A discovery by a team of researchers led by a Syracuse University physicist sheds new light on how the vision process is initiated. For almost 50 years, scientists have believed that light signals could not be initiated unless special light-receptor molecules in the retinal cells first changed their shape in a process called isomerization. However, the SU research team, which includes researchers from Columbia University, has demonstrated that visual signals can be initiated in the absence of isomerization.
Earth
Where Atlantic salmon feed in the ocean has been a long-standing mystery, but new research led by the University of Southampton shows that marine location can be recovered from the chemistry of fish scales. Surprisingly, salmon from different British rivers migrate to feed in separate places, and may respond differently to environmental change.
Researchers have developed a new test to detect the levels of vitamin B12 using your breath, allowing for a cheaper, faster, and simpler diagnosis that could help to avoid the potentially fatal symptoms of B12 deficiency.
In a study published today, 23 June 2011, in IOP Publishing's Journal of Breath Research, researchers have developed a simple, non-invasive, low-cost breath test to more accurately measure vitamin B12.
An international team of geoscientists has discovered an unusual geological formation that helps explain how an undersea earthquake off the coast of Sumatra in December 2004 spawned the deadliest tsunami in recorded history.
COLLEGE PARK, MD (June 22, 2011)—Water and ice may not be among the first things that come to mind when you think about single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs), but a Japan-based research team hoping to get a clearer understanding of the phase behavior of confined water in the cylindrical pores of carbon nanotubes zeroed in on confined water's properties and made some surprising discoveries.
You've just been told you're going on a trip. The only problem is, you don't know where you're going, how you'll be traveling, or what you'll do when you get there.
Sound like a wild ride? It's the one our planet is on right now. As land use, human population, consumption and atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations change at an unprecedented pace with complex and unpredictable interactions, it's anybody's guess where we'll end up or what we can do to ensure the most favorable outcome.
In quantum physics there are two classes of fundamental particles. Photons, the quanta of light, are bosons, while the protons and neutrons that make up atomic nuclei belong to the fermions. Bosons and fermions differ in their behavior at a very basic level. This difference is expressed in their quantum statistics. In the 1980s a third species of fundamental particle was postulated, which was dubbed the anyon. In their quantum statistics, anyons interpolate between bosons and fermions.
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Once eggs are laid, their natural resistance to pathogens begins to wear down, but a Purdue University scientist believes he knows how to rearm those defenses.
Kevin Keener, an associate professor of food science, created a process for rapidly cooling eggs that is designed to inhibit the growth of bacteria such as salmonella. The same cooling process would saturate the inside of an egg with carbon dioxide and alter pH levels, which he has found are connected to the activity of an enzyme called lysozyme, which defends egg whites from bacteria.
The rate of sea level rise along the U.S. Atlantic coast is greater now than at any time in the past 2,000 years--and has shown a consistent link between changes in global mean surface temperature and sea level.
The findings are published this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
DeKalb, Ill. – Scientists at Northern Illinois University say they have discovered a simple method for producing high yields of graphene, a highly touted carbon nanostructure that some believe could replace silicon as the technological fabric of the future.
A newly constructed, 2,000-year history of sea level elevations will help scientists refine the models used to predict climate-change-induced sea level rise, according to an international team of climate researchers. The record also shows that the past century had the fastest recorded rate of sea level rise.
Alexandria, VA – From Seattle to Los Angeles, anywhere from 50 to 80 percent of the water people use comes from mountain snow. Snow falls in the mountains in the winter, where it's stored as snowpack until spring and summer when it flows down the mountains into reservoirs. It's a clean, reliable source of water. But soon, it may become less dependable, thanks to climate change.
Our changing climate usually appears to be a very modern problem, yet new research from Greenland published in Boreas, suggests that the AD 1350 collapse of a centuries old colony established by Viking settlers may have been caused by declining temperatures and a rise in sea-ice. The authors suggest the collapse of the Greenland Norse presents a historical example of a society which failed to adapt to climate change.
There have been instances in Earth history when average temperatures have changed rapidly, as much as 10 degrees Celsius (18 degrees Fahrenheit) over a few decades, and some have speculated the same could happen again as the atmosphere becomes overloaded with carbon dioxide.
New research lends support to evidence from numerous recent studies that suggest abrupt climate change appears to be the result of alterations in ocean circulation uniquely associated with ice ages.