Earth

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- An Indiana University geophysical experiment detected unusual seismic signals associated with tornadoes that struck regions across the Midwest last week -- information that may have value for meteorologists studying the atmospheric activity that precedes tornado disasters.

The experiment by IU researchers involves deployment of more than 100 state-of-the-art digital seismographs in a broad swath of the U.S. midcontinent. One of the twisters that struck southeastern Missouri and southern Illinois on Feb. 29 passed through the seismic detection array.

MADISON – An international particle physics collaboration today announced its first results toward answering a longstanding question – how the elusive particles called neutrinos can appear to vanish as they travel through space.

A large-scale shift from coal-fired electric power plants and gasoline-fueled cars to wind turbines and electric vehicles could increase demand for two already-scarce metals — available almost exclusively in China — by 600-2,600 percent over the next 25 years, a new study has concluded. Published in the ACS journal Environmental Science & Technology, it points out that production of the two metals has been increasing by only a few percentage points per year.

Many of the communication tools of today rely on the function of light or, more specifically, on applying information to a light wave. Up until now, studies on electronic and optical devices with materials that are the foundations of modern electronics—such as radio, TV, and computers—have generally relied on nonlinear optical effects, producing devices whose bandwidth has been limited to the gigahertz (GHz) frequency region. (Hertz stands for cycles per second of a periodic phenomenon, in this case 1billion cycles).

EAST LANSING, Mich. — After 40 years of searching, physicists have the elusive Higgs boson in their sights. Wade Fisher, Michigan State University assistant professor of physics, presented the team's results today at a physics conference in La Thuile, Italy.

The ALPHA collaboration at CERN in Geneva has scored another coup on the antimatter front by performing the first-ever spectroscopic measurements of the internal state of the antihydrogen atom. Their results are reported in a forthcoming issue of Nature and are now online.

The oceans may be acidifying faster today than they did in the last 300 million years, according to scientists publishing a paper this week in the journal Science.

"What we're doing today really stands out in the geologic record," says lead author Bärbel Hönisch, a paleoceanographer at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.

First it was caught. Then it was stored. And now it is being made to jump. "It" is the elusive antihydrogen atom.

Researchers at CERN, in an international effort led by a Canadian team, have used microwaves to manipulate antihydrogen atoms. In doing so, they've provided the world with its first glimpse of an "anti-atomic fingerprint." Their work is published today in the prestigious journal Nature, for the third time in a little more than a year.

An international team led by Canadian physicists from the University of British Columbia, SFU and TRIUMF have used microwaves to manipulate anti-hydrogen atoms. The findings, to be published Wednesday in the journal Nature, provide the world with its first glimpse of an "anti-atomic fingerprint."

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Using a new ultrafast camera, researchers have recorded the first real-time image of two atoms vibrating in a molecule.

Key to the experiment, which appears in this week's issue of the journal Nature, is the researchers' use of the energy of a molecule's own electron as a kind of "flash bulb" to illuminate the molecular motion.

Decades ago, marine scientists made a startling discovery in the deep sea. They found environments known as hydrothermal vents, where hot water surges from the seafloor and life thrives without sunlight.

Then they found equally unique, sunless habitats in cold areas where methane rises from seeps on the ocean bottom.

Could vents and seeps co-exist in the deep, happily living side-by-side?

No one thought so. Until now.

On a January evening in 2011, Egypt – with a population of 80 million, including 23 million Internet users – vanished from cyberspace after its government ordered an Internet blackout amidst anti-government protests that led to the ouster of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. The following month, the Libyan government, also under siege, imposed an Internet "curfew" before completely cutting off access for almost four days.

Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have done a mash-up of two very different experimental techniques—neutron scattering and electrochemical measurements—to enable them to observe structural changes in nanoparticles as they undergo an important type of chemical reaction. Their recently published technique* allows them to directly match up particle size, shape and agglomeration with the "redox" chemical properties of the particles.

Batavia, Ill. --- New measurements announced today by scientists from the CDF and DZero collaborations at the Department of Energy's Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory indicate that the elusive Higgs boson may nearly be cornered. After analyzing the full data set from the Tevatron accelerator, which completed its last run in September 2011, the two independent experiments see hints of a Higgs boson.

Scientists at the University of Warwick have used state-of-the-art nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) techniques to shed new light on how pharmaceutical molecules pack together in the solid state.

Researchers made use of the UK's largest solid-state NMR magnets, housed at the University of Warwick, to carry out the study in collaboration with Astra Zeneca and GlaxoSmithKline.