Earth

COLUMBUS, Ohio – One of the world's foremost experts on climate change is warning that if humans don't moderate their use of fossil fuels, there is a real possibility that we will face the environmental, societal and economic consequences of climate change faster than we can adapt to them.

Lonnie Thompson, distinguished university professor in the School of Earth Sciences at Ohio State University, posed that possibility in a just-released special climate-change edition of the journal The Behavior Analyst.

GREENBELT, Md. -- A new NASA computer modeling effort has found that additional growth of plants and trees in a world with doubled atmospheric carbon dioxide levels would create a new negative feedback – a cooling effect – in the Earth's climate system that could work to reduce future global warming.

EAST LANSING, Mich. --- While Asian carp, gypsy moths and zebra mussels hog invasive-species headlines, many invisible invaders are altering ecosystems and flourishing outside of the limelight.

A study by Elena Litchman, Michigan State University associate professor of ecology, sheds light on why invasive microbial invaders shouldn't be overlooked or underestimated.

INDIANAPOLIS – A grant from the D. J. Angus-Scientech Educational Foundation has made it possible for a student from a suburban Indianapolis high school to co-author, along with his mentor and two other scientists, a theoretical physics study in a top tier peer-reviewed scientific journal, a paper which has been selected for rapid communication due to its importance to the field.

The UK has the capacity to develop new green industries for capturing harmful carbon dioxide emissions from industry and storing them deep underground, but more investment is needed to further develop the relevant technologies and infrastructure, say scientists in new research published today.

URBANA – University of Illinois scientists have learned to mask the bitterness of ginseng, a common ingredient of energy drinks.

"Consumers like to see ginseng on a product's ingredient list because studies show that it improves memory, enhances libido and sexual performance, boosts immunity, and alleviates diabetes. But the very compounds that make ginseng good for you also make it taste bitter," said Soo-Yeun Lee, a U of I associate professor of food science and human nutrition.

A brand-new bacterial species has been found aboard the RMS Titanic, which is contributing to its deterioration. The discovery reveals a potential new microbial threat to the exterior of ships and underwater metal structures such as oil rigs.

A team led by scientists at the United Kingdom's National Oceanography Centre have measured the air-sea exchange of carbon dioxide in the open ocean at higher wind speed then anyone else has ever managed. Their findings are important for understanding how interactions between the oceans and the atmosphere influence climate.

Climate change is causing wildfires to burn more fiercely, pumping more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than previously thought, according to a new study to be published in Nature Geosciences this week.

For years, geologists have argued about the processes that formed steep inner gorges in the broad glacial valleys of the Swiss Alps.

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Researchers at Northwestern University have created a new infrared camera based on Type-II InAs/GaSb superlattices that produces much higher resolution images than previous infrared cameras.

"It is a bit like trying to move through a street crowded with an enormous number of people. If you move slowly enough you can make progress and the crowd and you 'flow'. However, if you try and sprint down the street you will just knock into so many people that you'll never be able to move at the speed you want to and hence everything becomes grid locked."

YANG Nan, MAO ZongWan and SUN HongZhe et al., at the Department of Chemistry, University of Hong Kong and Sun Yat-sen University have characterized a series of bismuth citrate complexes by X-ray crystallography and modeled the structure of ranitidine bismuth citrate, a medicine used widely for the treatment of peptic ulcer and gastric reflux disease. The polymeric framework of bismuth citrate may serve as a "drug carrier" for delivery of other drugs in the human body. This significant contribution is reported in SCIENCE CHINA Chemistry 2010, 53(10).