Using optically dense, ultra-cold clouds of rubidium atoms, researchers have made advances in three key elements needed for quantum information systems – including a technique for converting photons carrying quantum data to wavelengths that can be transmitted long distances on optical fiber telecom networks.
A better way to pinpoint where volcanic eruptions are likely to occur has been produced by an international team of geophysicists.
Scientists from the universities of Leeds, Purdue, Indiana and Addis Ababa, investigated volcanic activity occurring in the remote Afar desert of Northern Ethiopia between 2005 and 2009.
Pakistan is facing tremendous water issues. This summer's flooding has left millions of people without homes and without access to clean drinking water. But water issues - both quantity and quality - are not new to this strategically important country. Waterborne diseases account for 30 percent of all deaths in Pakistan, and kill some 250,000 children each year. Per capita water availability in Pakistan is less than one-ninth of what it is in the U.S. And what's more, researchers say if Pakistan doesn't manage its water resources differently, it's going to actually run out of water.
University of California, Berkeley, and Yale University scientists have recreated the tremendous pressures and high temperatures deep in the Earth to resolve a long-standing puzzle: why some seismic waves travel faster than others through the boundary between the solid mantle and fluid outer core.
BOULDER, Colo. – Scientists have known for decades that time passes faster at higher elevations—a curious aspect of Einstein's theories of relativity that previously has been measured by comparing clocks on the earth's surface and a high-flying rocket.
Engineering researchers from Tufts University, the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Harvard University have demonstrated the low-temperature efficacy of an atomically dispersed platinum catalyst, which could be suitable for on-board hydrogen production in fuel-cell-powered vehicles of the future.
"A giant rhino with a ridiculously supersized head" is the kind of phrase used to describe two newly discovered species of dinosaurs with looks only a mother could love. Still, they are drawing the attention and inspiring the imagination of scientists and lay people alike.
According to the NOAA Coral Reef Watch monitoring system, coral bleaching is likely in the Caribbean in 2010. With temperatures above-average all year, NOAA's models show a strong potential for bleaching in the southern and southeastern Caribbean through October that could be as severe as in 2005 when over 80 percent of corals bleached and over 40 percent died at many sites across the Caribbean. Scientists are already reporting coral bleaching at several Caribbean sites and severe bleaching has been reported from other parts of the world.
A Princeton University-led research team has developed the capability to produce realistic movies of earthquakes based on complex computer simulations that can be made available worldwide within hours of a disastrous upheaval.
The videos show waves of ground motion spreading out from an epicenter. In making them widely available, the team of computational seismologists and computer scientists aims to aid researchers working to improve understanding of earthquakes and develop better maps of the Earth's interior.
Plants picked up to 150 years ago by Victorian collectors and held by the million in herbarium collections across the world could become a powerful – and much needed – new source of data for studying climate change, according to research published this week in the British Ecological Society's Journal of Ecology.
New Haven, Conn.—Ever since audiences heard Goldfinger utter the famous line, "No, Mr. Bond; I expect you to die," as a laser beam inched its way toward James Bond and threatened to cut him in half, lasers have been thought of as white-hot beams of intensely focused energy capable of burning through anything in their path.
