COLUMBIA, Mo. –Child welfare professionals know that children are safer and healthier when the adults in their lives have healthy relationships, but most social workers are not trained to educate couples about strong relationships and marriages. Researchers at the University of Missouri are working to train child welfare professionals and future social workers to help individuals and families strengthen their relationships.
Earth
Warming streams could spell the end of spring-run Chinook salmon in California by the end of the century, according to a study by scientists at UC Davis, the Stockholm Environment Institute and the National Center for Atmospheric Research.
An international team of scientists has developed a novel X-ray technique for imaging atomic displacements in materials with unprecedented accuracy. They have applied their technique to determine how a recently discovered class of exotic materials – multiferroics – can be simultaneously both magnetically and electrically ordered. Multiferroics are also candidate materials for new classes of electronic devices. The discovery, a major breakthrough in understanding multiferroics, is published in Science dated 2 September 2011.
In parts of the world still rich in biodiversity, separating natural habitats from high-yielding farmland could be a more effective way to conserve wild species than trying to grow crops and conserve nature on the same land, according to a new study published today (2 September 2011) in the journal Science.
ITHACA, N.Y. – In things thick and thin: Cornell physicists explain how fluids – such as paint or paste - behave by observing how micron-sized suspended particles dance in real time. Using high-speed microscopy, the scientists unveil how these particles are responding to fluid flows from shear – a specific way of stirring. (Science, Sept. 2).
Observations by Xiang Cheng, Cornell post-doctoral researcher in physics and Itai Cohen, Cornell associate professor of physics, are the first to link direct imaging of the particle motions with changes in liquid viscosity.
A group of scientists has quantified dust and iron fluxes deposited in the Antarctic Ocean during the past 4 million years and it shows the close relation between the maximum contributions of dust to this ocean and climate changes occurring in the most intense glaciation periods of the Pleistocene period, some 1.25 million years ago. Data confirms the role of iron in the increase in phytoplankton levels during glacial periods, intensifying the function of this ocean as a CO2 sink.
When potato production started in Idaho more than 100 years ago, farmers seeded their crops in ridged rows and watered their plants by channeling surface irrigation to flow through the furrows between the rows. Even though most commercial potato producers in the Pacific Northwest now irrigate their crops with sprinklers, they still typically use ridged-row planting systems.
Prospecting — the search for valuable reserves such as gold, diamond and natural gas — isn't just a matter of luck. It's about knowing where to look. Now researchers at Tel Aviv University have modernized the hit-or-miss search with cutting-edge technology that scans the earth for signs of lucrative resources that could lurk beneath our feet.
In this month's edition of Physics World, David Wilkinson, visiting fellow at Nottingham Trent University and former project manager in the UK Home Office Scientific Development Branch, explains how physics is at the forefront of police weapons testing, making sure that potential devices meet the strict criteria set out by the UK government.
A new study of soot, considered the second most important but frequently overlooked factor in global warming, provides more evidence that reducing soot emissions from diesel engines and other sources could slow melting of sea ice in the Arctic more quickly and economically than any other quick fix.
A toxic chemical produced by tiny marine microbes worked against laboratory models of colon cancer, notes a study in ACS Medicinal Chemistry Letters, in which medicinal chemists describe how they took a generally lethal byproduct of marine cyanobacteria, Apratoxin S4, and made it more specifically toxic — to cancer cells.
When the scientists gave low doses of the compound to mice with a form of colon cancer, they found that it inhibited tumor growth without the overall poisonous effect of the natural product. Even at relatively high doses, the agent was effective and safe.
PHILADELPHIA — In solid materials with regular atomic structures, figuring out weak points where the material will break under stress is relatively easy. But for disordered solids, like glass or sand, their disordered nature makes such predictions much more daunting tasks.
A new study suggests that Homo erectus, a precursor to modern humans, was using advanced toolmaking methods in East Africa 1.8 million years ago, at least 300,000 years earlier than previously thought. The study in Nature raises new questions about where these early humans originated and how they developed sophisticated tool-making technology.
For the first time, researchers at the University of California, Davis, have demonstrated that forest trees have the ability to tap into nitrogen found in rocks, boosting the trees' growth and their ability to pull more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
Given that carbon dioxide is the most important climate-change gas, the nitrogen in rocks could significantly affect how rapidly the earth will warm in the future, the researchers say. They report their findings in the Sept. 1 issue of the scientific journal Nature.