Earth

New research indicates that one of the largest fresh-water floods in Earth's history happened about 17,000 years ago and inundated a large area of Alaska that is now occupied in part by the city of Wasilla.

The event was one of at least four "megafloods" as Glacial Lake Atna breached ice dams and discharged water. The lake covered more than 3,500 square miles in the Copper River Basin northeast of Anchorage and Wasilla.

BOULDER, Colo. – Physicists at JILA have demonstrated a new tool for controlling ultracold gases and ultracold chemistry: electric fields.

As described in the April 29 issue of Nature, JILA scientists discovered that applying a small electric field spurs a dramatic increase in chemical reactions in their gas of ultracold molecules. JILA is a joint institute of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the Georgia Institute of Technology have demonstrated* that atomic scale moiré patterns, an interference pattern that appears when two or more grids are overlaid slightly askew, can be used to measure how sheets of graphene are stacked and reveal areas of strain.

Using neutron beams and atomic-force microscopes, a team of university researchers working with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) may have resolved a 10-year-old question about an exotic class of "artificial muscles"—how do they work? Their results* could influence the design of future specialized robotic tools.

We know more about distant galaxies than we do about the interior of our own planet. However, by observing distant earthquakes, researchers at the University of Calgary have revealed new clues about the top of the Earth's core in a paper published in the May edition of the journal Physics of the Earth and Planetary Interiors.

Knowledge of the composition and state in this zone is key to unraveling the source of the Earth's magnetic field and the formation of our planet.

Australian researchers describe a mathematical model in the International Journal of Operational Research that can find the ten optimal sites at which tsunami detection buoys and sea-level monitors should be installed. The model could save time and money in the installation of a detection system as well as providing warning for the maximum number of people should a potentially devastating tsunami occur again in the Indian Ocean.

New Haven, Conn.—The physiology of microbes living underground could determine the amount of carbon dioxide emitted from soils on a warmer Earth, according to a study published online this week in Nature Geoscience.

Researchers at UC Irvine, Colorado State University and the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies have found that as global temperatures increase, microbes in soil become less efficient over time in converting carbon in soil into carbon dioxide, which is a key contributor to climate warming.

DALLAS – April 29, 2010 –Tamiflu and two other drugs used to treat influenza appear safe for pregnant women and their babies, researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have found in a retrospective study of 239 cases of women who received the medications during pregnancy.

The study provides "reassuring safety data about commonly used medications," the researchers concluded in their study, which appears in the April issue of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

ANAHEIM, CA – Tuberculosis (TB) continues to be a global health problem, in part due to the exceptional drug resistance displayed by the TB-causing agent, Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Beyond even acquired drug resistance, these bacteria are also inherently resistant to many other common antibiotics, which limits the available options in finding alternative treatments to resistant TB strains.

About 10 miles off the Santa Barbara coast, at the bottom of the Santa Barbara Channel, a series of impressive landmarks rise from the sea floor.

They've been there for 40,000 years, but have remained hidden in the murky depths of the Pacific Ocean--until now.

They're called asphalt volcanoes.

ATHENS, Ohio (April 26, 2010) – Though scientists argue that the emerging technology of spintronics may trump conventional electronics for building the next generation of faster, smaller, more efficient computers and high-tech devices, no one has actually seen the spin—a quantum mechanical property of electrons—in individual atoms until now. In a study published as an Advance Online Publication in the journal Nature Nanotechnology on Sunday, physicists at Ohio University and the University of Hamburg in Germany present the first images of spin in action.

MEDFORD/SOMERVILLE, Mass. –Everyone wants to live in the nicest possible house, ideally with regular upgrades. A recent study by biologists at Tufts University's School of Arts and Sciences and the New England Aquarium reveals that hermit crabs may locate new and improved housing using previously unknown social networking skills.

Menlo Park, Calif. — A new form of platinum that could be used to make cheaper, more efficient fuel cells has been created by researchers at the Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and the University of Houston. The process, described in the April 25th issue of Nature Chemistry, could help enable broader use of the devices, which produce emissions-free energy using hydrogen.

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X-ray studies and fundamental calculations are helping physicists gain molecular level insight into the workings of some magnetic shape-memory materials, which change shape under the influence magnetic fields. Shape-memory materials could potentially serve as light weight, compact alternatives to conventional motors and actuators. But developing practical devices will require creating materials that exhibit much larger changes in shape than most of the known shape-memory materials.