Earth | Page 1103 | Science Codex

Shearing triggers odd behavior in microscopic particles

Shearing forces affect the dynamic behavior of paint, shampoo and other viscous household products, but an understanding of these and related phenomena at the microscopic level has largely eluded a detailed scientific understanding until the last decade, Dinner noted.

Futuristically speaking, these forces potentially could be harnessed to produce microscopic patterns on computer chips or biosensors via special paints that flow easily when layered in one direction, but becomes hard when layered in another direction.

Comprehensive study makes key findings of ocean pH variations

A group of 19 scientists from five research organizations have conducted the broadest field study of ocean acidification to date using sensors developed at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego.

Harvard physicists demonstrate a new cooling technique for quantum gases

Physicists at Harvard University have realized a new way to cool synthetic materials by employing a quantum algorithm to remove excess energy. The research, published this week in the journal Nature, is the first application of such an "algorithmic cooling" technique to ultra-cold atomic gases, opening new possibilities from materials science to quantum computation.

An ecosystem being transformed - Yellowstone 15 years after the return of wolves

CORVALLIS, Ore. – On the 15th anniversary of the return of wolves to Yellowstone National Park, a quiet but profound rebirth of life and ecosystem health is emerging, scientists conclude in a new report.

For the first time in 70 years, the over-browsing of young aspen and willow trees has diminished as elk populations in northern Yellowstone declined and their fear of wolf predation increased. Trees and shrubs have begun recovering along some streams, providing improved habitat for beaver and fish. Birds and bears also have more food.

Home washing machines: Source of potentially harmful ocean 'microplastic' pollution

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NIST sensor improvement brings analysis method into mainstream

An advance in sensor design* by researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the University of Waterloo's Institute of Quantum Computing (IQC) could unshackle a powerful, yet high-maintenance technique for exploring materials. The achievement could expand the technique—called neutron interferometry—from a test of quantum mechanics to a tool for industry as well.

[Watch a short YoutTube video on this work at http://youtu.be/A21iXn2NL-8 ]

Mediterranean diet gives longer life

A Mediterranean diet with large amounts of vegetables and fish gives a longer life. This is the unanimous result of four studies to be published by the Sahlgrenska Academy at the University of Gothenburg. Research studies ever since the 1950s have shown that a Mediterranean diet, based on a high consumption of fish and vegetables and a low consumption of animal-based products such as meat and milk, leads to better health.

Study on older people

Glacial tap is open but the water will run dry

Glaciers are retreating at an unexpectedly fast rate according to research done in Peru's Cordillera Blanca by McGill doctoral student Michel Baraer. They are currently shrinking by about one per cent a year, and that percentage is increasing steadily, according to his calculations.

Not only invisible, but also inaudible

In hot water: Ice Age findings forecast problems

The first comprehensive study of changes in the oxygenation of oceans at the end of the last Ice Age (between about 10 to 20,000 years ago) has implications for the future of our oceans under global warming. The study, which was co-authored by Eric Galbraith, of McGill's Department of Earth & Planetary Sciences, looked at marine sediment and found that that the dissolved oxygen concentrations in large parts of the oceans changed dramatically during therelatively slow natural climate changes at the end of the last Ice Age.

Sensing the deep ocean

Futuristic robots may be coming soon to an ocean near you. Sensorbots are spherical devices equipped with biogeochemical sensors, that promise to open a new chapter in the notoriously challenging exploration of earth's largest ecosystem—the ocean.

The devices are being designed and developed in the laboratory of Professor Deirdre Meldrum, ASU Senior Scientist and Director of the Center for Biosignatures Discovery Automation at Arizona State University's Biodesign Institute.

Legumes give nitrogen-supplying bacteria special access pass

A 125-year debate on how nitrogen-fixing bacteria are able to breach the cell walls of legumes has been settled. A paper to be published on Monday by John Innes Centre scientists reports that plants themselves allow bacteria in.

Once inside the right cells, these bacteria take nitrogen from the air and supply it to legumes in a form they can use, ammonia. Whether the bacteria breach the cell walls by producing enzymes that degrade it, or the plant does the work for them, has been contested since an 1887 paper in which the importance of the breach was first recognised.

Quantum computing has applications in magnetic imaging, say Pitt researchers

Quantum computing -- considered the powerhouse of computational tasks -- may have applications in areas outside of pure electronics, according to a University of Pittsburgh researcher and his collaborators.

Study reveals gender bias of prospective parents

A Queen's University study has found that when people think about having children, men want boys and women want girls.

"Gender neutrality - a lack of preference - is now a standard cultural norm embraced within most wealthy developed countries like Canada," says Lonnie Aarssen, a Queen's biology professor and co-author of the study. His results, though, reveal a strong gender bias, despite the researchers' prediction that they would find evidence of a well-established contemporary culture of gender neutrality.

A new kind of metal in the deep Earth

Washington, D.C. -- The crushing pressures and intense temperatures in Earth's deep interior squeeze atoms and electrons so closely together that they interact very differently. With depth materials change. New experiments and supercomputer computations discovered that iron oxide undergoes a new kind of transition under deep Earth conditions. Iron oxide, FeO, is a component of the second most abundant mineral at Earth's lower mantle, ferropericlase.