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Shattering past of the 'island of glass'

A tiny Mediterranean island visited by the likes of Madonna, Sting, Julia Roberts and Sharon Stone is now the focus of a ground-breaking study by University of Leicester geologists.

Pantelleria, a little-known island between Sicily and Tunisia, is a volcano with a remarkable past: 45 thousand years ago, the entire island was covered in a searing-hot layer of green glass.

Volcanologists Drs Mike Branney, Rebecca Williams and colleagues at the University of Leicester Department of Geology have been uncovering previously unknown facts about the island's physical history.

Researcher aids understanding of collective excitations in MoS2

Dr. Željana Bonačić Lošić from the Department of Physics, Faculty of Science at the University of Split, Croatia, has studied the coupling of plasmon and dipolar collective modes in a monolayer of molybdenum disulfide. Collective excitations play a key role in describing any many-body quantum system. A monolayer of molybdenum disulfide is a promising two-dimensional material that has attracted much attention lately because of its potential applications. In this sense, the investigation of its electronic properties is of special interest.

Study shows iron from melting ice sheets may help buffer global warming

A newly-discovered source of oceanic bioavailable iron could have a major impact our understanding of marine food chains and global warming. A UK team has discovered that summer meltwaters from ice sheets are rich in iron, which will have important implications on phytoplankton growth. The findings are reported in the journal Nature Communications on 21st May, 2014*.

Public interest in climate change unshaken by scandal, but unstirred by science

The good news for any passionate supporter of climate-change science is that negative media reports seem to have only a passing effect on public opinion, according to Princeton University and University of Oxford researchers. The bad news is that positive stories don't appear to possess much staying power, either. This dynamic suggests that climate scientists should reexamine how to effectively and more regularly engage the public, the researchers write.

Climate change brings mostly bad news for Ohio

COLUMBUS, Ohio— Scientists delivered a mostly negative forecast for how climate change will affect Ohioans during the next year or so, and well beyond.

Water caged in buckyballs

WASHINGTON D.C. May 20, 2014 -- In a new paper in the Journal of Chemical Physics, produced by AIP Publishing, a research team in the United Kingdom and the United States describes how water molecules "caged" in fullerene spheres ("buckyballs") are providing a deeper insight into spin isomers -- varieties of a molecule that differ in their nuclear spin. The results of this work may one day help enhance the analytical and diagnostic power of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).

New lithium battery created in Japan

WASHINGTON D.C., May 20, 2014 -- The long life of lithium ion batteries makes them the rechargeable of choice for everything from implantable medical devices to wearable consumer electronics. But lithium ion batteries rely on liquid chemistries involving lithium salts dissolved in organic solvents, creating flame risks that would be avoided if the cells were completely solid-state.

Reading privacy policy lowers trust

Website privacy policies are almost obligatory for many online services, but for anyone who reads these often unwieldy documents, trust in the provider is more commonly reduced than gained, according to US researchers.

Particles near absolute zero do not break the laws of physics after all

In theory, the laws of physics are absolute. However, when it comes to the laws of thermodynamics—the science that studies how heat and temperature relate to energy—there are times where they no longer seem to apply. In a paper recently published in EPJ B, Robert Adamietz from the University of Augsburg, Germany, and colleagues have demonstrated that a theoretical model of the environment's influence on a particle does not violate the third law of thermodynamics, despite appearances to the contrary.

Improved computer simulations enable better calculation of interfacial tension

Computer simulations play an increasingly important role in the description and development of new materials. Yet, despite major advances in computer technology, the simulations in statistical physics are typically restricted to systems of up to a few 100,000 particles, which is many times smaller than the actual material quantities used in typical experiments. Researchers therefore use so-called finite-size corrections in order to adjust the results obtained for comparatively small simulation systems to the macroscopic scale.

A high-efficiency aerothermoelastic analysis method

Aerothermoelasticity has become a hot research area for several years around the world. Professor YANG Chao and his group from Beihang University set out to tackle this problem. Their work, entitled "A high-efficiency aerothermoelastic analysis method", was published in Sci China-Phys Mech Astron, 2014, 57(6): 1111-1118.

The next 'Big One' for the Bay Area may be a cluster of major quakes

SAN FRANCISCO – A cluster of closely timed earthquakes over 100 years in the 17th and 18th centuries released as much accumulated stress on San Francisco Bay Area's major faults as the Great 1906 San Francisco earthquake, suggesting two possible scenarios for the next "Big One" for the region, according to new research published by the Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America (BSSA).

New research shows humans have more impact on tropical nitrogen levels

MISSOULA – A new paper co-written by four University of Montana researchers finds that humans have more than doubled tropical nitrogen inputs.

Benjamin Sullivan, a researcher working with UM College of Forestry and Conservation Professor Cory Cleveland, led the team that looked at the nitrogen cycle in tropical rain forests. Sullivan and his colleagues used a new method to demonstrate that biological nitrogen fixation in tropical rain forests may be less than a quarter of previous estimates.

Climate change, forest fires drove widespread surface melting of Greenland ice sheet

Rising temperatures and ash from Northern Hemisphere forest fires combined to cause large-scale surface melting of the Greenland ice sheet in 1889 and 2012, contradicting conventional thinking that the melt events were driven by warming alone, a Dartmouth College-led study finds.

Chemists challenge conventional understanding of how photocatalysis works

RIVERSIDE, Calif. — Photocatalysis—catalysis assisted by light—is a promising route to convert solar energy into chemical fuels. Particularly appealing is the possibility to use photocatalysis to split water molecules into molecular hydrogen. Although photocatalysis has been around for many years, the search for viable photocatalysts to facilitate the splitting of water molecules continues to date.