A sprite is an electrical discharge similar to lightning, but it occurs in the upper atmosphere (50-90 kilometers – 31-56 miles – in altitude), above large thunderstorms. Sprites were first photographed in 1989.
These large flashes of light, which are triggered in almost all cases by positive lightning discharge between the thundercloud and ground, can span tens of kilometers of altitude.
Global circulation model (GCM) experiments carried out for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) predict that as the Earth undergoes global warming, humidity will increase in subtropical regions.
The atoms that make up ordinary matter fall down, so do antimatter atoms fall up? Do they experience gravity the same way as ordinary atoms, or is there such a thing as antigravity?
These questions have long intrigued physicists, says Joel Fajans of the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), because "in the unlikely event that antimatter falls upwards, we'd have to fundamentally revise our view of physics and rethink how the universe works."
Antimatter is strange stuff. It has the opposite electrical charge to normal matter and, when it meets its matter counterpart, the two annihilate in a flash of light.
Four University of California, Berkeley, physicists are now asking whether matter and antimatter are also affected differently by gravity. Could antimatter fall upward – that is, exhibit anti-gravity – or fall downward at a different rate than normal matter?
Deposits left by the eruption of a subglacial volcano, or tuya, 1.8 million years ago could hold the secret to more accurate palaeo-glacial and climate models, according to new research by University of British Columbia geoscientists.
The detailed mapping and sampling of the partially eroded Kima' Kho tuya in northern British Columbia, Canada shows that the ancient regional ice sheet through which the volcano erupted was twice as thick as previously estimated.
Atmospheric contamination due to heavy metals is currently a severe problem of global proportions, with important repercussions in public health. However, this type of pollution is not a recent fact and can even be detected during pre-historic times.
A quantum computer is controlled by the laws of quantum physics; it promises to perform complicated calculations, or search large amounts of data, at a speed that exceeds by far those that today's fastest supercomputers are capable of.
Baltimore, MD.—Mammalian females ovulate periodically over their reproductive lifetimes, placing significant demands on their ovaries for egg production. Whether mammals generate new eggs in adulthood using stem cells has been a source of scientific controversy. If true, these "germ-line stem cells" might allow novel treatments for infertility and other diseases. However, new research from Carnegie's Lei Lei and Allan Spradling demonstrates that adult mice do not use stem cells to produce new eggs.
Washington, D.C.—Forecasting volcanic eruptions with success is heavily dependent on recognizing well-established patterns of pre-eruption unrest in the monitoring data. But in order to develop better monitoring procedures, it is also crucial to understand volcanic eruptions that deviate from these patterns.
Researchers at New York University and NYU Langone Medical Center have created a novel way to enhance MRI by reducing interference from large macromolecules that can often obscure images generated by current chemical exchange saturation transfer (CEST) methods.
Their work, which appears in the Nature publishing group journal Scientific Reports, has the potential to improve MRI for cartilage as well as for brain tissue.
EAST LANSING, Mich. — U.S. residents who believe in the scientific consensus on global warming are more likely to support government action to curb emissions, regardless of whether they are Republican or Democrat, according to a study led by a Michigan State University sociologist.
However, a political divide remains on the existence of climate change despite the fact that the vast majority of scientists believe it is real, said Aaron M. McCright, associate professor in Lyman Briggs College and the Department of Sociology.
An ultimate goal in the field of carbon nanotube research is to synthesise single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) with controlled chiralities. Twenty years after the discovery of SWNTs, scientists from Aalto University in Finland, A.M. Prokhorov General Physics Institute RAS in Russia and the Center for Electron Nanoscopy of Technical University of Denmark (DTU) have managed to control chirality in carbon nanotubes during their chemical vapor deposition synthesis.
Carbon nanotube structure is defined by a pair of integers known as chiral indices (n,m), in other words, chirality.
In recent years, metal nanoparticles have showed great application prospect in the field of biological imaging, cancer diagnosis and treatment due to its unique optical scattering and optical absorption properties. In many metal materials, gold nanoparticles have caused concerns in the field because of its simple preparation, easy to modify advantages. However, the poor stability in physiological fluids environment and the potential toxicity of gold nanoparticles always restricts its application in the biological field.
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Researchers at Florida State University have developed a new metric to measure seasonal Atlantic tropical cyclone activity that focuses on the size of storms in addition to the duration and intensity, a measure that may prove important when considering a hurricane's potential for death and destruction.
Just ask the survivors of Hurricane Sandy.
At the end of a long day, it can be more convenient to order your groceries online while sitting on the living room couch instead of making a late-night run to the store. New research shows it's also much more environmentally friendly to leave the car parked and opt for groceries delivered to your doorstep.