Scientists from the Smithsonian and the University of Rhode Island have found unsuspected linkages between the oxidation state of iron in volcanic rocks and variations in the chemistry of the deep Earth. Not only do the trends run counter to predictions from recent decades of study, they belie a role for carbon circulating in the deep Earth. The team's research was published May 2 in Science Express.
Earth
University of Manchester and National University of Singapore researchers have shown how building multi-layered heterostructures in a three-dimensional stack can produce an exciting physical phenomenon exploring new electronic devices.
The breakthrough, published in Science, could lead to electric energy that runs entire buildings generated by sunlight absorbed by its exposed walls; the energy can be used at will to change the transparency and reflectivity of fixtures and windows depending on environmental conditions, such as temperature and brightness.
A multimillion dollar University of Colorado Boulder instrument package to study space weather has passed its pre-installation testing and is ready to be incorporated onto a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration satellite for a 2015 launch.
The body's brown fat cells play a key role in the development of obesity and diabetes. Researchers at Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, Sweden, have now discovered that we humans have two different kinds of brown fat cells and not one kind as previously thought. This discovery, now published in Nature Medicine, opens up new opportunities for future medicines that exploit the brown fat cells' ability to consume calories.
SAN FRANCISCO -- The growing network of GPS stations has transformed the study of earthquakes, allowing scientists to observe and track very low frequency, seismic activity associated with slow slip or "silent earthquakes." A special collection of papers, published by the Seismological Research Letters (SRL), focuses on new approaches to evaluating the expanding volume of data continuously collected by the GPS networks.
By bouncing eye-safe laser pulses off a mirror on a hillside, researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have transferred ultraprecise time signals through open air with unprecedented precision equivalent to the "ticking" of the world's best next-generation atomic clocks.
(Santa Barbara, Calif.) –– By using light, researchers at UC Santa Barbara have manipulated the quantum state of a single atomic-sized defect in diamond –– the nitrogen-vacancy center –– in a method that not only allows for more unified control than conventional processes, but is more versatile, and opens up the possibility of exploring new solid-state quantum systems. Their results are published in the latest edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of the Sciences.
SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA – An Australian team led by researchers at the University of New South Wales has achieved a breakthrough in quantum science that brings the prospect of a network of ultra-powerful quantum computers - connected via a quantum internet –closer to reality.
The team is the first in the world to have detected the spin, or quantum state, of a single atom using a combined optical and electrical approach.
New Haven, Conn.— That human land use destroys natural ecosystems is an oft-cited assumption in conservation, but ecologists have discovered that instead, traditional ranching techniques in the African savanna enhance the local abundance of wild, native animals. These results offer a new perspective on the roles humans play in natural systems, and inform ongoing discussions about land management and biodiversity conservation.
With the successful retrieval of a string of instruments from deep beneath the seafloor, an international team of scientists has completed an unprecedented series of operations to obtain crucial temperature measurements of the fault that caused the devastating Tohoku earthquake and tsunami in March 2011.
The behaviour of seabirds during migration – including patterns of foraging, rest and flight – has been revealed in new detail using novel computational analyses and tracking technologies.
Using a new method called 'ethoinformatics', described as the application of computational methods in the investigation of animal behaviour, scientists have been able to analyse three years of migration data gathered from miniature tracking devices attached to the small seabird the Manx Shearwater (Puffinus puffinus).
Uncertainty issues are paramount in the assessment of risks posed by natural hazards and in developing strategies to alleviate their consequences.
The Greenland ice sheet has been losing mass at a significant rate during the past several years, contributing to global sea level rise.
Recent studies show dramatic ice loss along the southeastern coast.
Khan et al. combine Global Positioning System (GPS) measurements with measurements from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellite to determine that the ice mass loss is accelerating and also spreading into northwestern Greenland.
A sprite is an electrical discharge similar to lightning, but it occurs in the upper atmosphere (50-90 kilometers – 31-56 miles – in altitude), above large thunderstorms. Sprites were first photographed in 1989.
These large flashes of light, which are triggered in almost all cases by positive lightning discharge between the thundercloud and ground, can span tens of kilometers of altitude.
Global circulation model (GCM) experiments carried out for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) predict that as the Earth undergoes global warming, humidity will increase in subtropical regions.