Since Erwin Schroedinger's famous 1935 cat thought experiment, physicists around the globe have tried to create large scale systems to test how the rules of quantum mechanics apply to everyday objects.
Researchers at the University of Calgary recently made a significant step forward in this direction by creating a large system that is in two substantially different states at the same time. Until this point, scientists had only managed to recreate quantum effects on much smaller scales.
Almost 100 million euros has been spent so far on conservation efforts for the last 250 remaining Iberian lynxes in the wild. But the charismatic species is likely to go extinct within 50 years because the current management plans do not account for the effects of climate change. If they did, the population might increase instead concludes a new international study with participation from the Centre for Macroecology, Evolution and Climate at the University of Copenhagen. The study highlights the importance of integrating climate models in management plans for biodiversity.
Some geysers have predictable eruptions that make them ideal for study. Understanding geyser eruption dynamics can provide insight into other intermittent natural processes, such as volcanic eruptions, but most studies of geysers have focused on the processes that trigger geyser eruption.
The eruption jet dynamics are less well characterized.
In northern thermokarst lakes, which form in depressions left as permafrost thaws, methane, a greenhouse gas, can be released from lake sediments to the atmosphere through bubbling, or ebullition.
Constraining the amount of methane released through bubbling would help scientists understand the role of thawing permafrost in the carbon cycle and global climate change.
However, bubbling is highly variable in both space and time and thus difficult to measure accurately, so there are large uncertainties in estimates of methane emissions from northern ecosystems.
ARGONNE, Ill. – A protein found in the membranes of ancient microorganisms that live in desert salt flats could offer a new way of using sunlight to generate environmentally friendly hydrogen fuel, according to a new study by researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory.
Argonne nanoscientist Elena Rozhkova and her colleagues combined a pigment called bacteriorhodopsin with semiconducting nanoparticles to create a system that uses light to spark a catalytic process that creates hydrogen fuel.
TORONTO -- Today TRIUMF, a Canadian laboratory for nuclear and particle physics that works in partnership with York University and University of Toronto, announced a new breakthrough in understanding neutrinos -- nature's most elusive particles.
HOUSTON – (July 19, 2013) – A discovery facilitated by Rice University's contribution to the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) will impact scientists' search for dark matter in the universe.
During heat waves -- when ozone production rises -- plants' ozone absorption is curtailed, leaving more pollution in the air, and costing an estimated 460 lives in the UK in the hot summer of 2006.
Vegetation plays a crucial role in reducing air pollution, but new research by the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) at the University of York shows that they may not protect us when we need it most: during extreme heat, when ozone formation from traffic fumes, industrial processes and other sources is at its worst.
The supply of dissolved iron to oceans around continental shelves has been found to be more variable by region than previously believed – with implications for future climate prediction.
Iron is key to the removal of carbon dioxide from the Earth's atmosphere as it promotes the growth of microscopic marine plants (phytoplankton), which mop up the greenhouse gas and lock it away in the ocean.
WASHINGTON, D.C., July 19, 2013 – Many U.S. universities have no women at all among their physics faculty, and when people talk about gender equity in physics, this fact is often cited as evidence of a hiring bias. But a new analysis by the American Institute of Physics (AIP) Statistical Research Center challenges this argument, finding that the existence of all-male departments is not necessarily evidence of a hiring bias.
If you squeeze a normal object in all directions, it shrinks in all directions. But a few strange materials will actually grow in one dimension when compressed. A team of chemists has now discovered a structure that takes this property to a new level, expanding more dramatically under pressure than any other known material. The finding could lead to new kinds of pressure sensors and artificial muscles.
Catalysts are everywhere. They make chemical reactions that normally occur at extremely high temperatures and pressures possible within factories, cars and the comparatively balmy conditions within the human body. Developing better catalysts, however, is mainly a hit-or-miss process.
Now, a study by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Trieste and Brookhaven National Laboratory has shown a way to precisely design the active elements of a certain class of catalysts, showing which parameters are most critical for improving performance.
Concentric hexagons of graphene grown in a furnace at Rice University represent the first time anyone has synthesized graphene nanoribbons on metal from the bottom up -- atom by atom.
As seen under a microscope, the layers brought onions to mind, said Rice chemist James Tour, until a colleague suggested flat graphene could never be like an onion.
"So I said, 'OK, these are onion rings,'" Tour quipped.
BOWLING GREEN, O.—Fewer women are getting married and they're waiting longer to tie the knot when they do decide to walk down the aisle. That's according to a new Family Profile from the National Center for Family and Marriage Research (NCFMR) at Bowling Green State University.
According to "Marriage: More than a Century of Change," the U.S. marriage rate is 31.1, the lowest it's been in over a century. That equals roughly 31 marriages per 1,000 married women. Compare that to 1920, when the marriage rate was a staggering 92.3.
MAYWOOD, Il. - A study led by a Loyola University Medical Center ENT physician provides a case study of a simple action that can reduce healthcare costs without compromising care.
Matthew Kircher, MD, and colleagues examined one of the costs associated with surgery to remove a type of cyst, called a cholesteatoma, from the middle ear. Otologists routinely send specimens to the pathology lab, but the study found this doesn't appear to be necessary.