Earth

COPENHAGEN (31 October, 2012)—Feeding the world releases up to 17,000 megatons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere annually, according to a new analysis released today by the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS). But while the emissions "footprint" of food production needs to be reduced, a companion policy brief by CCAFS lays out how climate change will require a complete recalibration of where specific crops are grown and livestock are raised.

NASA's Aqua satellite captured a visible image Sandy's massive circulation. Sandy covers 1.8 million square miles, from the Mid-Atlantic to the Ohio Valley, into Canada and New England.

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument aboard NASA's Aqua satellite captured a visible image Sandy's massive circulation on October 29 at 18:20 UTC (2:20 p.m. EDT). Sandy covered 1.8 million square miles, from the Mid-Atlantic to the Ohio Valley, into Canada and New England. Sandy made landfall hours after the MODIS image was taken.

Physicists describe how they have synthesized a new material that belongs to the iron-selenide class of superconductors, called LixFe2Se2(NH3)y, in a paper about to be published in EPJ B. The work was carried out by Ernst-Wilhelm Scheidt from the University of Augsburg and colleagues. This material displays promising superconducting transition temperatures of 44 Kelvins (K) at ambient pressure, thus improving upon traditional copper-based high-temperature superconductors.

Neutron scattering experiments have provided new insights into the origin of the side effects of an antifungal drug prescribed all over the world. The analysis conducted by scientists at King's College London and the Institut Laue-Langevin in Grenoble, and published in Scientific Reports, follows 40 years of debate and could help drug developers reduce these harmful complications.

The Cretaceous Period of Earth history ended with a mass extinction that wiped out numerous species, most famously the dinosaurs. A new study now finds that the structure of North American ecosystems made the extinction worse than it might have been. Researchers at the University of Chicago, the California Academy of Sciences and the Field Museum of Natural History will publish their findings Oct. 29 online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The Cretaceous Period of Earth history ended with a mass extinction, famous for wiping out the dinosaurs.

Millions of years ago fire and water forged the gypsum rocks locked in at Cuatro Ciénegas, a Mexican valley similar to the Martian crater where NASA's Rover Curiosity roams. A team of researchers have now analysed the bacterial communities that have survived in these inhospitable springs since the beginning of life on Earth.

With greenhouse warming, rainfall in the South Pacific islands will depend on two competing effects – an increase due to overall warming and a decrease due to changes in atmospheric water transport – according to a study by an international team of scientists around Matthew Widlansky and Axel Timmermann at the International Pacific Research Center, University of Hawaii at Manoa. In the South Pacific, the study shows, these two effects sometimes cancel each other out, resulting in highly uncertain rainfall projections.

Silicon is the workhorse of the electronics industry, serving as the base material for the tiny transistors that make it possible for digital clocks to tick and computers to calculate. Now scientists have succeeded in creating near-atomically flat silicon, of the orientation used by the electronics industry, in a room temperature reaction. The flat silicon might one day serve as the base for new biological and chemical sensors. The researchers will present their work at the AVS 59th International Symposium and Exhibition, held Oct. 28 – Nov. 2 in Tampa, Fla.

Microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) are incredibly tiny devices, often built on the scale of millionths of a meter. Conventional MEMS structures tend to be made out of silicon-based materials familiar to the micro-electronics industry, but this ignores a suite of useful materials such as other semiconductors, ceramics, and metals.

Much more must be done to develop energy efficient cars, buildings and domestic appliances to address climate change – according to new research from the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at the University of East Anglia.

A report published today in Nature Climate Change shows that twice as much effort is being spent on developing energy supply technologies - such as new power stations - than is spent on improving the efficiency with which energy is used.

EAST LANSING, Mich. — Warmer oceans in the future could significantly alter populations of phytoplankton, tiny organisms that could have a major impact on climate change.

CHESTNUT HILL, MA (October 25, 2012) – In the relatively new scientific frontier of topological insulators, theoretical and experimental physicists have been studying the surfaces of these unique materials for insights into the behavior of electrons that display some very un-electron-like properties.

WASHINGTON, Oct. 25, 2012 — The latest episode in the American Chemical Society's (ACS') award-winning Global Challenges/Chemistry Solutions podcast series reports that scientists have discovered a plausible way to manipulate the populations of mostly beneficial microbes in "purified" drinking water to potentially benefit consumers.

The case of six Italian scientists sentenced to be jailed for failing to warn of the L'Aquila earthquake in Italy in 2009 highlights the difficult task facing scientists in dealing with risk communication and uncertainty.

We deal with risks and uncertainty all the time in our daily lives. Weather forecasts do not come with guarantees and despite the death tolls on our roads we continue to use bikes, cars, and buses. We have also long built our homes and workplaces in areas known to have a history of earthquakes, floods, or volcanic activity.