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Stories about: sand


Navajo Testimonies Confirm USGS Climate Science

A group of investigators from the United States Geological Survey (USGS) was recently able to confirm a number of information they had collected of dune migrations on Navajo Nation lands.USGS geologist Dr. Margaret Hiza has been studying these migration patterns for decades. She explains that she conducted interview...

24 October 2011
03:12 GMT

Special Sand May Enable Better Water Purification

Creating water purification methods to aid the people of the Third World is a goal for many universities, but some experts have more interesting ideas than others. A group recently proposed using special, coated sand for purifying water. The science team, based at the Rice University, says that nanotechnology is prov...

23 June 2011
05:12 GMT

Envisat Images Sand and Phytoplankton Blooms Off Africa

One of the most prolific satellites in orbit managed to snap a new image of a portion of the planet containing a piece of North Africa and Western Europe. The view shows huge clouds of sand being channeled over the Atlantic, while the others are in full bloom from phytoplankton.The latter are microorganisms that repr...

15 April 2011
09:45 GMT

Rust and Sand Detect Lethal Diseases

A team of scientists in Vietnam has discovered that the next big step in medical diagnostics could be magnetic nanoparticles of rust, iron oxide, coated with silicon dioxide, the material from which sand is formed.These nanoparticles are ranged from 29nm to 230 nm across, and can be used to attach antibodies to the v...

31 January 2011
10:30 GMT

Asteroid Lutetia Is Covered in Sand

According to recent observations made by a deep-space probe, it would appear that the asteroid Lutetia may be covered by a layer of dust that is up to half a mile thick.A potential manned mission to the space rock would need to be conducted with astronauts outfitted with snowshoes, which should prevent them from gett...

6 October 2010
16:01 GMT

Experts to Track Down Dust in New Study

A team of investigators from the University of Alabama in Huntsville announced that it will be engaging in a three-year research effort, which will focused on tracking down more than 770 million tons of sand and dust as the stuff is blown off the Sahara Desert. Scientists know that the dust is spread throughout the a...

17 September 2010
05:31 GMT

Model Predicts How Sand and Oil Interact

Since 2005, a group of researchers and undergraduates at the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA) have been conducting investigations into how sand and oil interact. With only modest funding, the team has been performing hands-on experiments on how the sludge moves on a sloped angle, using mathematical mode...

29 July 2010
04:33 GMT

Sand Flows May Have Created Martian Gullies

For the past 11 years, ever since the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft sent back images of the mid-latitude regions of the Red Planet, astronomers have been obsessed with the gully-like features they noticed in the datasets. The landscape features resembled their Earth-based counterparts significantly, and so experts ...

4 May 2010
09:10 GMT

Dinosaur Fossil Created by Sand Dune Collapse

According to the results of a new scientific study, a sand dune collapse that took place some 185 million years ago may have been the principal factor behind a dinosaur fossil recovered from Utah. Researchers hypothesize in a recently-published study that a large amount of the stuff collapsed at one point, hitting a ...

24 March 2010
04:59 GMT

Martian Sand Dunes May Be Migrating

A new series of observations from Martian orbit have brought up another one of the Red Planet's mysteries. Scientists have noticed that, at some locations, sand dunes are actively moving under the influence of strong winds, constantly changing their location. Conversely, at other locations, the same dunes have r...

5 March 2010
06:54 GMT

Northern Mars Reveals Thick Layers of Buried Ice

Once scientists discovered that the poles of the Red Planet were covered in buried ice caps, they set out to find out whether the precious ice could be found anywhere else as well. They conducted an extensive mapping campaign of northern Mars' middle latitudes, using radars that could peer below the sand cover. ...

3 March 2010
15:01 GMT

Sand Grains Shaped Mars' Dunes

Some of the most commonly known features on Mars are the planet's hills, which appear to have been shaped by winds. Astronomers and geologists argue had argued for a long time that this was the case, but it later on became obvious that atmospheric models and on-site rover measurements did not support this idea. ...

