Earth

Coral reefs are predicted to decline under the pressure of global warming. However, a number of coral species can survive at seawater temperatures even higher than predicted for the tropics during the next century. How they survive, while most species cannot, is being investigated by researchers at the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton (NOCS) and New York University Abu Dhabi (NYUAD).

A worldwide review of global rainfall data led by the University of Adelaide has found that the intensity of the most extreme rainfall events is increasing across the globe as temperatures rise.

In the most comprehensive review of changes to extreme rainfall ever undertaken, researchers evaluated the association between extreme rainfall and atmospheric temperatures at more than 8000 weather gauging stations around the world.

On a cold February night in Poker Flat, Alaska, a team of scientists will wait patiently for the exotic red and green glow of an aurora to illuminate the sky. Instead of simply admiring the view, this group from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center of Greenbelt, Md., and The Aerospace Corporation of El Segundo, Calif. will launch a sounding rocket up through the Northern Lights. The rocket could launch as early as the night of Feb. 2, 2013, but the team has a two-week window in order to find the perfect launch conditions.

Afforestation, planting trees in an area where there have previously been no trees, can reduce the effect of climate change by cooling temperate regions finds a study in BioMed Central's open access journal Carbon Balance and Management. Afforestation would lead to cooler and wetter summers by the end of this century.

How does a mountain range maintain its youthful, rugged appearance after 200 million years without tectonic activity? Try a geological facelift – courtesy of the earth's mantle.

According to a Johns Hopkins earth scientist, the hole in the Antarctic ozone layer has caused changes in the way that waters in those southern oceans mix – a situation that has the potential to alter the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere and eventually could have an impact on global climate change.

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- Depletion of Antarctic ozone is a more important factor than increasing greenhouse gases in shifting the Southern Hemisphere jet stream in a southward direction, according to researchers at Penn State.

"Previous research suggests that this southward shift in the jet stream has contributed to changes in ocean circulation patterns and precipitation patterns in the Southern Hemisphere, both of which can have important impacts on people's livelihoods," said Sukyoung Lee, professor of meteorology.

What came first: the bipedal human ancestor or the grassland encroaching on the forest?

A new analysis of the past 12 million years' of vegetation change in the cradle of humanity is challenging long-held beliefs about the world in which our ancestors took shape – and, by extension, the impact it had on them.

It would be a terrible thing if laboratories striving to grow graphene from carbon atoms kept winding up with big pesky diamonds.

"That would be trouble, cleaning out the diamonds so you could do some real work," said Rice University theoretical physicist Boris Yakobson, chuckling at the absurd image.

The research of a multi-institutional team from the U.S., Japan, and France, led by Predrag S. Krstic of the Joint Institute for Computational Sciences and Jean Paul Allain of Purdue University has answered the question of how the behavior of plasma—the extremely hot gases of nuclear fusion—can be controlled with ultra-thin lithium films on graphite walls lining thermonuclear magnetic fusion devices.

"It is remarkable that seemingly insignificant lithium depositions can profoundly influence the behavior of something as powerful as fusion plasmas," Krstic said.

It came out of Siberia, swirling winds over an area that covered almost the entire Arctic basin in the normally calm late summer. It came to be known as "The Great Arctic Cyclone of August 2012," and for some observers it suggested that the historic sea ice minimum may have been caused by a freak summer storm, rather than warming temperatures.

The rate of chemical processes in cells is dictated by the speed of movement (diffusion) of molecules needed for a given reaction. Using a versatile method developed at the Institute of Physical Chemistry of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw, researchers were able to predict for the first time the diffusion coefficients of all proteins in Escherichia coli. The achievement is important not only for biologists and chemists, but also for... transport companies.

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Rebutting a speculative hypothesis that comet explosions changed Earth's climate sufficiently to end the Clovis culture in North America about 13,000 years ago, Sandia lead author Mark Boslough and researchers from 14 academic institutions assert that other explanations must be found for the apparent disappearance.

"There's no plausible mechanism to get airbursts over an entire continent," said Boslough, a physicist. "For this and other reasons, we conclude that the impact hypothesis is, unfortunately, bogus."

ANN ARBOR--- Young adults in Generation X are as likely to connect with friends, family and co-workers online as they are in person, according to a University of Michigan study.

In a typical month, adults in their late 30s report that they engaged in about 75 face-to-face contacts or conversations, compared to about 74 electronic contracts through personal emails or social media.

In this month's edition of Physics World, science writer Richard Corfield casts doubt on the alleged "brainwashing" of the late British astronomer Sir Bernard Lovell by the Soviets at the height of the Cold War and explains how his trips beyond the Iron Curtain laid the foundations for the easing of geopolitical tensions between the UK and the USSR.

Speaking to Lovell's son Bryan, Corfield reveals a more mundane explanation for why Lovell, who founded the Jodrell Bank telescope in the UK, fell ill on his return from the USSR in 1963.