Space is not empty. A wind of charged particles blows outwards from the Sun, carrying a magnetic field with it. Sometimes this solar wind can break through the Earth's magnetic field. Researchers at the Swedish Institute of Space Physics (IRF) in Uppsala now have an answer to one of the questions about how this actually occurs.
Earth
Trackways formed on an ancient seabed have shed new light on how nothosaurs, ancient marine reptiles that lived during the age of the dinosaurs, propelled themselves through water. The evidence is described by a team from Bristol and China in Nature Communications today.
During the Mesozoic, 252-66 million years ago, the seas were ruled by a variety of marine reptiles. One of the earliest groups were the nothosaurs, voracious semi-aquatic hunters with elongate bodies and paddle-like limbs. They were the top predators of the Triassic coasts, some 245 million years ago.
LIVERMORE, Calif. — Researchers at Sandia National Laboratories, along with collaborators from Rice University and the Tokyo Institute of Technology, are developing new terahertz detectors based on carbon nanotubes that could lead to significant improvements in medical imaging, airport passenger screening, food inspection and other applications.
Bipolar disorder (BD) is among the 10 most burdensome medical conditions, according to the World Health Organization. The disorder is known for its dramatic highs of extreme euphoria, racing thoughts and decreased need for sleep, as well as its profound lows of sadness and despair.
Because it is also associated with a heightened risk of suicide, substance abuse, hypersexuality, familial discord and aggressive behaviour, BD affects not just those suffering from it, but also those around them — especially their children.
Researchers from McGill and the U.S. Geological Survey, more used to measuring thawing permafrost than its expansion, have made a surprising discovery. There is new permafrost forming around Twelvemile Lake in the interior of Alaska. But they have also quickly concluded that, given the current rate of climate change, it won't last beyond the end of this century.
Geologists in the College of Arts and Sciences have discovered a new way to study oxygen levels in the Earth's oldest oceans.
Zunli Lu and Xiaoli Zhou, an assistant professor and Ph.D. student, respectively, in the Department of Earth Sciences, are part of an international team of researchers whose findings have been published by the journal Geology (Geological Society of America, 2014). Their research approach may have important implications for the study of marine ecology and global warming.
WASHINGTON D.C., June 10, 2014 – Magnetic cooling is a promising new refrigeration technology boasting several advantages – ranging from lower energy consumption to eliminating the use of hazardous fluids – that combine to make it a much more environmentally friendly option than today's standard fluid-compression form of refrigeration.
WASHINGTON D.C., June 10, 2014 – Ferroelectric materials like barium titanate, a ceramic used in capacitors, are essential to many electronic devices. Typical ferroelectric materials develop features called domain walls with unusual properties – such as lines of electrical conduction completely different from the surrounding material. These properties are technologically useful but poorly understood.
Fewer days for making maple syrup. Twenty-five years with more snow for skiing. Summer heat stress for dairy cows. These are a few of the forecasts from the Vermont Climate Assessment, the nation's first comprehensive state-level climate assessment, released on June 10.
PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Climate change is an issue of urgent international importance, but for 20 years, the international community has been unable to agree on a coordinated way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In a "Perspective" piece published in the June issue of Nature Climate Change, J. Timmons Roberts, the Ittleson Professor of Environmental Studies and Sociology, proposes a four-step compromise toward emissions reduction that offers "effectiveness, feasibility, and fairness."
The future face of modern-day anti-cancer therapy based on charged particles like protons could potentially involve using laser accelerators. However, these facilities will need to be reduced in terms of both size and cost compared to conventional ones. In the scientific journal, Applied Physics B, Dresden medical physicist Umar Masood is the first to present a new design for the entire complex machine – from the accelerator to the radiation site. In the process, he has successfully cut the facility's size in half.
Three leading environmental scientists from the UK have been invited to talk about the state of the world's oceans to an audience including US Secretary of State John Kerry at an ocean summit in Washington. They are amongst less than thirty scientists from around the world who will be providing hard–hitting messages about the need for closer cooperation to overcome the challenges facing our oceans.
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EAST LANSING, Mich. — Helping farmers around the globe apply more-precise amounts of nitrogen-based fertilizer can help combat climate change.
In a new study published in this week's Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Michigan State University researchers provide an improved prediction of nitrogen fertilizer's contribution to greenhouse gas emissions from agricultural fields.
AUSTIN, Texas — Thwaites Glacier, the large, rapidly changing outlet of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, is not only being eroded by the ocean, it's being melted from below by geothermal heat, researchers at the Institute for Geophysics at The University of Texas at Austin (UTIG) report in the current edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The findings significantly change the understanding of conditions beneath the West Antarctic Ice Sheet where accurate information has previously been unobtainable.