Washington, D.C.—Breaking research news from a team of scientists led by Carnegie's Ho-kwang "Dave" Mao reveals that the composition of the Earth's lower mantle may be significantly different than previously thought. These results are to be published by Science.
Earth
Scientists from the Magma and Volcanoes Laboratory (CNRS/IRD/Université Blaise Pascal) and the European Synchrotron, the ESRF, have recreated the extreme conditions 600 to 2900 km below the Earth's surface to investigate the melting of basalt in the oceanic tectonic plates. They exposed microscopic pieces of rock to these extreme pressures and temperatures while simultaneously studying their structure with the ESRF's extremely powerful X-ray beam. The results show that basalt produced on the ocean floor has a melting temperature lower than the peridotite which forms the Earth's mantle.
Images taken by Rice University scientists show that some diamonds are not forever.
The Rice researchers behind a new study that explains the creation of nanodiamonds in treated coal also show that some microscopic diamonds only last seconds before fading back into less-structured forms of carbon under the impact of an electron beam.
The research by Rice chemist Ed Billups and his colleagues appears in the American Chemical Society's Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters.
This video shows how the constant addition of tubulin bound to GTP provides a cap that prevents the microtubule from falling apart. UC Berkeley scientists found that the hydrolyzation of GTP to GDP (change of red to violet) compacts the tubulin into a strained configuration that rapidly peels the microtubule apart if the cap disappears.
(Photo Credit: Eva Nogales lab, UC Berkeley)
The way a woman feels about tackling everyday physical activities, including exercise, may be a predictor of how much weight she'll retain years after childbirth says a Michigan State University professor.
James Pivarnik, a professor of kinesiology and epidemiology at MSU, co-led a study that followed 56 women during pregnancy and measured their physical activity levels, along with barriers to exercise and the ability to overcome them.
This gift from science just keeps on giving. Measurements taken at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) show why a material already known to be good at separating components of natural gas also can do something trickier: help convert one chemical to another, a process called catalysis. The discovery is a rare example of a laboratory-made material easily performing a task that biology usually requires a complex series of steps to accomplish.
A chip-scale device that both produces and detects a specialized gas used in biomedical analysis and medical imaging has been built and demonstrated at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Described in Nature Communications,* the new microfluidic chip produces polarized (or magnetized) xenon gas and then detects even the faintest magnetic signals from the gas.
Analysis of a manganese-based crystal by scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has produced the first clear picture of its molecular structure. The findings could help explain the magnetic and electronic behavior of the whole family of crystals, many of which have potential for use in batteries.
CAMBRIDGE, Mass-- Melanin — and specifically, the form called eumelanin — is the primary pigment that gives humans the coloring of their skin, hair, and eyes. It protects the body from the hazards of ultraviolet and other radiation that can damage cells and lead to skin cancer, but the exact reason why the compound is so effective at blocking such a broad spectrum of sunlight has remained something of a mystery.
A new remedy has been found to tackle the difficulty of controlling layered nanomaterials. Control can be improved by simply bending the material.
The mechanism was observed by Academy Research Fellow Pekka Koskinen from the Nanoscience Center of the University of Jyväskylä together with his colleagues from the University of Massachusetts Amherst in the US. Bending decreases interaction between layers, making the material merely a stack of independent atomic layers.
CML has been a research topic for more than five decades, due to its wide applications in propulsion design. Mixing in CML is controlled by the compressibility effects of velocity and density variations over the mixing layer, and quantified by the growth rate of CML. However, the lack of understanding of various definitions of mixing thicknesses has yielded scatter in analyzing experimental data. Prof.
A new Stanford study finds that due to an average 3.5 degrees Fahrenheit of warming expected by 2040, yields of wheat and barley across Europe will drop more than 20 percent.
New Stanford research reveals that farmers in Europe will see crop yields affected as global temperatures rise, but that adaptation can help slow the decline for some crops.
Boulder, Colo., USA – Researcher John Sinton of the University of Hawai'i along with colleagues from the Monterrey Bay Aquarium and the French National Center for Scientific Research have announced the discovery of an ancient Hawaiian volcano. Now located in a region of shallow bathymetry extending about 100 km WNW from Ka'ena Point at the western tip of O'ahu, this volcano, which they have named Ka'ena, would have risen about 1,000 meters above sea level 3.5 million years ago.
BOZEMAN, Mont. – Dryland ecosystems, which include deserts to dry-shrublands, play a more important role in the global carbon cycle than previously thought. In fact, they have emerged as one of its drivers, says Montana State University faculty member Ben Poulter.
Radioactivity is usually associated with nuclear fallout or comic-book spider bites, but in very small amounts it can be a useful tool for diagnosing diseases.
Small molecules containing a radioactive isotope of fluorine called "18F radiotracers" are used to detect and track certain diseases in patients. Once injected into the body, these molecules accumulate in specific targets, such as tumors, and can be visualized by their radioactive tag on a positron emission tomography (PET) scan. The 18F tags quickly decay so no radioactivity remains after about a day.