Earth

Brussels. Scientists have advocated for tightening the Air Quality Directive and expand research on air quality and climate change. Only appropriate investments in research can provide a solid basis for decision making in these areas that have major health and economic consequences for Europe's citizens. In 2013, the European Commission's air policy is reviewed, with a focus on finding ways to improve the quality of the air Europeans breathe.

Weather forecasters have a tougher job predicting winter conditions over Europe in some years over others, concludes a new study carried out by the National Oceanography Centre.

The study revealed that the relationship between our winter weather and the strength of the airflow coming in from the Atlantic – one of the factors used by forecasters to predict the weather – is stronger in some years than others. The results were recently published in the Royal Meteorological Society publication Weather.

In 1700, a massive earthquake struck the west coast of North America. Though it was powerful enough to cause a tsunami as far as Japan, a lack of local documentation has made studying this historic event challenging.

Now, researchers from the University of Pennsylvania have helped unlock this geological mystery using a fossil-based technique. Their work provides a finer-grained portrait of this earthquake and the changes in coastal land level it produced, enabling modelers to better prepare for future events.

An international team of scientists, including a University of York researcher, has carried out ground-breaking experiments to investigate the atomic structure of astatine (Z=85), the rarest naturally occurring element on Earth.

Astatine (At) is of significant interest as its decay properties make it an ideal short-range radiation source for targeted alpha therapy in cancer treatment.

Northwestern University scientists have struck gold in the laboratory. They have discovered an inexpensive and environmentally benign method that uses simple cornstarch -- instead of cyanide -- to isolate gold from raw materials in a selective manner.

This green method extracts gold from crude sources and leaves behind other metals that are often found mixed together with the crude gold. The new process also can be used to extract gold from consumer electronic waste.

Cancún, Mexico -- Researchers taking a new look at the snowand ice covering Mount Everest and the national park thatsurrounds it are finding abundant evidence that the world's tallestpeak is shedding its frozen cloak. The scientists have also beenstudying temperature and precipitation trends in the area andfound that the Everest region has been warming while snowfallhas been declining since the early 1990s.

In their role as condensation nuclei, aerosol particles are an important trigger for the formation of clouds. As humidity accumulates on the particles droplets are formed, which later develop into clouds. Within the clouds, however, the chemical composition of these aerosol particles changes.