Earth

The IBS research team headed by the associate director of CCES, KIM Chang Young, presented the possibility of unifying theories to explain the working mechanism of iron- based superconductors. Their research was published in Nature Materials on August 16th. Superconductors are a relatively new concept; they were brought to prominence in the late 80's when two Nobel Prize winners discovered a new superconducting material.

BEER-SHEVA, Israel, August 15, 2016 - A researcher at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) has identified that the eastern Mediterranean Sea contains the world's oldest oceanic crust still in place and could be almost 340 million years-old.

The study reported this week in Nature Geoscience was conducted by Dr. Roi Granot, a senior lecturer in the BGU Department of Geology and Environmental Sciences.

A surge in major wildfire events in the U.S. West as a consequence of climate change will expose tens of millions of Americans to high levels of air pollution in the coming decades, according to a new Yale-led study conducted with collaborators from Harvard.

The researchers estimated air pollution from past and projected future wildfires in 561 western counties, and found that by mid-century more than 82 million people will experience "smoke waves," or consecutive days with high air pollution related to fires.

Five years of irrigated rice cultivation research reached its pinnacle at the Final LEGATO Conference, which took place from 6 to 11 August 2016 in Banaue, Philippines. LEGATO is a BMBF (German Federal Ministry of Education and Research) funded project, coordinated by the Helmholtz-Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ), Germany.

Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's Ames Laboratory have discovered a new type of Weyl semimetal, a material that opens the way for further study of Weyl fermions, a type of massless elementary particle hypothesized by high-energy particle theory and potentially useful for creating high-speed electronic circuits and quantum computers.

Irvine, Calif., Aug. 15, 2016 -- A University of California, Irvine entomologist has discovered that a brief blast of heat can kill bedbugs traveling on the outside of luggage, suggesting an additional way to use this nonchemical means of controlling the annoying insects.

Physicists led by Gerrit Kramer at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) have conducted simulations that suggest that applying magnetic fields to fusion plasmas can control instabilities known as Alfvén waves that can reduce the efficiency of fusion reactions. Such instabilities can cause quickly moving charged particles called "fast ions" to escape from the core of the plasma, which is corralled within machines known as tokamaks.

Irvine, Calif., August 15, 2016 - Recent findings indicating the possible discovery of a previously unknown subatomic particle may be evidence of a fifth fundamental force of nature, according to a paper published in the journal Physical Review Letters by theoretical physicists at the University of California, Irvine.

ANN ARBOR--Researchers have flown aircraft over an oil and gas field and pinpointed--with unprecedented precision--sources of the greenhouse gas methane in real time.

The technique led to the detection and immediate repair of two leaks in natural gas pipelines in the Four Corners region of the U.S. Southwest. The approach could inform strategies for meeting new federal limits on methane emissions from the oil and gas industry. Methane emissions have spiked in recent decades along with the boom in natural gas drilling.

Physicists from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT) have found that the two-dimensional form of carbon, known as graphene, might be the ideal material for manufacturing plasmonic devices capable of detecting explosive materials, toxic chemicals, and other organic compounds based on a single molecule, says an article published in Physical Review B.

Plasmons in constructing high-accuracy electronics and optics

So far, research on the environmental impact of oil palm cultivation has been scattered and patchy. Synthesizing about 1000 scientific studies and reports, the scientists were now able to give a balanced report on the changes in all 14 ecosystem functions, including gas and climate regulation, water regulation and supply, moderation of extreme events, provision of food and raw materials, as well as medicinal resources.

Light can take many different forms. Even in our day-to-day life, sunlight is vastly different from fluorescent light. In physics, when studying interactions between light and tiny particles, the shape of the light can make a big difference. Scientists from Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University (OIST) and collaborators at the University of Innsbruck in Austria found that the interactions between particles trapped in light distributed along an optical microfiber, as well as the speed of particle movement were different based on the light's characteristics.

While the more than 5 meter long Greenland shark is one of the world's largest sharks, it is also one of the least understood animals on our planet. The Greenland shark's general biology and way of life have been a mystery to biologists for many years.

Washington, DC-- Well-understood physical and chemical processes can easily explain the alleged evidence of a secret, large-scale atmospheric spraying program, commonly referred to as "chemtrails" or "covert geoengineering," concludes a new study from Carnegie Science, University of California Irvine, and the nonprofit organization Near Zero.

Irvine, Calif., Aug. 12, 2016 - The world's leading atmospheric scientists overwhelmingly deny the existence of a secret, elite-driven plot to release harmful chemicals into the air from high-flying aircraft, according to the first peer-reviewed journal paper to address the "chemtrails" conspiracy theory.