(Santa Barbara, Calif.) –– Physicists at UC Santa Barbara have made an important advance in quantum mechanics using a superconducting electrical circuit. The finding is reported in this week's issue of the journal Nature.
Earth
The most comprehensive picture of the rapidly thinning glaciers along the coastline of both the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets has been created using satellite lasers. The findings are an important step forward in the quest to make more accurate predictions for future sea level rise.
(Santa Barbara, Calif.) –– New approaches are needed to help humanity deal with climate change and other global environmental threats that lie ahead in the 21st century, according to a group of 28 internationally renowned scientists.
Durham, NC – Can we predict which species will be most vulnerable to climate change by studying how they responded in the past? A new study of flowering plants provides a clue. An analysis of more than 5000 plant species reveals that woody plants — such as trees and shrubs — adapted to past climate change much more slowly than herbaceous plants did. If the past is any indicator of the future, woody plants may have a harder time than other plants keeping pace with global warming, researchers say.
The American chestnut was a dominant species in eastern U.S.'s forests before a blight wiped it out in the early 1900s. Today it's being returned to the landscape thanks in part to work by a University of Tennessee Forestry alumna and the UT Tree Improvement Program (UT TIP).
CLEMSON — In a new study, Clemson University researchers have concluded that the number of hurricanes and tropical storms in the Atlantic Basin is increasing, but there is no evidence that their individual strengths are any greater than storms of the past or that the chances of a U.S. strike are up.
Robert Lund, professor of mathematical sciences at Clemson, along with colleagues Michael Robbins and Colin Gallagher of Clemson and QiQi Lu of Mississippi State University, studied changes in the tropical cycle record in the North Atlantic between 1851 and 2008.
After decades of debate and four years of investigation an international body of earth scientists has formally agreed to move the boundary dates for the prehistoric Quaternary age by 800,000 years, reports the Journal of Quaternary Science.
The decision has been made by the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS), the authority for geological science which has acted to end decades of controversy by formally declaring when the Quaternary Period, which covers both the ice age and moment early man first started to use tools, began.
Nuclear magnetic moment is one of the most important physical observables. The precise measurement of nuclear magnetic moment and its understanding in microscopic way are quite a challenge in nuclear physics. The research team at Peking University, who has dedicated to the study of nuclear structure and astrophysics for the last decades, has applied the configuration-fixed deformation constrained RMF approach with time-odd component to investigate the ground-state properties of 33Mg and reproduce the data self-consistently without introducing any parameter.
By merging more than a decade of atmospheric data from European satellites, scientists have compiled a homogeneous long-term ozone record that allows them to monitor total ozone trends on a global scale – and the findings look promising.
Scientists merged monthly total ozone data derived from the vertically downward-looking measurements of the GOME instrument on ESA's ERS-2 satellite, SCIAMACHY on ESA's Envisat and GOME-2 on the European Meteorological Satellite Organization's MetOp-A.
Scientists have found the "Rosetta Stone" of supervolcanoes, those giant pockmarks in the Earth's surface produced by rare and massive explosive eruptions that rank among nature's most violent events. The eruptions produce devastation on a regional scale — and possibly trigger climatic and environmental effects at a global scale.
A Tiny, Tunable Well of Light
A new study led by the University of Colorado at Boulder indicates most of the world's low-lying river deltas are sinking from human activity, making them increasingly vulnerable to flooding from rivers and ocean storms and putting tens of millions of people at risk.
The drug-delivery system, developed by Einstein scientists, consists of nanoparticles – each smaller than a grain of pollen – that can carry tiny payloads of various drugs or other medically useful substances and release them in a controlled and sustained manner.
The limited number of topical formulations of ED drugs has so far proven ineffective. This study was done to evaluate whether the Einstein nanoparticles, which have been shown to penetrate the skin, might allow the targeted delivery of compounds that treat ED and thereby avoid the drugs' systemic effects.
University of Hawaii at Manoa assistant researcher Durrell Kapan recently published a paper, Man Bites Mosquito: Understanding the Contribution of Human Movement to Vector-Borne Disease Dynamics, in PLoS One. Published August 26, the paper highlights how daily commuting patterns in mega-cities may be a critically overlooked factor in understanding the resurgence of mosquito-borne diseases such as dengue fever, infecting 50-100 million people annually.
Predicting harmful algal blooms, or HABs, in the Great Lakes is now a reality as NOAA announces an experimental HAB forecast system in Lake Erie. HABs produce toxins that may pose a significant risk to human and animal health through water recreation and may form scum that are unsightly and odorous to beach visitors, impacting the coastal economy. Forecasts depicting current and future locations of blooms, as well as intensity, will alert scientists and managers to possible threats to the Great Lakes beaches and assist in mitigation efforts.