Earth

Researchers from New York University and the Max Planck Institute in Stuttgart reveal how protons move in phosphoric acid in a Nature Chemistry study that sheds new light on the workings of a promising fuel cell electrolyte.

Through atomic-scale manipulation, researchers at the University of Illinois have demonstrated that a single layer of atoms can disrupt or enhance heat flow across an interface.

(Photo Credit: Mark Losego)

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By the time today's elementary schoolers graduate from college, the U.S. corn belt could be forced to move to the Canadian border to escape devastating heat waves brought on by rising global temperatures. If farmers don't move their corn north, the more frequent heat waves could lead to bigger swings in corn prices – "price volatility" – which cause spikes in food prices, farmers' incomes and the price livestock farmers and ethanol producers pay for corn.

Analysis of data from the IceCube Neutrino Observatory, a massive detector deployed in deep ice at the U.S. Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station in Antarctica at the geographic South Pole, recently provided new insight into one of the most enduring mysteries in physics, the production of cosmic rays.

Cosmic rays were discovered 100 years ago, but only now are scientists homing in on how the highest energy cosmic rays are produced.

Boulder, Colo., USA – Geology posted ahead of print on 19 April reports on evidence of the earliest chemical footprints of mycorrhizal fungi in a 503-million-year-old soil; a complex assemblage of trace fossils, including simple trails and branching burrow systems, in Sirius Passet, Greenland; evolution of a submarine canyon along the Ebro Margin, NW Mediterranean; and the growth of sub-tropical forests in Europe 13-17 million years ago, a crucial period for ape evolution that corresponds to their appearance there.

A scattergun approach to borehole drilling in Africa is likely to be unsuccessful.

This is the message from a group of UK researchers who have, for the first time, quantified the amount, and potential yield, of groundwater across the whole of Africa.

They estimate the total volume of groundwater to be around 0.66 million km3 – more than 100 times the available surface freshwater on the continent – and hope that the assessment can inform plans to improve access to water in Africa, where 300 million people do not have access to safe drinking water.

A study published in PLoS Computational Biology maps the development of life-sustaining chemistry to the history of early life. Researchers Rogier Braakman and Eric Smith of the Santa Fe Institute traced the six methods of carbon fixation seen in modern life back to a single ancestral form.

A University of Colorado Boulder-led team has developed a new monitoring system to analyze and compare emissions from man-made fossil fuels and trace gases in the atmosphere, a technique that likely could be used to monitor the effectiveness of measures regulating greenhouse gases.

San Francisco -- In the winter of 479 B.C., a tsunami was the savior of Potidaea, drowning hundreds of Persian invaders as they lay siege to the ancient Greek village. New geological evidence suggests that the region may still be vulnerable to tsunami events, according to Klaus Reicherter of Aachen University in Germany and his colleagues.

"Money, it's a gas," says the sixties rock group Pink Floyd in their song "Money." Indeed, physics professor Victor Yakovenko is an expert in statistical physics and studies how the flow of money and the distribution of incomes in American society resemble the flow of energy between molecules in a gas.

Boulder, Colo., USA – Five new Geosphere articles posted online today include additions to themed issues: "Exploring the Deep Sea and Beyond"; "Seeing the True Shape of Earth's Surface: Applications of Airborne and Terrestrial LiDAR in the Geosciences"; and "Geodynamics and Consequences of Lithospheric Removal in the Sierra Nevada, California." Locations studied: the Sierra Nevada, California; the San Juan volcanic field, Colorado; the western Alaska continental margin: Kodiak to Unimak; Pyramid Lake, Nevada; and the Appalachian fold-thrust belt, Pennsylvania.

Using lasers to excite just one atom from a cloud of ultra-cold rubidium gas, physicists have developed a new way to rapidly and efficiently create single photons for potential use in optical quantum information processing – and in the study of dynamics and disorder in certain physical systems.

Researchers may have found a way to protect us against otherwise deadly chemical attacks, such as the subway sarin incident in Tokyo that left thirteen people dead and thousands more injured or with temporary vision problems. The method is based on a new and improved version of a detoxifying enzyme produced naturally by our livers, according to the report in the April 2012 issue of Chemistry & Biology, a Cell Press publication.

"Graphene is single carbon atom in thickness, making it one of the thinnest known membranes," says Park, a member of the Alivisatos' research group. "It does not scatter the electron beam but lets it pass through. Furthermore, graphene is also very strong and impermeable, as well as being chemically non-reactive, and this helps protects the sample in the liquid cell from the high-energy beam of an electron microscope."

The radiata pine is the tree species par excellence in the Basque Country's forests. Like other types of pine, the lack of water is one of the factors having the greatest effect on its survival and productivity. Until now, the Basque Country's high, steady rainfall has encouraged the cultivation and good productivity of this species. This situation could change over the coming years if, in line with the predictions of climate change, average temperatures rise and droughts become more frequent and intense.