it only weighs an estimated 6 percent of the mass of the Sun, thus being unable to sustain nuclear fusion reaction in the core. [ADMAR ... [read more >>]
	03 June 2008, 03:32GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Google Earth Working on a 3D Ocean?
	It was only a matter of time until the Mountain View-based company started looking for new worlds to explore so, after reaching the earth and the sky, Google gets ready for the ocean. Elinor Mills of CNET reports that Google may be interested in developing a 3D version of the ocean which would be integrated into Google's downloadable tool, Google Earth. A few weeks ago, Google rolled out Google Earth 4.3 beta, a brand ne ... [read more >>]
	06 May 2008, 05:52GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Earth's Relentless Hum
	Ten years ago, researchers discovered that Earth gives off a constant humming sound, basically imperceptible to the human ear which cannot hear sounds with a frequency below 16 Hertz, and called it the Earth's hum. The sound continues to make itself heard to seismometers even when there is no seismic activity in the Earth's crust, however the source of this sound hasn't been identified even today. Some research ... [read more >>]
	17 April 2008, 08:08GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

El Niño and Human Life
	It is global warming at a smaller scale. When El Niño begins, the deserts of the Peruvian coasts are turned to lakes, but great floods, violent cyclones, severe droughts and harsh winters occur worldwide, triggering hunger, epidemics, huge wildfires, and damages on crops, goods and environment. The most affected zones are California, Canada, China, Indonesia, Pakistan, parts of Africa, Peru, Bolivia. El Niño is the warm oceanic current ... [read more >>]
	07 April 2008, 09:37GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Helio Officially Offers Opera Mini
	Opera, together with Helio, has just announced the first deployment of Opera Mini on a mobile service provider in the United States. As of today, Helio members can surf the Web with Opera Mini on their Ocean smartphone with a specially-tailored version of t ... [read more >>]
	21 March 2008, 06:54GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Namib Desert: The Tallest Dunes
	In the local Nama language, "Namib" means vast. Vastness, besides its age (20 million years), and the amount of precipitations (50 ml per year) define the Namib Desert (southwestern Africa). It stretches on a land stripe about 1,930 km (1,200 mi) long and 100-160 km (60-100 mi) wide, representing the coastal plain of Namibia and being one of the most arid and barren deserts on Earth. Several years can pass without a single rain d ... [read more >>]
	18 March 2008, 09:53GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Saturn's Tethys Had an Ocean
	What is now a massive ball of ice around Saturn, the moon Tethys had an ocean at some point in its past, say researchers at the University of California present at a major science conference in Houston. Tethys is only one of the 60 or so natural satellites orbiting around Saturn, has a medium size and an average density close to that of pure water ice in normal atmospheric conditions. The theory that it might have had an ocea ... [read more >>]
	15 March 2008, 08:12GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Cassini Takes a Plunge Over Enceladus
	In the outcome of previous observations showing that Saturn's moon Enceladus ejects matter out of the geysers on its surface, the Cassini spacecraft executed, on Wednesday, a fly-by through the water ice plume hovering above it. During the swing, Cassini took numerous pictures of the surface of the moon and made several measurements related to it characteristics, such as composition, density, speed, size and others. Alth ... [read more >>]
	14 March 2008, 05:42GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Giant Sea Spiders and Many Mysterious Creatures Detected Around Antarctic
	We are looking for new worlds on other planets, and we don't even know the worlds hosted by our own. A large array of giant mysterious creatures have been found by a recent two-month expedition in the freezing waters of Antarctica, including huge sea spiders and worms. The new specimens have been found inhabiting the Antarctic sea bed at depths of up to 6,500 ft (2,000 m). Gigantism is a common phenomenon for many abyssal animals (gia ... [read more >>]
	21 February 2008, 04:31GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

The Longest Journey: 647 Days and 12,774 Mi (20,558 Km), Made by the World's Largest Turtle!
	The longest migration previously known was that of the Arctic tern (Sterna paradisaea), which nests in the Arctic zone, in the tundra region, and winters in the Antarctica (when there is the Austral summer). Due to this 19,000 km (12,000 mi) journey, the bird sees two summers annually and more daylight than any other creature on the planet. But this is a child play compared to what the leatherback sea turtle is capable of doing: 12,774 ... [read more >>]
	30 January 2008, 05:47GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

10 Things You Did Not Know About Sea Shore
	1. The shore seems to be the edge of the continent, but that's not true: the continents continue under the sea, on a strip edging each continent, and called continental shelf. How much of the continental shelf is covered by the sea depends on how much ice is stocked in the Polar Ice. 2. Around 10,000 years ago, the polar ice caps were much larger and the sea level was much lower, so that Britain was united to Europe and Alaska to ... [read more >>]
	28 January 2008, 08:33GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

9 Things About Ocean Life
	1. Ocean life can go from the surface down to... 2.5 km (1.5 mi) under the ocean floor. That's the place where living bacteria were found! 2. At a depth of 5 m (16 ft), 50 % of the solar light is already absorbed. At a depth of 25 m (83 ft), just 3 % of the sunlight penetrates. 3. The base of the food chain is the ocean is made by plankton, microscopical algae and tiny animals feeding on them. The plants (phytoplankt ... [read more >>]
	23 January 2008, 14:06GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

How Does the Ocean Expand?
	The theory of the plate tectonics and continental drift was accepted in the '60s, when the proofs came from the ocean. Earth's external layer is called lithosphere. It is a rigid blanket with a thickness of about 100 km (62 mi). It includes both the oceanic platform and the continental crust, but also the upper part of the mantle, the layer located under the crust. Between the crust and the mantle, the Mohorovici (Moho) discontin ... [read more >>]
	23 January 2008, 14:06GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

