Earth

Researchers from the University of York are pioneering the development of electron microscopes which will allow scientists to examine a greater variety of materials in new revolutionary ways.

The team, headed by Professor Jun Yuan and Professor Mohamed Babiker, from the University's Department of Physics has created electron beams with orbital angular momentum – electron vortex beams – which will open the way to many novel applications including the more efficient examining of magnetic materials.

Ghost imaging (GI), and its even more oddly named cousin virtual ghost imaging (VGI), seem to contradict conventional wisdom by being able to image an object by simply counting photons in a "light bucket." This non-intuitive technique, however, can lead to better images when conditions are less than ideal. In a first-of-its-kind demonstration, a team of researchers from the U.S. Army Research Laboratory in Adelphi, Md., and the University of Maryland in Baltimore, captured reflected photons from a highly specialized laser beam to create a VGI image of a remote target.

By adding an incredibly thin coating of alumina to a metal surface, researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have doubled the rate that heat travels from a solid surface – such as a pot on a stove – into the liquid in the pot. The results are published in the American Institute of Physics' journal Applied Physics Letters.

Like a stream of air shooting out of an airplane's broken window to relieve cabin pressure, scientists at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego say lava formations in eastern Oregon are the result of an outpouring of magma forced out of a breach in a massive slab of Earth. Their new mechanism explaining how such a large volume of magma was generated is published in the Feb. 16 issue of the journal Nature.

LIVERMORE, Calif. --Extreme summer temperatures are already occurring more frequently in the United States, and will become normal by mid-century if the world continues on a business as usual schedule of emitting greenhouse gases.

By analyzing observations and results obtained from climate models, a study led by Phil Duffy of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory showed that previously rare high summertime (June, July and August) temperatures are already occurring more frequently in some regions of the 48 contiguous United States.

Bohdan Nosyk and Julio Montaner of the British Columbia Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS in Vancouver, Canada argue in an Essay published in this week's PLoS Medicine that the cost-effectiveness of HAART roll out has been significantly underestimated, because economic analyses have not yet taken into account the beneficial impact of HAART on prevention of HIV transmission.

Arizona State University researchers are finding ways to improve infrared photodetector technology that is critical to national defense and security systems, as well as used increasingly in commercial applications and consumer products.

A significant advance is reported in a recent article in the journal Applied Physics Letters. It details discovery of how infrared photodetection can be done more effectively by using certain materials arranged in specific patterns in atomic-scale structures.