Earth

In many ionic materials, including the oxides, surfaces created along specific directions can become electrically charged. By the same token, such electronic charging, or 'polarisation', can also occur at the interface of two connecting materials.

Much of our knowledge about past life has come from the fossil record, but how accurately does that record reflect the true history and drivers of biodiversity on Earth?

"It's a question that goes back a long way to the time of Darwin, who looked at the fossil record and tried to understand what it tells us about the history of life," says Shanan Peters, a geoscientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

In fact, the fossil record can tell us a great deal, Peters says in results of a new study.

Engineers at North Carolina State University have developed a new handle for infant car seats (ICSs) that makes it easier for parents to lift the seat out of a car – while retaining a firmer grip on the handle – making it less likely that the seat will be dropped.

In 2008, the Italian satellite PAMELA detected a curious excess of antimatter positrons – a startling discovery that could have been a sign of the existence of dark matter.

Now, in a scholarly paper submitted to Physical Review Letters, and originally published on the Internet physics archive, researchers with the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology at Stanford University are confirming the previous detection but with one important caveat; they didn't find a sudden drop-off of this excess in those cosmic rays beyond a certain energy level.

Scientists are a step closer to predicting when and where earthquakes will occur after taking a fresh look at the formation of the Andes, which began 45 million years ago.

Published today in Nature, research led by Dr Fabio Capitanio of Monash University's School of Geosciences describes a new approach to plate tectonics. It is the first model to go beyond illustrating how plates move, and explain why.

Dr Capitanio said that although the theory had been applied only to one plate boundary so far, it had broader application.

Scientists at the University of Warwick have taken inspiration from corkscrew structures found in nature to develop a new weapon in the fight against infections like E-coli and MRSA.

Researchers have created a new synthetic class of helix-shaped molecules which they believe could be a key tool in the worldwide battle against antibiotic resistance.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. The Midwest Geological Sequestration Consortium (MGSC) has begun injecting carbon dioxide (CO2) for the first million-tonne demonstration of carbon sequestration in the U.S. The CO2 will be stored permanently in the Mt. Simon Sandstone more than a mile beneath the Illinois surface at Decatur. The MGSC is led by the Illinois State Geological Survey (ISGS), part of the Prairie Research Institute at the University of Illinois.

DURHAM, New Hampshire, November 16, 2011 –A study that will be published in Nature on Thursday, Nov. 17, concludes that forests influence temperature, and their influence largely depends on latitude.

Physicist Richard Feynman in his famous 1959 talk, "Plenty of Room at the Bottom," described the precise control at the atomic level promised by molecular machines of the future. More than 50 years later, synthetic molecular switches are a dime a dozen, but synthetically designed molecular machines are few and far between.

New Haven, Conn.—Deforestation, considered by scientists to contribute significantly to global warming, has been shown by a Yale-led team to actually cool the local climate in northern latitudes, according to a paper published today in Nature.

The birth of the Gamburtsev Subglacial Mountains buried beneath the vast East Antarctic Ice Sheet – a puzzle mystifying scientists since their first discovery in 1958 – is finally solved. The remarkably long geological history explains the formation of the mountain range in the least explored frontier on Earth and where the Antarctic Ice Sheet first formed. The findings are published this week in the journal Nature.

CORVALLIS, Ore. – A new study suggests that the rate of global warming from doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide may be less than the most dire estimates of some previous studies – and, in fact, may be less severe than projected by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report in 2007.

Authors of the study, which was funded by the National Science Foundation and published online this week in the journal Science, say that global warming is real and that increases in atmospheric CO2 will have multiple serious impacts.

MADISON – Much of our knowledge about past life has come from the fossil record – but how accurately does that reflect the true history and drivers of biodiversity on Earth?

"It's a question that goes back a long way to the time of Darwin, who looked at the fossil record and tried to understand what it tells us about the history of life," says Shanan Peters, an assistant professor of geoscience at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

SALT LAKE CITY -- We drink water, bathe in it and we are made mostly of water, yet the common substance poses major mysteries. Now, University of Utah chemists may have solved one enigma by showing how cold water can get before it absolutely must freeze: 55 degrees below zero Fahrenheit.

That's 87 degrees Fahrenheit colder than what most people consider the freezing point of water, namely, 32 F.

WASHINGTON -- Does tryptophan in turkey really cause the bleary-eyed daze after a Thanksgiving meal? What's inside those pop-up timers that announce the turkey is ready for the table? How can those timers pop up when the turkey reaches exactly the right internal temperature?