Earth

RUSTON, La -- Dr. Erez Allouche, assistant professor of civil engineering at Louisiana Tech University and associate director of the Trenchless Technology Center, is conducting innovative research on geopolymer concrete and providing ways to use a waste byproduct from coal fired power plants and help curb carbon dioxide emissions.

In a feat of reverse-engineering, Christian Braudrick of University of California at Berkeley and three coauthors have successfully built and maintained a scale model of a living meandering gravel-bed river in the lab. Their findings point to the importance of vegetation to reinforce the banks and, surprisingly, to the importance of sand in healthy meandering river life.

ANN ARBOR, Mich.---University of Michigan physicists have created the first atomic-scale maps of quantum dots, a major step toward the goal of producing "designer dots" that can be tailored for specific applications.

Quantum dots---often called artificial atoms or nanoparticles---are tiny semiconductor crystals with wide-ranging potential applications in computing, photovoltaic cells, light-emitting devices and other technologies. Each dot is a well-ordered cluster of atoms, 10 to 50 atoms in diameter.

Since 2000, John Pendry's work on metamaterials has been at the van guard of efforts to create a perfect image – images with perfect resolution that can stem from light being moved in odd directions to create, among other tricks of the light, the illusion of invisibility.

Scientists at The University of Nottingham have overcome one of the significant research challenges facing electrochemists. For the first time they have found a way of probing right into the heart of an electrochemical reaction.

Their breakthrough will help scientists understand how catalysts work. If this is understood even better catalysts could be created.

Physicists are continually reaching new lows as they reduce the temperatures of samples in their laboratories. But even nano-kelvins are not low enough to overcome the entropy (a measure of the disorder in a system) that stands between them and the discovery of exotic states of ultra-cold matter. Now physicists at two Italian universities have developed a technique that siphons entropy out of a collection of atoms in much the same way that a kitchen refrigerator removes heat from the food stored inside.

The team characterized the bacteria's motion as a function of both their length and distance from the surface. The team found that the longer and closer to the surface they were, the slower the E. coli "paddled."

It took the engineers months to perfect the intricate camera and computer system that allowed them to take 60 to 100 sequential images per second, then automatically and efficiently analyze the huge amount of resulting data.

ANN ARBOR, Mich.---A recent commentary suggests that the U.S. should spend roughly $197 million more than it currently does to research the impact of climate change on public health.

The analysis found that the U.S. spends about $3 million in federal funds on research related to the health impacts of climate change, says Marie S. O'Neill, one of the commentary co-authors. This isn't nearly enough to adequately address the public health issues related to global warming, the group concluded.

A team of researchers from the University of Zaragoza (UNIZAR) and the Institut d'Astrophysique Spatiale (IAS, in France) has developed a "scintillating bolometer", a device that the scientists will use in efforts to detect the dark matter of the Universe, and which has been tested at the Canfranc Underground Laboratory in Huesca, Spain.

Berkeley, CA – Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have been able to confirm the production of the superheavy element 114, ten years after a group in Russia, at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna, first claimed to have made it. The search for 114 has long been a key part of the quest for nuclear science's hoped-for Island of Stability.

RICHLAND, Wash. -- Catalysts convert useless or unwanted chemicals into useful or more desirable ones. Research in this week's Science reveals new, important details about a common catalyst: how rafts of chemically reactive platinum form in the catalyst. The new work yields insights into how to improve the industrial catalyst for oil refining, chemicals processing and environmental uses.

(Santa Barbara, Calif.) –– Physicists at UC Santa Barbara have made an important advance in quantum mechanics using a superconducting electrical circuit. The finding is reported in this week's issue of the journal Nature.

The most comprehensive picture of the rapidly thinning glaciers along the coastline of both the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets has been created using satellite lasers. The findings are an important step forward in the quest to make more accurate predictions for future sea level rise.

(Santa Barbara, Calif.) –– New approaches are needed to help humanity deal with climate change and other global environmental threats that lie ahead in the 21st century, according to a group of 28 internationally renowned scientists.

Durham, NC – Can we predict which species will be most vulnerable to climate change by studying how they responded in the past? A new study of flowering plants provides a clue. An analysis of more than 5000 plant species reveals that woody plants — such as trees and shrubs — adapted to past climate change much more slowly than herbaceous plants did. If the past is any indicator of the future, woody plants may have a harder time than other plants keeping pace with global warming, researchers say.