About 10 miles off the Santa Barbara coast, at the bottom of the Santa Barbara Channel, a series of impressive landmarks rise from the sea floor.
They've been there for 40,000 years, but have remained hidden in the murky depths of the Pacific Ocean--until now.
They're called asphalt volcanoes.
ATHENS, Ohio (April 26, 2010) – Though scientists argue that the emerging technology of spintronics may trump conventional electronics for building the next generation of faster, smaller, more efficient computers and high-tech devices, no one has actually seen the spin—a quantum mechanical property of electrons—in individual atoms until now. In a study published as an Advance Online Publication in the journal Nature Nanotechnology on Sunday, physicists at Ohio University and the University of Hamburg in Germany present the first images of spin in action.
MEDFORD/SOMERVILLE, Mass. –Everyone wants to live in the nicest possible house, ideally with regular upgrades. A recent study by biologists at Tufts University's School of Arts and Sciences and the New England Aquarium reveals that hermit crabs may locate new and improved housing using previously unknown social networking skills.
Menlo Park, Calif. — A new form of platinum that could be used to make cheaper, more efficient fuel cells has been created by researchers at the Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and the University of Houston. The process, described in the April 25th issue of Nature Chemistry, could help enable broader use of the devices, which produce emissions-free energy using hydrogen.
X-ray studies and fundamental calculations are helping physicists gain molecular level insight into the workings of some magnetic shape-memory materials, which change shape under the influence magnetic fields. Shape-memory materials could potentially serve as light weight, compact alternatives to conventional motors and actuators. But developing practical devices will require creating materials that exhibit much larger changes in shape than most of the known shape-memory materials.
Glaciovolcanoes, they're called, these rumbling mountains where the orange-red fire of magma meets the frozen blue of glaciers.
Iceland's Eyjafjallajökull volcano, which erupted recently, is but one of these volcanoes. Others, such as Katla, Hekla and Askja in Iceland; Edziza in British Columbia, Canada; and Mount Rainier and Mount Redoubt in the U.S., are also glaciovolcanoes: volcanoes covered by ice.
Some female zebra finches foist a part of their eggs on their neighbours. Scientists of the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology in Seewiesen discovered that in every fifth nest there is one egg that is not produced by its social parents. The female birds act in a very well-targeted way: eggs are being placed in "foster-care" shortly before the hosts commence their own egg laying (online publication in Animal Behaviour, April 15, 2010).
ANAHEIM, CA – Studies led by Stony Brook University professor of chemistry Peter J. Tonge indicate that modifications that enhance the time a drug remains bound to its target, or residence time, may lead to better diagnostic and therapeutic agents.
PITTSBURGH—High-resolution visible and thermal infrared images captured by a joint NASA-Japanese satellite sensor and compiled by University of Pittsburgh volcanologist Michael Ramsey provide the first clear glimpse of the Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajökull that has disrupted air travel worldwide since it began erupting April 14.
For a long time now doctors have known that prostate cancer "runs in the family". Men with family members who have been diagnosed with the disease have an elevated risk of developing cancer of the prostate. But exactly how high is an individual person's risk? For whom and at what age should an early detection screening urgently be recommended?
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The Seismological Society of America (SSA) is an international scientific society devoted to the advancement of seismology and its applications in understanding and mitigating earthquake hazards and in imaging the structure of the Earth.