Earth

WASHINGTON— A new simulation of oil and methane leaked into the Gulf of Mexico suggests that deep hypoxic zones or "dead zones" could form near the source of the pollution. The research investigates five scenarios of oil and methane plumes at different depths and incorporates an estimated rate of flow from the Deepwater Horizon spill, which released oil and methane gas into the Gulf from April to mid July of this year.

A scientific paper on the research has been accepted for publication by Geophysical Research Letters, a journal of the American Geophysical Union,

A magnitude-8.1 earthquake and tsunami that killed 192 people last year in Samoa, American Samoa and Tonga was in fact a triple-whammy.

The 8.1 "great earthquake" concealed and triggered two major quakes of magnitude 7.8, seismologists report in a paper in this week's issue of the journal Nature.

Scientists can now study climate change in far more detail with powerful new computer software released by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colo.

The Community Earth System Model will be one of the primary climate models used for the next assessment by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

fire thought of as the quintessential human invention. Now scientists have found that emerging, more energy efficient lighting technologies could be the key to a better quality of life.

New research published today, Thursday, 19 August, in a special issue of IOP Publishing's Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics shows that solid-state lighting (SSL), a new technology based on semiconductor light-emitting diodes (LEDs), has the potential to increase our consumption of light and therefore our quality of life.

BOULDER--Scientists can now study climate change in far more detail with powerful new computer software released by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR).

SALT LAKE CITY, Aug. 18, 2010 – A magnitude-8.1 earthquake and tsunami that killed 192 people last year in Samoa, American Samoa and Tonga actually was a triple whammy: The 8.1 "great earthquake" concealed and triggered two major quakes of magnitude 7.8, seismologists report in the Thursday, Aug. 19, issue of the journal Nature.

Scientists studying the massive earthquake that struck the South Pacific on September 29, 2009, have found that it actually involved two great earthquakes: an initial one with magnitude 8.1, which then triggered another magnitude 8 earthquake seconds later on a different fault. The details of this rare event, called a "triggered doublet," are unlike anything seismologists have seen before.

ITHACA, N.Y. — It's the Clark Kent of oxide compounds, and – on its own – it is pretty boring. But slice europium titanate nanometers thin and physically stretch it, and then it takes on super hero-like properties that could revolutionize electronics, according to new Cornell research. (Nature, Aug. 19, 2010.)

Researchers from Mount Sinai School of Medicine have enhanced our understanding of the mechanism by which cells achieve energy conversion, the process in which food is converted into the energy required by cells. This groundbreaking research helps scientists gain atomic-level insight into how organisms synthesize their major form of chemical energy. The researchers' findings were published in the August issue of PLoS Biology.

Physicists from UCLA and Japan have discovered evidence of "natural nuclear accelerators" at work in our Milky Way galaxy, based on an analysis of data from the world's largest cosmic ray detector.

The research is published Aug. 20 in the journal Physical Review Letters.

College Park, MD (August 17, 2010) -- College Park, MD (August 17, 2010) -- Scientists at Tohoku University in Japan have recorded data at a density of 4 trillion bits per square inch, which is a world record for the experimental "ferroelectric" data storage method. As described the journal Applied Physics Letters, which is published by the American Institute of Physics, this density is about eight times the density of today's most advanced magnetic hard-disk drives.

College Park, MD (August 17, 2010) -- Solar energy is an environmentally-friendly way of producing electricity and is considered to be one of the most appealing options for the future.

College Park, MD (August 17, 2010) -- Wave energy is surging ahead as a viable source of renewable energy to generate electricity -- with Australia's southern margin identified by the World Energy Council as one of the world's most promising sites for wave-energy generation.

College Park, MD (August 17, 2010) -- In developing countries such as India, small hydroelectric power (SHP) projects represent a potentially large but largely untapped source of energy, primarily because the cost of constructing the sites is thought to be higher per kilowatt of generated power than the cost of large plants.

The Wildlife Conservation Society today released initial field observations that indicate that a dramatic rise in the surface temperature in Indonesian waters has resulted in a large-scale bleaching event that has devastated coral populations.

WCS's Indonesia Program "Rapid Response Unit" of marine biologists was dispatched to investigate coral bleaching reported in May in Aceh–a province of Indonesia–located on the northern tip of the island of Sumatra. The initial survey carried out by the team revealed that over 60 percent of corals were bleached.