Earth | Page 780 | Science Codex

Future air quality could put plants and people at risk

By combining projections of climate change, emissions reductions and changes in land use across the USA, an international research team estimate that by 2050, cumulative exposure to ozone during the summer will be high enough to damage vegetation.

Although the research findings - published in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions - focus on the impact in the USA, they raise wider concerns for global air quality, according to lead researcher Dr Maria Val Martin, from the University of Sheffield's Faculty of Engineering

Tricky take-off kept pterodactyls grounded

Berlin, Germany (November, 2014) – A new study, which teamed cutting-edge engineering techniques with paleontology, has found that take-off capacity may have determined body size limits in extinct flying reptiles. The research simulated pterodactyl flight using computer modeling, and will be presented at the upcoming Society of Vertebrate Paleontology meeting in Berlin. Findings suggest that a pterodactyl with a wingspan of 12m or more would simply not be able to get off the ground.

Teens close to high number of tobacco shops more likely to smoke

Teenagers are much more likely to take up smoking if they live in neighbourhoods with a large number of shops that sell tobacco products, a study suggests.

Adolescents with the most tobacco outlets in their neighbourhood are almost 50% more likely to smoke than those with no outlets nearby, researchers say.

The study also found that teenagers living in areas with the highest density of retailers are 53 per cent more likely to try smoking at least once.

Analyzing heat waves -- new index allows predicting their magnitude

JRC scientists have developed a new index to measure the magnitude of heat waves, in cooperation with colleagues from five research organisations. According to the index projections, under the worst climate scenario of temperature rise nearing 4.8⁰C, extreme heat waves will become the norm by the end of the century. Heat waves like the one that hit Russia in summer 2010, the strongest on record in recent decades, will occur as often as every two years in southern Europe, North and South America, Africa and Indonesia.

Ah-choo! Expect higher grass pollen and allergen exposure in the coming century

AMHERST, Mass. – Results of a new study by scientists at the University of Massachusetts Amherst strongly suggest that there will be notable increases in grass pollen production and allergen exposure up to 202 percent in the next 100 years, leading to a significant, worldwide impact on human health due to predicted rises in carbon dioxide (CO2) and ozone (O3) due to climate change.

Scientists on NOAA-led mission discover new coral species off California

A NOAA-led research team has discovered a new species of deep-sea coral and a nursery area for catsharks and skates in the underwater canyons located close to the Gulf of Farallones and Cordell Bank national marine sanctuaries off the Sonoma coast.

In the first intensive exploration of California's offshore areas north of Bodega Head, a consortium of federal and state marine scientists used small submersibles and other innovative technologies to investigate, film and photograph marine life that has adapted to survive in offshore waters reaching 1,000 feet deep.

A fraction of the global military spending could save the planet's biodiversity

A fundamental step-change involving an increase in funding and political commitment is urgently needed to ensure that protected areas deliver their full conservation, social and economic potential, according to an article published today in Nature by experts from Wildlife Conservation Society, the University of Queensland, and the IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas (WCPA).

Increase in ozone-destroying substances -- but Montreal Protocol on track

Research from the University of Leeds and an international team of scientists has shown a recent increase in atmospheric hydrogen chloride (HCI), a substance linked to destruction of the ozone layer.

It was anticipated that there would be a decline in HCI under the Montreal Protocol, the international treaty designed to protect the ozone layer by phasing out the production of ozone-depleting substances.

Coexist or perish, new wildfire analysis says

Many fire scientists have tried to get Smokey the Bear to hang up his "prevention" motto in favor of tools like thinning and prescribed burns, which can manage the severity of wildfires while allowing them to play their natural role in certain ecosystems.

Researchers hit milestone in accelerating particles with plasma

Scientists from the Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and the University of California, Los Angeles have shown that a promising technique for accelerating electrons on waves of plasma is efficient enough to power a new generation of shorter, more economical accelerators. This could greatly expand their use in areas such as medicine, national security, industry and high-energy physics research.

New global wildfire analysis indicates humans need to coexist and adapt

A new study led by the University of California, Berkeley and involving the University of Colorado Boulder indicates the current response to wildfires around the world—aggressively fighting them—is not making society less vulnerable to such events.

EARTH Magazine: Tiny ants are heroic weathering agents

Alexandria, Va. — Earth's abundant silicate minerals are degraded over time by exposure to water, chemical dissolution, and physical and chemical weathering by tree roots and even insects such as ants and termites. Such weathering plays a significant role in decreasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, as carbon dioxide is consumed in chemical weathering reactions and the resultant carbonate becomes sequestered in the form of limestone and dolomite.

Live images from the nano-cosmos

Using DESY's ultrabright X-ray source PETRA III, researchers have observed in real-time how football-shaped carbon molecules arrange themselves into ultra-smooth layers. Together with theoretical simulations, the investigation reveals the fundamentals of this growth process for the first time in detail, as the team around Sebastian Bommel (DESY and Humboldt Universität zu Berlin) and Nicola Kleppmann (Technische Universität Berlin) reports in the scientific journal Nature Communications.

Analysing heat waves -- New index allows predicting their magnitude

JRC scientists have developed a new index to measure the magnitude of heat waves, in cooperation with colleagues from five research organisations. According to the index projections, under the worst climate scenario of temperature rise nearing 4.8⁰C, extreme heat waves will become the norm by the end of the century. Heat waves like the one that hit Russia in summer 2010, the strongest on record in recent decades, will occur as often as every two years in southern Europe, North and South America, Africa and Indonesia.

The Peres conjecture is false!

Since 1999, the conjecture by Asher Peres, who invented quantum teleportation, has piqued the interest of many scientists in the field. According to his hypothesis, the weakest form of quantum entanglement can never result in the strongest manifestation of the phenomenon. Today, a team of researchers from the University of Geneva (UNIGE), Switzerland, and the Hungarian Academy of Sciences have proven this conjecture to be false, thus solving one of the most famous problems in quantum information physics. This news was published in Nature Communications review.