Earth

Scientists from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) have conducted a new study to measure levels of carbon at various depths in the Arctic Ocean. The study, recently published in the journal Biogeosciences, provides data that will help researchers better understand the Arctic Ocean's carbon cycle—the pathway through which carbon enters and is used by the marine ecosystem. It will also offer an important point of reference for determining how those levels of carbon change over time, and how the ecosystem responds to rising global temperatures.

A materials scientist at Michigan Technological University has discovered a chemical reaction that not only eats up the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, it also creates something useful. And, by the way, it releases energy.

If you are not a condensed matter physicist, vanadium oxide (VO2) may be the coolest material you've never heard of. It's a metal. It's an insulator. It's a window coating and an optical switch. And thanks to a new study by physicists at Rice University, scientists have a new way to reversibly alter VO2's electronic properties by treating it with one of the simplest substances -- hydrogen.

New research by teams of Australian and US scientists has found there has been a massive reduction in the amount of Antarctic Bottom Water found off the coast of Antarctica.Comparing detailed measurements taken during the Australian Antarctic program's 2012 Southern Ocean marine science voyage to historical data dating back to 1970, scientists estimate there has been as much as a 60 per cent reduction in the volume of Antarctic Bottom Water, the cold dense water that drives global ocean currents.

A clear change in salinity has been detected in the world's oceans, signalling shifts and an acceleration in the global rainfall and evaporation cycle.

In a paper published in the journal Science, Australian scientists from the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, California, reported changing patterns of salinity in the global ocean during the past 50 years, marking a clear fingerprint of climate change.

Berlin, Germany, May 21, 2012 – IMPACT World+, the first worldwide regionalized life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) methodology was launched today in Berlin, Germany during the 6th SETAC World Congress / SETAC Europe 22nd Annual Meeting. The event featured the results of this innovative undertaking spearheaded by a team of leading international LCIA experts and researchers from five countries.

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Research by a collaborative group of scientists from UC San Diego School of Medicine, UC San Francisco and Wake Forest School of Medicine has led to identification of an existing drug that is effective against Entamoeba histolytica. This parasite causes amebic dysentery and liver abscesses and results in the death of more than 70,000 people worldwide each year.

Petrology of the Grays River Volcanics, Southwest Washington: Plume-Influenced Slab Window Magmatism in the Cascadia Forearc

Christine Chan et al., Geology Dept., University of Puget Sound, Tacoma, WA 98416-1048, USA. Posted online 3 May 2012; doi: 10.1130/B30576.1.

Douglas McCauley and Paul DeSalles did not set out to discover one of the longest ecological interaction chains ever documented. But that's exactly what they and a team of researchers – all current or former Stanford students and faculty – did in a new study published in Scientific Reports.

Quantum physics promises faster and more powerful computers, but quantum versions of basic logic functions are still needed to bring this technology to fruition. Researchers from the University of Cambridge and Toshiba Research Europe Ltd. have taken one step toward this goal by creating an all-semiconductor quantum logic gate, a controlled-NOT (CNOT) gate. They achieved this breakthrough by coaxing nanodots to emit single photons of light on demand.

Cell cultures need glucose for energy, but too much sugar can create a diabetic-like environment in which cell proteins undergo unwanted structural changes. Standard methods to monitor glucose levels require invasive and time-consuming handling of the cell culture. A team of engineers at the National University of Singapore and Singapore's Institute of Microelectronics is developing an alternative approach that takes advantage of new microfluidic techniques.

It was used to help Apollo astronauts navigate in space, and has since been applied to problems as diverse as economics and weather forecasting, but Harvard scientists are now using a powerful statistical tool to not only track sea level rise over time, but to determine where the water causing the rise is coming from.

Boulder, Colo., USA – Geosphere articles posted 17 May include an introduction to the new theme; a multifaceted study of the formation and transport of ancient oceanic rocks now found in southeastern Yukon, Canada; a new technique to help find the initial age of a multiply reactivated fault; and bathymetry studies of unusual flat-topped seafloor mounds beneath the Ross Sea that the authors believe are of volcanic origin, erupted during a geomagnetic reversal and under a grounded ice sheet.

Krzysztof Szalewicz, professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Delaware, and Rafal Podeszwa of the University of Silesia Institute of Chemistry in Poland have developed and validated a more accurate method for predicting the interaction energy of large molecules, such as biomolecules used to develop new drugs.