Washington, September 27 (ANI): A new study has looked at the hypothetical scenario of what legacy humans will leave in the rocks 100 million years hence.

Conducted by Jan Zalasiewicz, a lecturer in geology at the University of Leicester, UK, the study takes the perspective of alien explorers arriving on earth - their geologists study the layers of rock, using the many clues to piece together its history over several billion years. Zalasiewicz' research unravels the story of moving and changing continents, rising and falling oceans, ice ages, and evidence of life going back many millions of years.

In the story, the alien explorers grow familiar with its phases of change, the rise of great new ecosystems, and occasional catastrophic collapses of life.

But then, they stumble on something quite different in a thin layer of rock: a striking signal of climate changes, extinctions and strange movements of wildlife across the planet.

Following this trail, decoding clues in the rocks takes them to the petrified remains of cities, and finally to the fossilized bones of those, long dead, who built them.

According to Dr Zalasiewicz, "From the perspective of 100 million years in the future - a geologist's view - the reign of humans on Earth would seem very short. We would almost certainly have died out long before then.

"What footprint will we leave in the rocks? What would have become of our great cities, our roads and tunnels, our cars, our plastic cups in the far distant future? What fossils would we leave behind?" he said.

"My study shows how scientists put together clues from the rocks to understand the past, its landscapes and climate, and the nature of the creatures that inhabited it. A thin layer of silt here, a trace formed by a crawling worm there - the clues are often subtle and difficult to read," said Dr Zalasiewicz.

"My study explores which of our structures are likely to leave traces, and what future explorers might make of us and the impact we made on our environment," he explained.

"Looking to the distant future gives us a warning for the present: our activities have already left a significant footprint on the planet, and not a flattering one. It is not too late to limit it," he added. (ANI)

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Washington, Sept 27 (ANI): A University of Missouri team, led by an Indian origin researcher, has devised a new eco-friendly method to create gold nanoparticles without any negative environmental impact, which is otherwise associated with their production.

Kattesh Katti, professor of radiology and physics in MU's School of Medicine and College of Arts and Science, has also been recognized by rt Image magazine as one of the 25 most influential people in radiology, and his research team have formed Greennano Company, a company that is in the beginning stages of producing environmentally friendly gold nanoparticles.

Gold nanoparticles are used in cancer treatments, automobile sensors, cell phones, blood sugar monitors and hydrogen gas production.

But, since a long time, scientists faced problems in creating the nanoparticles without producing synthetic chemicals that had negative impacts on the environment.

But, the new method, not only eliminates any negative environmental impact, but also has resulted in national and international recognition for the lead scientist.

"I have always believed that nature is smarter and stronger than humankind. This new procedure to create nanoparticles is wonderfully simple, yet it will help create very complex components. There is so much to learn from energy generation, chemical and photochemical reactions of plants," said Kattesh Katti, professor of radiology and physics in MU's School of Medicine and College of Arts and Science.

The Greennano Company will focus on the development, commercialization and worldwide supply of gold nanoparticles for medical and technological applications.

Katti believes that because of this new process to produce the nanoparticles, researchers are developing other ways to use them.

The researchers found that by submersing gold salts in water and then adding soybeans, gold nanoparticles were generated. The water pulls a phytochemical out of the soybean that is effective in reducing the gold to nanoparticles. A second phytochemical from the soybean, also pulled out by the water, interacts with the nanoparticles to stabilize them and keep them from fusing with the particles nearby.

This process creates nanoparticles that are uniform in size in a 100-percent green process. Without the generation of any toxic waste.

"I'm very proud to be one among the list of '25 Most Influential Scientists' in the world, especially in the company of all time greats and former awardees including: Elias Zerhouni, director of National Institutes of Health (2003); Henry N. Wagner Jr., recognized as the Father of Nuclear Medicine (2004); Henry D. Royal, Peter S. Conti, past presidents of the Society of Nuclear Medicine; and Barry B. Goldberg, pioneer of ultrasound (2007)," said Katti.

He added: "This recognition is a tremendous honor and brings a large amount of prestige to our research group, the Departments of Radiology and Physics, the MU Research Reactor Center and the overall research and education enterprise of our University."

The research was published recently in the journal Small. (ANI)

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London, September 27 (ANI): An international team of researchers has suggested that planets orbiting the sun's stellar siblings might have planted the seeds of life on Earth.

According to a report in New Scientist, most of the stars in the Milky Way got their start in clouds of dust and gas that eventually formed clusters of stars.

If our Sun started life in such a scenario, the cluster would most likely have drifted apart after a few hundred million of years.

But that might have been enough time for life to travel between the rocky debris surrounding each nascent star, according to a study led by astronomer Mauri Valtonen at the Turku University in Finland.

Rock-smashing experiments have suggested that microbes could certainly survive a massive crash that sandwiches them in debris and jettisons them into space.

A recent study by Edward Belbruno and colleagues at Princeton University showed that planets in densely packed star clusters could throw out as many as 1018 rocks in the first 100 million years or so, at speeds slow enough for other stars to capture them.

The new research suggests that microbes from other planetary systems, if they existed, could very well have hitched a ride in such rocks - as long as the rocks were large enough to protect the organisms from cosmic rays and the heat of impact.

According to the researchers, if the Sun was born in a cluster, there would have been time for around 100 life-bearing rocks to be captured by our star before the cluster drifted apart, thus transporting the microbes to Earth.

Valtonen's result means we might improve our chances of finding something similar to terrestrial life if we can track down the Sun's former siblings.

Finding such stars may be possible with the European Space Agency's Gaia telescope, set to launch in 2011.

The orbiting satellite will measure the proper motion of roughly a billion stars. That should allow astronomers to backtrack the star's positions to where they sat billions of years ago. (ANI)

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Washington, September 27 (ANI): NASA and the U.S. Chess Federation (USCF) are teaming up to host the first public chess match between International Space Station astronaut Greg Chamitoff and the inhabitants of the Earth, beginning Monday, September 29.

Key players in the game will be the kindergarten through third grade U.S. Chess Championship Team and its chess club teammates from Stevenson Elementary School in Bellevue, Washington.

The K-3 champions will select up to four possible moves on Earth's turn. The public then will vote on the move transmitted to orbit.

"For the past 10 years, the International Space Station has been an important platform to learn about living in space. We're excited to have the opportunity to engage not only young students, but the public at large in this unique chess match," said Heather Rarick, lead flight director for the current space station mission at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston.

"We hope the excitement and interest this game generates will inspire students to become interested in chess," said USCF Executive Director Bill Hall. "Chess is a valuable tool to lead students to become interested in math and to develop critical thinking skills, objectives we focus on in our work with schools nationwide," he added.

Chamitoff, a space station flight engineer speeding about 210 miles above the Earth at five miles a second, is a chess aficionado. He brought a chess set with him when he arrived at the complex on the STS-124 space shuttle mission in June.

Chamitoff has added Velcro to the chess pieces to keep them from floating away in weightlessness. e has been playing long-distance chess during his mission in his off time with station control centers around the world.

So far, he is undefeated.

The game against the public will move at a pace of one move per day on weekdays only. Play may be slower, however, because Chamitoff only makes moves when his workload permits. (ANI)

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