8 Amazing Things About the Bottom of the Oceans
	1. You may believe that Mount Everest is the tallest in the world, with its 8,848 m (29,450 ft) in altitude. Yet, it was proven that the volcano Mauna Loa from Hawaii is taller by 2,300 m (7,660 ft), if we measure it from its base on the bottom of the ocean. 2. The mapping of the oceanic bottom revealed oceans are expanding. The Atlantic, for example, grows by 2.5 cm (1 in) annually in the area of its median dorsal. In other ... [read more >>]
	18 January 2008, 07:41GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Methane Gas Ocean Emissions Pose no Threat to Environment
	Methane gas escapes from ocean floor fossil deposits at a rate of about two hundred or more cubic meters every day, which poses some environmental concerns, as the methane gas is a greenhouse gas, which causes a global warming effect 23 times more accentuated than carbon dioxide would, during a century. About half of that quantity is being dissolved into the ocean water, however, the other half of the quantity is thought to escape into the ... [read more >>]
	21 December 2007, 08:40GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Great Ocean of Life Under Europa's Surface
	Jupiter's natural satellite Europa, is the only cosmic body in the solar system that might have an ocean of liquid water under its frozen surface, except for Earth. This represents a great opportunity for astrobiologists who believe that in the ocean life might be present, as diverse as in the oceans on Earth. However, there is a big problem: though it represents the biggest chance for finding life on another body, except for planet E ... [read more >>]
	14 December 2007, 03:04GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Carbon Sinks Absorb Half the Carbon Dioxide Made by Man
	Global warming has been in the scientists’ attention for some time now. It was first discovered at the end of the 19th century, from studies that showed that the average temperature of the soil was rising. The greenhouse effect that is thought to trigger global warming takes its name from the Greenhouse, as a to compare the temperature from the interior of the greenhouse to that of the exterior. The greenhouse effect works by ... [read more >>]
	03 November 2007, 04:53GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

The Best Perfume Coming From Vomit
	If we pay huge prices for perfumes coming from the anal glands of the musk deer and civet cat and coffee coming from the dung of civet cat, why should we be surprised by the fact that one the most expensive perfumes is actually vomit? Ambergris comes from the intestines of the sperm whales. It is actually a biliary secretion whose role has been puzzling the researches throughout time. Sperm whales feed exclusively on squids, t ... [read more >>]
	06 October 2007, 13:02GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

How Did the Arctic Ocean Emerge?
	It has been found that the frozen ocean of the North (for how long could it be still named so?) has its origins in ... a lake. 20 million years ago, what is now the Arctic Ocean was just a very large lake, whose fresh water flew southwards through a narrow strait into the Atlantic. But 18.2 million years ago, the tectonic plates started to move and the strait started to get larger. Slowly, during probably 750,000 years, salt water from ... [read more >>]
	22 June 2007, 09:19GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

The Kapok Connection: Africa and South America Were Once Joined
	The kapok tree is going to solve a mystery that has puzzled the biologists for a long time: the similarity between African and South American rainforests. The two continents split 130 millions years ago; still, their forests are too similar, and it seems that 96 million years ago, they were still exchanging flora. A team led by evolutionary ecologist Christopher Dick at the University of Michigan showed that kapok, and perhaps other ... [read more >>]
	18 June 2007, 05:32GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Mars Really Had Liquid Water!
	Mars is a frigid desert and has a thin atmosphere and surface features reminiscent both of the impact craters of the Moon and the volcanoes, valleys, deserts and polar ice caps of Earth. This week, a team of scientists discovered the most compelling evidence of liquid water on Mars. What happened to the lost oceans of Mars and Venus? So far, they don't exactly know, but they found evidence of an ancient ocean on the pla ... [read more >>]
	14 June 2007, 03:55GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

How To Live in Buildings That Dance in the Wind
	Are you getting tired of the same old view when you look out the windows of your apartment, or you just feel the need for a change in your life? No problem! Soon, with the push of a button you will be able to rotate your entire floor so that your apartment will get on another side of the building. This could be very useful, provided you reach an agreement with your floor neighbors. It's not just a fantasy anymore, as the rotati ... [read more >>]
	23 May 2007, 11:37GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

The Ocean, Overcome by the Man Dumped Carbon Dioxide
	Scientists put great hopes on the Ocean to ease the effects of dumping too much global warming producing carbon dioxide (CO2), by absorbing and storing it at great depths. These carbon sinks are crucial coping with the excess of CO2 from the atmosphere, as they slow down the greenhouse effect. This effect had been predicted by climate scientists and is taken into account - to some extent - by climate models. But new observations show a ... [read more >>]
	18 May 2007, 03:40GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Short Circuit in the Southern Ocean Circulation
	The waters of the Southern Ocean are cold, remote and difficult to study, posing many questions, still unanswered. A team led by Alberto Naveira Garabato of the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton has solved one issue: the researchers studied the ocean circulation in the current that flows around Antarctica by tracking down the path of helium emitted by underwater volcanoes. They have also found a 'short-circuit' in ... [read more >>]
	11 May 2007, 17:06GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Helio Introduces The Dual-Sliding Ocean
	Helio has recently introduced their latest handset, the Ocean, a 3G media and content powerhorse that delivers an interesting and convenient form factor as well as an impressive set of features. According to ... [read more >>]
	26 March 2007, 06:46GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia