Earth

Recycling keeps paper, plastics, and even jeans out of landfills. Could recycling rare-earth magnets do the same? Perhaps, if the recycling process can be improved.

Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Ames Laboratory are working to more effectively remove the neodymium, a rare earth element, from the mix of other materials in a magnet. Initial results show recycled materials maintain the properties that make rare-earth magnets useful.

A multinational research team has discovered filamentous bacteria that function as living power cables in order to transmit electrons thousands of cell lengths away.

The Desulfobulbus bacterial cells, which are only a few thousandths of a millimeter long each, are so tiny that they are invisible to the naked eye. And yet, under the right circumstances, they form a multicellular filament that can transmit electrons across a distance as large as 1 centimeter as part of the filament's respiration and ingestion processes.

ARGONNE, Ill. --- The study of materials at extreme conditions took a giant leap forward with the discovery of a way to generate super high pressures without using shock waves whose accompanying heat turns solids to liquid.

The laws that govern how intricate surface patterns, such as those found in the cauliflower, develop over time have been described, for the first time, by a group of European researchers.

In a study published today, 24 October, in the Institute of Physics and German Physical Society's New Journal of Physics, researchers have provided a mathematical formula to describe the processes that dictate how cauliflower-like patterns – a type of fractal pattern – form and develop.

A new study reported in this week's PLOS Medicine reports findings from a study carried out in four African countries by Carla Makhlouf Obermeyer and colleagues on approaches towards expanding testing and counselling for HIV. Provider-initiated HIV testing has the potential to expand access to treatment and prevention services, but there have been concerns as to whether consent practices, client confidentiality, and the referral to care will be acceptable under provider-initiated testing modes.

The steady and dramatic decline in the sea ice cover of the Arctic Ocean over the last three decades has become a focus of media and public attention. At the opposite end of the Earth, however, something more complex is happening.

ERIE, Pa. - Researchers at Mercyhurst University continue to investigate the presence of potentially harmful chemicals in the beach waters of Presque Isle State Park and have added a new one to their list: sucralose. A chlorinated form of sucrose found in artificial sweeteners, sucralose is used in an estimated 4,500 products ranging from Halloween candies to diet sodas.

University of California, Davis, researchers for the first time have looked inside gallium manganese arsenide, a type of material known as a "dilute magnetic semiconductor" that could open up an entirely new class of faster, smaller devices based on an emerging field known as "spintronics."

Materials of this type might be used to read and write digital information not by using the electron's charge, as is the case with today's electronic devices, but by using its "spin."

HOUSTON -- (Oct. 23, 2012) -- A new Rice University-led study finds that a deep connection about 50 miles underground can explain the enigmatic behavior of two of Earth's most notable volcanoes, Hawaii's Mauna Loa and Kilauea. The study, the first to model paired volcano interactions, explains how a link in Earth's upper mantle could account for Kilauea and Mauna Loa's competition for the same deep magma supply and their simultaneous "inflation," or bulging upward, during the past decade.

The study appears in the November issue of Nature Geoscience.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Much has been made of graphene's exceptional qualities, from its ability to conduct heat and electricity better than any other material to its unparalleled strength: Worked into a composite material, graphene can repel bullets better than Kevlar. Previous research has also shown that pristine graphene — a microscopic sheet of carbon atoms arranged in a honeycomb pattern — is among the most impermeable materials ever discovered, making the substance ideal as a barrier film.

An acoustic navigation system being developed by a team of University of Texas at Austin researchers studying the science of sound propagation inside burning buildings may one day become a life-saving addition to firefighters' arsenal of tools.

The team will provide details about their multi-faceted research at the Acoustical Society of America's 164th Meeting, October 22-26, 2012, in Kansas City, Missouri.

OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Oct. 23, 2012 -- Researchers at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory have found that nitrogen atoms in the compound uranium nitride exhibit unexpected, distinct vibrations that form a nearly ideal realization of a physics textbook model known as the isotropic quantum harmonic oscillator.

WASHINGTON, Oct. 23, 2012 — The American Chemical Society (ACS) today released two new videos celebrating the 25th Anniversary of National Chemistry Week (NCW). The videos, from the world's largest scientific society, coincide with the start of this year's NCW, being observed in hundreds of communities around the country. Both videos are available now at www.BytesizeScience.com.

Turbulent flows have challenged researchers for centuries. It is impossible to predict chaotic weather more than a week in advance. Wind resistance on a plane or a car cannot be calculated precisely, since it is determined by atmospheric turbulence. Now, however, researchers from the Niels Bohr Institute have succeeded in developing a statistical model that can replicate the chaotic flows and thereby provide a better understanding of the process. The research results are published in the scientific journal, Physics of Fluids.

Both male and female scientists view gender discrimination as a major reason women choose to pursue careers in biology rather than physics, according to new research from Rice University.