SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

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The Posidonia species or Neptune grass forms metre-high reefs in the Mediterranean. These seagrasses store an amount of carbon corresponding to 90% of the carbon dioxide emitted by the Mediterranean countries since the Industrial Revolution. (Photo: Enrique Ballesteros) Eelgrass is the most important seagrass in Danish waters. The plants can form thick meadows that are not only nurseries for fish fry, but are also storehouses for nutrients and an efficient safeguard against coastal erosion. A new study now shows that they also bury significant amounts of carbon in the sea bed. (Photo: Peter Bondo Christensen) (Photo: Peter Bondo Christensen)

2012.05.22 | Nature and technology, Environment, climate and energy, Science and Technology, Public / media, Department of Bioscience

New research reveals that seagrasses efficiently store carbon in the sea bed

Seagrasses cover less than 0.2% of the sea bed, but they are responsible for more than 10% of the total storage of carbon in the oceans. This is one of the reasons that it is crucially important to maintain seagrass meadows in the oceans.

Photo: Lars Kruse, AU Communication

2012.05.17 | Public / media, iNANO, Science and Technology

Water speeds up hydrogen

Scientists have succeeded for the first time in observing how water affects hydrogen on surfaces. Water significantly speeds up the chemical processes that hydrogen is involved in – a discovery that can benefit a number of industries working with nanotechnology. The scientists responsible for the study include researchers at the Interdisciplinary…

Hans Røy opens a core sample of mud from the last ice age during an expedition in Danish waters. Microbiologists borrow not only geology’s timescale, but also its methods when they are studying and measuring the peculiar life that is found in the age-old material on the sea bed. Photo: Bo Barker Jørgensen. The year is 2009 and on board the research vessel <i>RV Knorr</i>, researchers are studying six positions along the equator. On this stretch, the ocean’s physics, chemistry and biology are dominated by currents along the equator, and the stations therefore resemble each other. However, when they sail in a north-westerly direction and into the subtropical North Pacific Gyre, they experience a change in oxygen penetration that cannot be explained by the low primary productivity here. Where oxygen previously penetrated 9 centimetres into the sediment, it now penetrates to a depth of 30 metres and, back on land, researchers have to find an explanation of what controls the deep oxygen penetration and what it reveals about life down there. Sediments were deposited on the sea bed under the Pacific Ocean millions of years ago when the dinosaurs still roamed the land. The clay is actually from the same period as this rock – petrified excrement that is 140 million years old and was recently declared a natural object (<i>danekræ</i>) that belongs to the State of Denmark. In the sea bed, however, microorganisms still get nutrition from the clay, and thus live on the absolute minimum for existence. Photo: Sten Lennart Jakobsen, Natural History Museum of Denmark.

2012.05.20 | Faculty, Subject knowledge, Target groups

Life in absolute slow motion

New research shows there is still life in clay that is 86 million years old, and the explanation is extremely low metabolism. The results challenge our conception of the limits for life.

Events

Fri 25 May
18:00-19:00 | Science and Technology
Fourth quarter ends
Fri 08 Jun
16:00-18:00 |
Summer celebration at Science and Technology – for staff
The festivities consist of a joint afternoon event with short popular science lectures on the latest research from across the main academic area, served with coffee, Danish marzipan cake and champagne. Following the joint event, there will be evening celebrations at the departments and centres
Wed 22 Aug
08:00-09:00 | Science and Technology
Commencement of studies for new students
Comments on content: 
Christina Troelsen

Revised 2012.05.15

New times at au.dk/en

The university’s website is being redesigned. The design and content will therefore change, and you may experience for a while that old and new sections are mixed together, and that the content is not in its usual place.

We hope that the new website will make up for any inconvenience, and that you will enjoy greater coherence throughout and find the website simpler to use.

Why are we making a mess?

In the time ahead, you will notice a mixture of old and new designs in the pages on the website.

In spring 2011, Aarhus University’s nine main academic areas were reduced to four, and the fifty-five departments became twenty-six. This was to unify the organisation and to strengthen the university’s interdisciplinary approach. We are now following suit by restructuring the entire website to ensure more coherence in the content and design.

Such an exercise takes time – and we hope you will bear with us!

Take a short cut

Under the HOT KEY at the top right, you can find links to the most frequently used content on the website, as well as the two new universes for staff and students.

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Use the new mega dropdowns to get an overview of the website’s content. They open when you run your mouse over the navigation at the top.

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