Earth

In this week's PLoS Medicine Magazine, Trisha Greenhalgh and Jill Russell from the Queen Mary University of London discuss the relative merits of "scientific" and "social practice" approaches to evaluation and argue that eHealth evaluation is in need of a paradigm shift. They critique the previous PLoS Medicine series on evaluating eHealth, published in late 2009.

Source: Public Library of Science

A new material with a split personality -- part superconductor, part metal -- has been observed by a Princeton University-led research team. The discovery may have implications for the development of next-generation electronics that could transform the way information is stored and processed.

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — New University of Florida research puts to rest the mystery of where old carbon was stored during the last glacial period. It turns out it ended up in the icy waters of the Southern Ocean near Antarctica.

The findings have implications for modern-day global warming, said Ellen Martin, a UF geological sciences professor and an author of the paper, which is published in this week's journal Nature Geoscience.

BOSTON (3:00 p.m. ET, November 1, 2010) — A class of compounds that interferes with cell signaling pathways may provide a new approach to cancer treatment, according to a study published online this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) Early Edition. The compounds, called PITs (non-phosphoinositide PIP3 inhibitors), limited tumor growth in mice by inducing cell death.

In many areas of the world, including California's Mojave Desert, rain is a precious and rare resource. To encourage rainfall, scientists use "cloud seeding," a weather modification process designed to increase precipitation amounts by dispersing chemicals into the clouds.

When confined to a 2-dimensional sheet, some exotic particle-like structures known as anyons appear to entwine in ways that could lead to robust quantum computing schemes, according to research appearing in the November 1 issue of the journal Physical Review B. The physicists at Bell Laboratories who performed the research are hopeful the anyons can be induced to follow paths that twist into braids that would be much more resistant to disturbances that corrupt data and calculations in quantum computers relying on individual particles.

The ocean surface is 30 percent more acidic today than it was in 1800, much of that increase occurring in the last 50 years - a rising trend that could both harm coral reefs and profoundly impact tiny shelled plankton at the base of the ocean food web, scientists warn.

Changes in the ice mass covering Antarctica is a critical factor in global climate events and scientists at the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences have now found that the year by year mass variations in the western Antarctic are mainly attributable to fluctuations in precipitation, which are controlled significantly by the climate phenomenon El Nino.

PHILADELPHIA — Researchers are one step closer to providing a new therapy for colon cancer, after findings revealed that a small molecule focal adhesion kinase (FAK) inhibitor known as Y15 effectively blocked cell viability, promoted detachment and apoptosis, and decreased tumor growth in mice. These findings were presented at the American Association for Cancer Research special conference on Colorectal Cancer: Biology to Therapy, held Oct. 27-30, 2010.

More than 251 million years ago, at the end of the Permian period, Earth almost became a lifeless planet. Around 90 percent of all living species disappeared then, in what scientists have called "The Great Dying."

The world of that time sounds horrific and alien – a devastated landscape, barren of vegetation, scarred by erosion from showers of acid rain, huge "dead zones" in the oceans and runaway greenhouse gases leading to sizzling temperatures. Earth 251 million years ago had no exotic vacation getaway spots.

Contrary to expectations, climate change has had a significant effecton mountain plants at low elevations, says a new study led by a UCDavis researcher.

The information could guide future conservation efforts at localscales by helping decision makers anticipate biological responses toclimate changes, said lead author Susan Harrison, a UC Davisprofessor of environmental science and policy.

In a research paper published online Saturday in the Journal of Geophysical Research Oceans, a publication of the American Geological Union (AGU), scientists reported the southern Baffin Bay off West Greenland has continued warming since wintertime ocean temperatures were last effectively measured there in the early 2000s.

Researchers at the University of Bristol reveal today in the journal Nature that they have developed a seismological 'speed gun' for the inside of the Earth. Using this technique they will be able to measure the way the Earth's deep interior slowly moves around. This mantle motion is what controls the location of our continents and oceans, and where the tectonic plates collide to shake the surface we live on.

Berkeley, CA—A team of scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has detected six isotopes, never seen before, of the superheavy elements 104 through 114. Starting with the creation of a new isotope of the yet-to-be-named element 114, the researchers observed successive emissions of alpha particles that yielded new isotopes of copernicium (element 112), darmstadtium (element 110), hassium (element 108), seaborgium (element 106), and rutherfordium (element 104). Rutherfordium ended the chain when it decayed by spontaneous fission.