Oxford, May 22, 2012 - Researchers in Ireland have developed a new technology using materials called bulk metallic glasses to produce high-precision molds for making tiny plastic components. The components, with detailed microscopically patterned surfaces could be used in the next generation of computer memory devices and microscale testing kits and chemical reactors.
Earth
An international team of scientists in the University of Leicester's Department of Geology has found a solution to a research problem involving fossils right next door - in the University's Chemistry Department.
Ultracold quantum gases have exceptional properties and offer an ideal system to study basic physical phenomena. By choosing erbium, the research team led by Francesca Ferlaino from the Institute of Experimental Physics, University of Innsbruck, selected a very exotic element, which due to its particular properties offers new and fascinating possibilities to investigate fundamental questions in quantum physics. "Erbium is comparatively heavy and has a strongly magnetic character. These properties lead to an extreme dipolar behavior of quantum systems," says Ferlaino.
URBANA - A tool commonly used by financial strategists to determine what shares to purchase to create a diversified stock portfolio was used to develop a diversified portfolio of another kind -- land to be set aside for conservation purposes given the uncertainty about climate change.
To become better healers, tissue engineering need a timely and reliable way to obtain enough raw materials: cells that either already are or can become the tissue they need to build. In a new study, Brown University biomedical engineers show that the stiffness, viscosity, and other mechanical properties of adult stem cells derived from fat, such as liposuction waste, can predict whether they will turn into bone, cartilage, or fat.
Scientists from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) have conducted a new study to measure levels of carbon at various depths in the Arctic Ocean. The study, recently published in the journal Biogeosciences, provides data that will help researchers better understand the Arctic Ocean's carbon cycle—the pathway through which carbon enters and is used by the marine ecosystem. It will also offer an important point of reference for determining how those levels of carbon change over time, and how the ecosystem responds to rising global temperatures.
A materials scientist at Michigan Technological University has discovered a chemical reaction that not only eats up the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, it also creates something useful. And, by the way, it releases energy.
If you are not a condensed matter physicist, vanadium oxide (VO2) may be the coolest material you've never heard of. It's a metal. It's an insulator. It's a window coating and an optical switch. And thanks to a new study by physicists at Rice University, scientists have a new way to reversibly alter VO2's electronic properties by treating it with one of the simplest substances -- hydrogen.
New research by teams of Australian and US scientists has found there has been a massive reduction in the amount of Antarctic Bottom Water found off the coast of Antarctica.Comparing detailed measurements taken during the Australian Antarctic program's 2012 Southern Ocean marine science voyage to historical data dating back to 1970, scientists estimate there has been as much as a 60 per cent reduction in the volume of Antarctic Bottom Water, the cold dense water that drives global ocean currents.
A clear change in salinity has been detected in the world's oceans, signalling shifts and an acceleration in the global rainfall and evaporation cycle.
In a paper published in the journal Science, Australian scientists from the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, California, reported changing patterns of salinity in the global ocean during the past 50 years, marking a clear fingerprint of climate change.
Berlin, Germany, May 21, 2012 – IMPACT World+, the first worldwide regionalized life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) methodology was launched today in Berlin, Germany during the 6th SETAC World Congress / SETAC Europe 22nd Annual Meeting. The event featured the results of this innovative undertaking spearheaded by a team of leading international LCIA experts and researchers from five countries.
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Research by a collaborative group of scientists from UC San Diego School of Medicine, UC San Francisco and Wake Forest School of Medicine has led to identification of an existing drug that is effective against Entamoeba histolytica. This parasite causes amebic dysentery and liver abscesses and results in the death of more than 70,000 people worldwide each year.
Petrology of the Grays River Volcanics, Southwest Washington: Plume-Influenced Slab Window Magmatism in the Cascadia Forearc
Christine Chan et al., Geology Dept., University of Puget Sound, Tacoma, WA 98416-1048, USA. Posted online 3 May 2012; doi: 10.1130/B30576.1.
Douglas McCauley and Paul DeSalles did not set out to discover one of the longest ecological interaction chains ever documented. But that's exactly what they and a team of researchers – all current or former Stanford students and faculty – did in a new study published in Scientific Reports.