Earth | Page 1084 | Science Codex

New report questions hard-edged 'living shorelines' in estuaries

DURHAM, NC -- The increasing use of large breakwaters and other hard structures to reduce erosion in "living shorelines" along coastal estuaries may be no better for the environment than the ecologically harmful bulkheads they were designed to replace, according to a report this week by scientists at Duke and Western Carolina universities.

Originally, living shorelines were designed to use natural methods such as replanted native marsh grasses and oyster reefs to stabilize and protect eroding shorelines.

UN scientists warn of increased groundwater demands due to climate change

SAN FRANCISCO, March 1, 2012 -- Climate change has been studied extensively, but a new body of research guided by a San Francisco State University hydrologist looks beneath the surface of the phenomenon and finds that climate change will put particular strain on one of our most important natural resources: groundwater.

Scientists revolutionize electron microscope

Researchers at the University of Sheffield have revolutionised the electron microscope by developing a new method which could create the highest resolution images ever seen.

For over 70 years, transmission electron microscopy (TEM), which 'looks through' an object to see atomic features within it, has been constrained by the relatively poor lenses which are used to form the image.

Final FACE harvest reveals increased soil carbon storage under elevated carbon dioxide

OAK RIDGE, Tenn., March 5, 2012 – Elevated carbon dioxide concentrations can increase carbon storage in the soil, according to results from a 12-year carbon dioxide-enrichment experiment at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

The increased storage of carbon in soil could help to slow down rising atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations.

Warming of 2 degrees inevitable over Canada

Even if zero emissions of greenhouse gases were to be achieved, the world's temperature would continue to rise by about a quarter of a degree over a decade. That's a best-case scenario, according to a paper co-written by a Simon Fraser University researcher.

New climate change research - Climate response to zeroed emissions of greenhouse gases and aerosols — published in Nature's online journal, urges the public, governments and industries to wake up to a harsh new reality.

In forests, past disturbances obscure warming impacts

(March 4, 2012) Millbrook, N.Y. – Past disturbances, such as logging, can obscure the effects of climate change on forest ecosystems. So reports a study just published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The paper, exploring nitrogen dynamics, found that untangling climate impacts from other factors can be difficult, even when scientists have access to decades of data on a forest's environmental conditions.

2 crystals linked by quantum physics

For almost fifteen years Professor Nicolas Gisin and his physicist col- laborators have been entangling photons. If this exercise seems to them perhaps henceforth trivial, it continues to elude us ordinary humans. The laws that govern the quantum world are so strange that they completely escape us human beings confronted with the laws of the macroscopic world. This apparent difference in nature between the infinitesimally small and our world poses the question of what link exists between the two.

Another severe weather system seen on satellite movie from NASA

The National Weather Service has issued a lot of severe weather watches and warnings. All of these areas are under severe thunderstorm watches, some under tornado watches and flash flood watches. West of and behind the front, the Quad cities in Iowa, areas of Illinois and lower Michigan are dealing with a Winter Weather Advisory, and will watch the rain change over to snow.

World's best measurement of W boson mass points to Higgs mass and tests Standard Model

Batavia, Ill. -- The world's most precise measurement of the mass of the W boson, one of nature's elementary particles, has been achieved by scientists from the CDF and DZero collaborations at the Department of Energy's Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory.

The new measurement is an important, independent constraint of the mass of the theorized Higgs boson. It also provides a rigorous test of the Standard Model that serves as the blueprint for our world, detailing the properties of the building blocks of matter and how they interact.

Fukushima 1 year on: Poor planning hampered Fukushima response

One year after an earthquake and tsunami hit Japan on March 11, 2011, an independent investigation panel has highlighted the country's failures in disaster planning and crisis management for the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station. The article, out now in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, published by SAGE, shows that agencies were thoroughly unprepared for the cascading nuclear disaster, following a tsunami that should have been anticipated.

NASA satellite movie shows movement of tornadic weather system

Tornadoes on February 29 raked through Kansas, Nebraska, Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, Kentucky and Tennessee. The severe storms killed at least 12 people. Tornadoes also touched down in the well-known tourist destination of Branson, Missouri, famous for country music theaters. USA Today reported that up to six of the city's 40 theaters were damaged.

NOAA's Storm Prediction Center reported that tornadoes killed 550 people in the U.S. in 2011.

Overfishing leaves swaths of Mediterranean barren

WASHINGTON -- Centuries of overexploitation of fish and other marine resources — as well as invasion of fish from the Red Sea — have turned some formerly healthy ecosystems of the Mediterranean Sea into barren places, an unprecedented study of the Mediterranean concludes.

New study links dust to increased glacier melting, ocean productivity

MIAMI -- A University of Miami (UM) Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science-led study shows a link between large dust storms on Iceland and glacial melting. The dust is both accelerating glacial melting and contributing important nutrients to the surrounding North Atlantic Ocean. The results provide new insights on the role of dust in climate change and high-latitude ocean ecosystems.

Simulator computes evacuation scenarios for major events

In the future, it should be possible to program a simulator like this for any major event where – as in the case of Kaiserslautern – visitors have specific destinations, and programmers have knowledge of topography of the area in question as well as the general size and composition of the crowd. The model cannot be applied to locations such as amusement parks, where visitors walk around without any specific destination. Similarly, it cannot be used to simulate panic situations, where people no longer act rationally.

Carbon dioxide catchers

Approximately 75 percent of electricity used in the United States is produced by coal-burning power plants that spew carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere and contribute to global warming. To reduce this effect, many researchers are searching for porous materials to filter out the CO2 generated by these plants before it reaches the atmosphere, a process commonly known as carbon capture. But identifying these materials is easier said than done.