Earth

LA JOLLA, CA – September 11, 2013 – Chemists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have found a way to apply a "foundational reaction" of organic chemistry to a stubborn class of chemicals, in a transformation that has been thought impossible for a century.

Some of the hottest days and coldest nights in parts of Europe have warmed more than four times the global average change since 1950, according to a new paper by researchers from the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics and Political Science and the University of Warwick, which is published today (11 September 2013) in the journal 'Environmental Research Letters'.

The London borough of Newham is famed for producing talents such as Idris Elba, Plan B and Mo Farrah, whilst also playing host to the Olympic Stadium and West Ham United Football Club.

Now an international group of researchers have found that its residents have the smallest carbon footprint in the UK.

Boulder, Colo., USA – New Geology studies posted online ahead of print on 6 Sept. 2013 cover faulting and strain; mineralogy; tsunamigenic earthquakes; the formation of banded iron formations by microbial processes; stalagmites in Vanuatu; garnets; the world's largest saltpan complex and one of the world's largest inland deltas; estuaries beneath ice sheets; volcanism; erosion; mirror-like faults; the Baltic Sea dead zone; and the first real-time record of a turbidity current associated with the 2011 Mw 9.0 Tohoku-Oki tsunami.

For 30 years, a large near-Earth asteroid wandered its lone, intrepid path, passing before the scrutinizing eyes of scientists while keeping something to itself: (3552) Don Quixote, whose journey stretches to the orbit of Jupiter, now appears to be a comet.

The discovery resulted from an ongoing project coordinated by researchers at Northern Arizona University using the Spitzer Space Telescope. Through a lot of focused attention and a little bit of luck, they found evidence of cometary activity that had evaded detection for three decades.

RICHLAND, Wash. -- The newest catalytic converters in diesel engines blast away a pollutant from combustion with the help of ammonia. Common in European cars, the engines exhaust harmless nitrogen and water. How they do this hasn't been entirely clear. Now, new research shows that the catalyst attacks its target pollutant in an unusual way, providing insight into how to make the best catalytic converters.

CORAL GABLES, FL (Sept. 10, 2013)--Social media is changing the way that scientists are interacting with each other and with the global community. One example is the way that researchers use Twitter to increase the impact of their research. David Shiffman, a Ph.D. student at the University of Miami's Abess Center for Ecosystem Science and Policy, describes the advantages of tweeting during the development of scientific publications.

The new study, published in the journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics by researchers at IIASA and in Norway, Finland, and Russia, finds that gas flaring from oil extraction in the Arctic accounts for 42% of the black carbon concentrations in the Arctic, with even higher levels during certain times of the year. In the month of March for example, the study showed that flaring accounts for more than half of black carbon concentrations near the surface. Globally, in contrast, gas flaring accounts for only 3% of black carbon emissions.

Dingoes have been unjustly blamed for the extinctions on the Australian mainland of the Tasmanian tiger (or thylacine) and the Tasmanian devil, a University of Adelaide study has found.

In a paper published in the journal Ecology, the researchers say that despite popular belief that the Australian dingo was to blame for the demise of thylacines and devils on the mainland about 3000 years ago, in fact Aboriginal populations and a shift in climate were more likely responsible.

Some symbiotic bacteria living inside Colorado potato beetles can trick plants into reacting to a microbial attack rather than that of a chewing herbivore, according to a team of Penn State researchers who found that the beetles with bacteria were healthier and grew better.

"For the last couple of decades, my lab has focused on induced defenses in plants," said Gary W. Felton, professor and head of entomology. "We had some clues that oral secretions of beetles suppressed defenses, but no one had followed up on that research."

INDIANAPOLIS, Sept. 9, 2013 — Chemists who are members of the American Chemical Society (ACS), collaborating with scientists from other fields through the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) Center for Aerosol Impacts on Climate and the Environment (CAICE), have discovered disturbing climate trends close to Earth's surface.

INDIANAPOLIS, Sept. 9, 2013 — Whiskeys have long captivated the senses of connoisseurs, whether with smokiness and a whiff of vanilla or a spicy character with hints of caramel, and now, the emerging chemistry of "brown spirits" is proving that they have distinct chemical signatures to match the complex combinations of grains, barrels, aging and other factors that yield the liquid gold poured into each bottle.

Waves breaking over sandy beaches are captured in countless tourist photos. But enormous waves breaking deep in the ocean are seldom seen, although they play a crucial role in long-term climate cycles.

A University of Washington study for the first time recorded such a wave breaking in a key bottleneck for circulation in the world's largest ocean. The study was published online this month in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

A new reconstruction of climate in the South Pacific during the past 446 years shows rainfall varied much more dramatically before the start of the 20th century than after. The finding, based on an analysis of a cave formation called a stalagmite from the island nation of Vanuatu, could force climate modelers to adjust their models. The models are adjusted to match the current levels of climate variability that are smaller now than they were in the recent past for this region.

Researchers at the University of Sheffield have developed a method of sourcing obsidian artefacts that takes only 10 seconds – dozens of times faster than the current methods – with a handheld instrument that can be used at archaeological excavations.