Earth

Can an abundance of sea otters help reverse a principal cause of global warming?

A new study by two UC Santa Cruz researchers suggest that a thriving sea otter population that keeps sea urchins in check will in turn allow kelp forests to prosper. The spreading kelp can absorb as much as 12 times the amount of CO2 from the atmosphere than if it were subject to ravenous sea urchins, the study finds.

COLLEGE STATION – Improperly applied fertilizer to newly placed sod may result in nutrient runoff into the water supply, but just when is the best time to apply fertilizer and what kind is the best for new turf?

J. Christopher Howk, Nicolas Lehner and Grant Mathews of the Center for Astrophysics at the University of Notre Dame published a paper this week in the journal Nature titled "Observation of interstellar lithium in the low-metallicity Small Magellanic Cloud." The astrophysicists have explored a discrepancy between the amount of lithium predicted by the standard models of elemental production during the Big Bang and the amount of lithium observed in the gas of the Small Magellanic Cloud, a galaxy near to our own.

ARGONNE, ILL. (Sept. 6, 2012) -- Using ultrafast X-rays, scientists for the first time have watched how quickly electrons hop their way through rust nanoparticles.

This gives key insight to how iron oxide, one of the most abundant minerals in soil, behaves and alters the condition of soil and water around it. This also demonstrates the potential of time-resolved X-ray and optical methods to study chemical reactions at the subnanoscale in other semiconductors.

Today the drilling starts for a seismic monitoring network on the Marmara Sea near Istanbul. Specially designed seismic sensors in eight boreholes on the outskirts of Istanbul and around the eastern Marmara Sea will monitor the seismic activity of the region with high precision. In each of the respective 300 meter deep holes several borehole seismometers will be permanently installed at various depths.

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Tiny sea creatures called rhabdopleurids reside on the ocean floor, building homes of collagen on the shells of dead clams. Rhabdopleurid colonies are small, and the critters are by no means the dominant animals in their ecosystem.

But they have lived this way -- and survived -- for more than 500 million years. And in doing so, they have outlasted more elaborate species that also descended from a common ancestor, according to a new study in the journal Lethaia.

Rust – iron oxide – is a poor conductor of electricity, which is why an electronic device with a rusted battery usually won't work. Despite this poor conductivity, an electron transferred to a particle of rust will use thermal energy to continually move or "hop" from one atom of iron to the next. Electron mobility in iron oxide can hold huge significance for a broad range of environment- and energy-related reactions, including reactions pertaining to uranium in groundwater and reactions pertaining to low-cost solar energy devices.

A neutron detector developed for studies focused on life science, drug discovery and materials technology has been licensed by PartTec Ltd. The Indiana-based manufacturer of radiation detection technologies is moving the technology developed at the U.S. Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory toward the commercial marketplace.

The Neutron-Sensitive Anger Camera allows researchers to study a wider variety of crystalline structures, supporting studies in biology, earth science, geology, materials science and condensed matter physics.

Today, technicians in Minnesota will begin to position the first block of a detector that will be part of the largest, most advanced neutrino experiment in North America.

The NuMI Off-Axis Neutrino Appearance experiment – NOvA for short – will study the properties of neutrinos, such as their masses, and investigate whether they helped give matter an edge over antimatter after both were created in equal amounts in the big bang. The experiment is on track to begin taking data in 2013.

Every day we observe systems thermalizing: Ice cubes in a pot of hot water will melt and will never remain stable. The molecules of the ice and the molecules of the water will reach thermal equilibrium, ending up at the same temperature. Well-ordered ice crystals turn into a disordered liquid.

Experiments at the Vienna Center for Quantum Science and Technology (VCQ) at the Vienna University of Technology have shown that in the quantum world the transition to thermal equilibrium is more interesting and more complicated than assumed so far.

TORONTO, Sept. 6, 2012 – Imagine that the players on your favourite football team were smaller than their opponents, and had to play without helmets or pads. Left defenseless, they would become easy prey for other teams. Similarly, changes in Canadian lake water chemistry have left small water organisms vulnerable to their predators, which may pose a serious environmental threat, according to a new study.

DURHAM, N.C. -- Destruction of coastal habitats may release as much as 1 billion tons of carbon emissions into the atmosphere each year, 10 times higher than previously reported, according to a new Duke led study.

Deforestation can have a significant effect on tropical rainfall, new research confirms. The findings have potentially devastating impacts for people living in and near the Amazon and Congo forests.

A team from the University of Leeds and the NERC Centre for Ecology & Hydrology found that for the majority of the Earth's tropical land surface, air passing over extensive forests produces at least twice as much rain as air passing over little vegetation. In some cases these forests increased rainfall thousands of kilometres away.

The United Kingdom is preparing to convert the London 2012 Olympics anti-doping center, which conducted more than 6,000 drug tests on athletes during the Olympic and Paralympic Games, into a facility that could help revolutionize 21st century health care. That new facility — the world's first national "phenome center" — is the topic of a story in the current edition of Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN). C&EN is the weekly newsmagazine of the American Chemical Society, the world's largest scientific society.

The Canadian government's plans to discontinue in 2013 a unique environmental research project that has yielded insights into water pollution, climate change and other topics for almost 40 years would be a "huge loss not only to science but to the scientific heritage of humanity." That's the focus of a viewpoint article in ACS' journal Environmental Science & Technology.