11 February 2010
06:43 GMT

Sand Dunes Reveal New Spider Species

One of the largest spiders of its class was recently discovered in Israel, by a team of biologists based at the University of Haifa-Oranim. Dubbed Cerbalus aravensis, the new arachnid is mostly nocturnal, and becomes most active in the hottest months of the year, for a reason still unknown to researchers. The creatur...

12 January 2010
04:00 GMT

How Skinks 'Swim' Through Sand

In spite of being so common it's becoming annoying at times, sand is one of the most peculiar states of matter on the planet. While it may indeed not show, the stuff is able to behave like both a solid and a liquid at the same time, an ability that has made many physicists puzzle over which one of the two sands ...

10 November 2009
10:59 GMT

Large-Scale River Model Shows What Sand Can Do

Scientists at the University of California in Berkeley (UCB) have managed to construct and sustain a large-scale, meandering river model in the laboratory, analyzing the most important factors that keep a flowing water healthy in the long run. Surprisingly, their reverse-engineering study has shown that sand is of th...

30 September 2009
08:48 GMT

The Real Reason Why Mars Is Red

Many experts currently consider that Mars' reddish hue is owed to rusted rocks, which were subjected to the action of the water that once covered the planet. This idea has been proposed and debated for a long time, but recent laboratory studies are beginning to infirm it, some experts say. The investigations hav...

18 September 2009
08:47 GMT

New Explanation for Titan's Sand Dunes

The linear dunes that have been observed on the surface of Saturn's largest moon, Titan, have made astronomers wonder how they came to be since day one. A number of theories on their formation was proposed, some with no merit, and others that actually stand to reason even now. To these ideas, Louisiana State Uni...

26 August 2009
08:43 GMT

6,000-Mile Wall to Contain Sahara Proposed

Engineers have recently unveiled a plan that a few years back might have seemed like a joke – to build a wall to mark the spread of the Sahara desert, so that the dunes stop spreading over yet-unaffected ground. The problem appears all over the Saharan borders, as fields and families are being displaced by the ...

24 July 2009
10:58 GMT

Despite Being Buried in Sand, Spirit Does Science

The Spirit Martian rover is rising up to its name, NASA has announced recently. Despite being stuck up to its hubcaps in loose soil, the robot continues to do relevant science, taking pictures of its surroundings, and also of Troy, the patch of Earth that trapped it on May 6th. While engineers at the Jet Propulsion L...

26 June 2009
04:22 GMT

Fifth State of Matter Probably Found in Sand

Sand is, perhaps, the single best material in the world. Millions of people live in it, and billions others interact with it as children or during holiday. And it's in this seemingly common, uninteresting, and sometimes deadly material that physicists believe they may have discovered hints about the fifth state ...

25 June 2009
03:56 GMT

Spirit Replica Struggles to Get Out of Sandbox

With Spirit trapped in loose Martian soil since May 6th, engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in Pasadena, California, are working around the clock to mimic the conditions of the Mars Exploration Rover (MER) in their test facilities. Spirit and Opportunity are not the only MER components, as mission pl...

10 June 2009
13:21 GMT

Spirit Takes Pictures of Its Underside

After becoming stuck in the loose Martian soil of the Troy region, NASA's Mars Exploration Rover (MER) Spirit has recently taken its first pictures of its underside, in a move that has been simulated back on Earth, and with its twin robot Opportunity as well. At this point, researchers have no clue as to how the...

5 June 2009
03:37 GMT

Mars Has Its Own Wrinkles

The latest images sent by the Martian human-made explorers and orbiters show, in more detail, how the sand ripples scar the planet's surface in some regions, which allows scientists to build up on their existing theories related to their formation, or to come up with entirely new ones. Yet, as we lack more accur...

