Earth

AUSTIN, Texas — Researchers at The University of Texas at Austin have devised a new method for enriching a group of the world's most expensive chemical commodities, stable isotopes, which are vital to medical imaging and nuclear power, as reported this week in the journal Nature Physics. For many isotopes, the new method is cheaper than existing methods. For others, it is more environmentally friendly.

In quantum physics, momentum and position are an example of conjugate variables. This means they are connected by Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, which says that both quantities cannot be simultaneously measured precisely. Recently, researchers have been developing novel techniques, such as "weak measurement," to measure both at the same time. Now University of Rochester physicists have shown that a technique called compressive sensing also offers a way to measure both variables at the same time, without violating the Uncertainty Principle.

WASHINGTON – Although planning for Everglades restoration projects has advanced considerably over the past two years, financial, procedural, and policy constraints have impeded project implementation, says a new congressionally mandated report from the National Research Council. Timely authorization, adequate funding levels, and creative policy and implementation strategies are needed to achieve restoration benefits and to expedite implementation of the Central Everglades Planning Project.

New research published today (Friday 27th June 2014) in the journal Nature Scientific Reports has provided a major new theory on the cause of the ice age that covered large parts of the Northern Hemisphere 2.6 million years ago.

The study, co-authored by Dr Thomas Stevens, from the Department of Geography at Royal Holloway, University of London, found a previously unknown mechanism by which the joining of North and South America changed the salinity of the Pacific Ocean and caused major ice sheet growth across the Northern Hemisphere.

Methane is a simple molecule consisting of just one carbon atom bound to four hydrogen atoms. But that simplicity belies the complex role the molecule plays on Earth—it is an important greenhouse gas, is chemically active in the atmosphere, is used in many ecosystems as a kind of metabolic currency, and is the main component of natural gas, which is an energy source.

Geologists have discovered three previously unrecorded volcanoes in volcanically active southeast Australia.

The new Monash University research, published in the Australian Journal of Earth Sciences, gives a detailed picture of an area of volcanic centres already known to geologists in the region.

Covering an area of 19,000 square kilometres in Victoria and South Australia, with over 400 volcanoes, the Newer Volcanics Province (NVP) features the youngest volcanoes in Australia including Mount Schank and Mount Gambier.

By combining advanced mathematics with high-performance computing, scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and Indiana University (IU) have developed a tool that allowed them to calculate a fundamental property of most atoms on the periodic table to historic accuracy—reducing error by a factor of a thousand in many cases. The technique also could be used to determine a host of other atomic properties important in fields like nuclear medicine and astrophysics.*