Earth

The quest for faster electronic devices recently got something more than a little bump up in technological knowhow. Scientists at Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y. discovered that the thin, smooth, crystalline sheets needed to make semiconductors, which are the foundation of modern computers, might be grown into smoother sheets by managing the random darting motions of the atomic particles that affect how the crystals grow.

Recent studies of stream channel offsets along the San Andreas Fault reveal new information about fault behavior--changing our understanding of the potential for damaging earthquakes.

The studies were conducted at the Carrizo Plain, 100 miles north of Los Angeles and site of the original "Big One"--the Fort Tejon quake of 1857--by scientists at Arizona State University (ASU) and the University of California at Irvine (UCI).

To make thin films for semiconductors in electronic devices, layers of atoms must be grown in neat, crystalline sheets. But while some materials grow smooth crystals, others tend to develop bumps and defects – a serious problem for thin-film manufacturing.

TEMPE, Ariz. and IRVINE, Calif. – Recent collaborative studies of stream channel offsets along the San Andreas Fault by researchers at Arizona State University and UC Irvine reveal new information about fault behavior – affecting how we understand the potential for damaging earthquakes.

NARRAGANSETT, R.I. – January 21, 2010 – The bubbles in your champagne that appear to jump out of your glass and tickle your nose are exhibiting a behavior quite similar to the tiny bubbles found throughout the world's oceans, according to bubble physicist Helen Czerski.

But while the champagne bubbles are likely to raise your spirits, those in the ocean can cause clouds to form and affect the climate.

WHAT:A new study in human cells has singled out a molecule that specifically directs immune cells to develop the capability to produce an allergic response. The signaling molecule, called thymic stromal lymphopoietin (TSLP), is key to the development of allergic diseases such as asthma, atopic dermatitis (eczema) and food allergy.

For the first time, the widely used molecular synthesis technique known as click chemistry has been safely applied to a living organism. Researchers with Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California (UC) Berkeley have crafted a unique copper-free version of click chemistry to create biomolecular probes for in vivo studies of live mice. Conventional click chemistry reactions require a copper catalyst that is toxic to cells and organisms.

Circumcising newborn boys as a way to prevent HIV infection in later life is more cost-effective than circumcising adult males, finds a new Rwandan study in this week's PLoS Medicine.

Researchers who hope to create quantum computers are currently investigating various methods to store data. Nitrogen atoms embedded in diamond show promise for encoding quantum bits (qubits), but the process of reading the information results in an extremely weak signal. Now physicists have demonstrated a roundabout approach for generating a significantly stronger signal from these sorts of qubits.

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The chain of earthquakes along the North Anatolian fault shows a gap south of Istanbul. The expected earthquakes in this region represent an extreme danger for the Turkish megacity. A new computer study now shows that the tensions in this part of the fault zone could trigger several earthquakes instead of one individual large quake event.

Microscopic nematode worms can be a potent organic insecticide, killing crop-raiding bugs without harming plants or beneficial insects and without environmental side effects of chemical. The problem is that when the worms are mass-bred for agricultural purposes, they tend to, as Byron Adams says, "wimp out," and are not as deadly as their cousins that grow in the wild.

An increase in the variability of local conditions could do more to harm biodiversity than slower shifts in climate, a new study has found.

Climate scientists predict more frequent storms, droughts, floods and heat waves as the Earth warms. Although extreme weather would seem to challenge ecosystems, the effect of fluctuating conditions on biodiversity actually could go either way. Species able to tolerate only a narrow range of temperatures, for example, may be eliminated, but instability in the environment can also prevent dominant species from squeezing out competitors.

The death toll in the massive 7.0 magnitude earthquake in Haiti Jan. 12 is expected to continue to rise in the coming days, likely in large part because of corruption and resulting shoddy construction practices in the poor Caribbean nation, according to a University of Colorado at Boulder seismologist.

The magnitude 7.0 earthquake that triggered disastrous destruction and mounting death tolls in Haiti this week occurred in a highly complex tangle of tectonic faults near the intersection of the Caribbean and North American crustal plates, according to a quake expert at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) who has studied faults in the region and throughout the world.