6 November 2008
06:38 GMT

Corals Hate Sand

Latest scientific discoveries point to the fact that coral reefs and sand are "allergic" to each other, in that they can't survive together. This is especially true for the coral reefs, which, once sand gets in their midst, die and cannot regenerate even after long periods of time. The find is essential in under...

15 October 2008
10:57 GMT

Questions to How Martian Sand Dunes Form Still Open

It is almost unbelievable that Mars, having barely any atmosphere, is able to create sand storms so powerful that they are visible from the surface of our planet. During these storms sand is being lifted high into the Red Planet's atmosphere and dropped only to stir up other dust particles present of the surface...

29 April 2008
10:55 GMT

Too Much Time on the Beach Can Ruin Your Stomach

You can't wait for that dream holiday when you just lay on the beach and catch sun. But watch out: too much wet sand or swimming in the sea can harm your stomach. A team at the University of Florida has discovered that by spending more time on the wet sand or in the water you increase the chances of getting germ...

4 February 2008
05:32 GMT

Have You Ever Seen a ...Pink Beach?

You know that sand comes in colors of yellow, white, or gray. Sometimes, if it's volcanic, also black. But what about a pink sand beach?As incredible as it may seem, they do exist. Harbour Island (Bahamas) is most renowned for its pale pink sand beaches, some over 3 miles (5 km) long and 50 to 100 feet (15 to 30...

14 September 2007
14:06 GMT

How to Play Beach Volley

Born on the Californian beaches of Santa Monica and becoming an Olympic Game in 1996, the beach volley is a mixture between a good dose of strength, stamina and intuition. This is by excellence the summer sport, linked to the sand and sun. Moreover, many beaches have a net for playing this sport. It is played in pair...

3 September 2007
16:06 GMT

Why Are Granular Materials Solids Yet Moving Like Liquids?

Granular materials are widely found both in nature and in industrial applications and although we use them every day, theoretical physicists and manufacturers are still puzzled by their weird behavior. Although they are solid, they refuse to comply to the laws of physics that govern the movement of solids and they d...

24 July 2007
06:34 GMT

Scientists Divided Sand, Will the Red Sea Be Next?

Although they did not find out how Moses could separate the water of the Red Sea, they were able to do the same with a mass of sand grains, in an experiment which proves that no outside force is necessary to make identical molecules part.Scientists at the Rutgers University, New Jersey, proved that two identical pop...

13 July 2007
06:33 GMT

High Atmospheric Pressure on Sandy Planets Could Make Lander Modules Sink Like a Rock

Landing at high enough speeds on sandy planets could sink the landing module deep in the sand layer, just like a rock diving into a pool. This is the conclusion of a new study that considered the problem of sand on other planets and how that could affect future manned missions to the Moon and Mars.Both Mars and the M...

4 July 2007
10:59 GMT

Mars Express Sent Pictures of Unexplained Linear Features in a Tectonic Area on the Red Planet

Mars Express sent back some interesting pictures of the Aeolis Mensae region on Mars, lying on a tectonic transition zone. The High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) on board the space probe took snapshots of the wind-eroded features, like incised valleys and unexplained linear features.This region on the surface of M...

28 June 2007
10:24 GMT

The Driest Place on Earth: the Atacama Desert

The Atacama Desert is located in northern Chile and reaches a small part of southern Peru (South America), climbing up to 3,200 m (10,670 ft) altitude on an area of 181,300 square km (72,500 square mi). It spreads like a rather narrow stretch between the Pacific Ocean and the Andes mountains over a distance of 960 km...

23 May 2007
11:33 GMT

Mystery of Mars' Sand Dunes Solved

A long-standing mystery about Mars' sand dunes may have just been sold by scientists. The strange thing about the dunes is that they look as if they were created by winds, but there are no winds on the surface of Mars.Discovered in 1971 in pictures taken from space, above the surface, they look very similar to ...

16 May 2007
05:01 GMT


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