Earth

Underground mining is a sweaty job, and not just because of the hard work it takes to haul ore: Mining tunnels fill with heat naturally emitted from the surrounding rock. A group of researchers from McGill University in Canada has taken a systematic look at how such heat might be put to use once mines are closed. They calculate that each kilometer of a typical deep underground mine could produce 150 kW of heat, enough to warm 5 to 10 Canadian households during off-peak times.

ANN ARBOR, Mich.—It's a message no one wants to hear: To slow down global warming, we'll either have to put the brakes on economic growth or transform the way the world's economies work.

That's the implication of an innovative University of Michigan study examining the evolution of atmospheric CO2, the most likely cause of global climate change.

Los Angeles, CA (May 01, 2012) – Each time a release of radioactivity occurs, questions arise and debates unfold on the health risks at low doses—and still, just over a year after the disaster at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Station, unanswered questions and unsettled debates remain.

A Texas region containing four of the world's largest wind farms showed an increase in land surface temperature over nine years that researchers have connected to local meteorological effects of the turbines.

Perched atop the sheer coastal cliffs of Ireland's Aran Islands, ridges of giant boulders have puzzled geologists for years. What forces could have torn these rocks from the cliff edges high above sea level and deposited them far inland?

While some researchers contend that only a tsunami could push these stones, new research in The Journal of Geology finds that plain old ocean waves, with the help of some strong storms, did the job.

And they're still doing it.

Large wind farms in certain areas in the United States appear to affect local land surface temperatures, according to a paper published today in the journal Nature Climate Change.

The study, led by Liming Zhou, an atmospheric scientist at the State University of New York- (SUNY) Albany, provides insights about the possible effects of wind farms.

The results could be important for developing efficient adaptation and management strategies to ensure long-term sustainability of wind power.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Every year, U.S. supermarkets lose roughly 10 percent of their fruits and vegetables to spoilage, according to the Department of Agriculture. To help combat those losses, MIT chemistry professor Timothy Swager and his students have built a new sensor that could help grocers and food distributors better monitor their produce.

HAMILTON, ON, April 30, 2012 — Urban beach closures due to coliform outbreaks have become disturbing signs of summer, yet water-testing technology has never been fast enough to keep up with changing conditions, nor accessible enough to check all waters.

Now, researchers at McMaster University have developed a rapid testing method using a simple paper strip that can detect E. coli in recreational water within minutes. The new tool can close the gap between outbreak and detection, improving public safety.

WASHINGTON, April 30--Atomic clocks based on the oscillations of a cesium atom keep amazingly steady time and also define the precise length of a second. But cesium clocks are no longer the most accurate. That title has been transferred to an optical clock housed at the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in Boulder, Colo. that can keep time to within 1 second in 3.7 billion years.

PULLMAN, Wash.— The Yellowstone "super-volcano" is a little less super—but more active—than previously thought.

Researchers at Washington State University and the Scottish Universities Environmental Research Centre say the biggest Yellowstone eruption, which created the 2 million year old Huckleberry Ridge deposit, was actually two different eruptions at least 6,000 years apart.

In particle physics, the baryon family refers to particles that are made up of three quarks. Quarks form a group of six particles that differ in their masses and charges. The two lightest quarks, the so-called "up" and "down" quarks, form the two atomic components, protons and neutrons. All baryons that are composed of the three lightest quarks ("up", "down" and "strange" quarks) are known. Only very few baryons with heavy quarks have been observed to date. They can only be generated artificially in particle accelerators as they are heavy and very unstable.

Optical atomic clocks measure time with unprecedented accuracy. However, it is the ability to compare clocks with one another that makes them applicable for high-precision tests in fundamental theory, from cosmology all the way to quantum physics. A clock comparison, i.e. a comparison of their optical frequencies, proved to be challenging so far as the few existing optical clocks around the world are not readily portable due to their complex nature.

Leipzig/Dresden/Freiburg. In recent years the economic value of pollination-dependent crops has substantially increased around the world. As a team of researchers from the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ), the Technical University of Dresden and the University of Freiburg headed by the UFZ wrote in an article entitled "Spatial and temporal trends of global pollination benefit" in the open-access journal PLoS ONE the value of ecological pollination services was around 200 billion US dollars in 1993 and rose to around 350 billion US dollars in 2009.

HONOLULU – April 25, 2012 -- Many shark populations have plummeted in the past three decades as a result of excessive harvesting – for their fins, as an incidental catch of fisheries targeting other species, and in recreational fisheries. This is particularly true for oceanic species. However, until now, a lack of data prevented scientists from properly quantifying the status of Pacific reef sharks at a large geographic scale.

Cambridge, Mass. - April 26, 2012 - Climate scientists at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) have discovered that particulate pollution in the late 20th century created a "warming hole" over the eastern United States—that is, a cold patch where the effects of global warming were temporarily obscured.

While greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane warm the Earth's surface, tiny particles in the air can have the reverse effect on regional scales.