Research and development funding for businesses was virtually unchanged between 2009 and 2010

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The National Science Foundation (NSF) recently released a report detailing that the amount companies spent on U.S. research and development (R&D) during 2010 was essentially unchanged from the amount spent in 2009.

In 2009, businesses spent $282 billion on R&D performed in the United States, compared with $279 billion in 2010. Of the $279 billion, the U.S. federal government provided $34 billion of funding for company-performed domestic R&D.

Pollution in Northern Hemisphere helped cause 1980s African drought

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Decades of drought in central Africa reached their worst point in the 1980s, causing Lake Chad, a shallow lake used to water crops in neighboring countries, to almost dry out completely.

The shrinking lake and prolonged drought was initially blamed on overgrazing and bad agricultural practices. More recently, Lake Chad became an example of global warming.

New University of Washington research, to be published in Geophysical Research Letters, shows that the drought were caused at least in part by Northern Hemisphere air pollution.

Borneo stalagmites provide new view of abrupt climate events over 100,000 years

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A new set of long-term climate records based on cave stalagmites collected from tropical Borneo shows that the western tropical Pacific responded very differently than other regions of the globe to abrupt climate change events. The 100,000-year climate record adds to data on past climate events, and may help scientists assess models designed to predict how the Earth's climate will respond in the future.

Promising material for lithium-ion batteries

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This news release is available in German.

Study suggests second life for possible spintronic materials

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ATHENS, Ohio (June 6, 2013) – Ten years ago, scientists were convinced that a combination of manganese and gallium nitride could be a key material to create spintronics, the next generation of electronic devices that operate on properties found at the nanoscale. But researchers grew discouraged when experiments indicated that the two materials were as harmonious as oil and water.

Quantum teleportation between atomic systems over long distances

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Researchers have been able to teleport information from light to light at a quantum level for several years. In 2006, researchers at the Niels Bohr Institute succeeded in teleporting between light and gas atoms. Now the research group has succeeded in teleporting information between two clouds of gas atoms and to carry out the teleportation – not just one or a few times, but successfully every single time. The results are published in the scientific journal, Nature Physics.

Large-scale biodiversity is vital to maintain ecosystem health

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Over the years ecologists have shown how biological diversity benefits the health of small, natural communities. New analysis by ecologists at UC Santa Cruz demonstrates that even higher levels of biological diversity are necessary to maintain ecosystem health in larger landscapes over long periods of time.

'Long-awaited explanation' for mysterious effects in high-temperature superconductors

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Earthquake acoustics can indicate if a massive tsunami is imminent, Stanford researchers find

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On March 11, 2011, a magnitude 9.0 undersea earthquake occurred 43 miles off the shore of Japan. The earthquake generated an unexpectedly massive tsunami that washed over eastern Japan roughly 30 minutes later, killing more than 15,800 people and injuring more than 6,100. More than 2,600 people are still unaccounted for.

Spooky action put to order

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"I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics." Thus spoke the American physicist Richard Feynman — underlining that even leading scientists struggle to develop an intuitive feeling for quantum mechanics. One reason for this is that quantum phenomena often have no counterpart in classical physics. A typical example is the quantum entanglement: Entangled particles seem to directly influence one another, no matter how widely separated they are. It looks as if the particles can 'communicate' with one another across arbitrary distances.