Earth

One if by land, two if by sea?

Results of a study published this week in the journal Science show how fast animal and plant populations would need to move to keep up with recent climate change effects in the ocean and on land.

The answer: at similar rates.

The study was supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF), and performed in part through the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis at the University of California at Santa Barbara.

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Scientists under the age of 40 used to make the majority of significant breakthroughs in chemistry, physics and medicine – but that is no longer the case, new research suggests.

A study of Nobel Laureates from 1901 to 2008 in these three fields examined the age at which scientists did their prize-winning work.

Results showed that before 1905, about two-thirds of winners in all three fields did their prize-winning work before age 40, and about 20 percent did it before age 30.

FINDINGS: By irradiating typical polystyrene lab plates with ultraviolet (UV) waves, Whitehead Institute and MIT scientists have created a surface capable of tripling the number of human embryonic stem (ES) and induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells that can be grown in culture by current methods. Moreover, use of this novel surface eliminates the need for layers of mouse "feeder cells" to support ES- and iPS-cell growth.

A new generation of lighter, stronger plastics could be produced using an intricate chemical process devised by scientists.

Chemists working on the nanoscale – 80,000 times smaller than a hair's breadth – have managed to tie molecules into complex knots that could give materials exceptional versatility.

By weaving threads of atoms into the shape of five-point stars, researchers at the University of Edinburgh have created the building blocks of materials that could be supremely flexible and shock absorbent.

PASADENA, Calif.—They shrink when you heat 'em. Most materials expand when heated, but a few contract. Now engineers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have figured out how one of these curious materials, scandium trifluoride (ScF3), does the trick—a finding, they say, that will lead to a deeper understanding of all kinds of materials.

The researchers, led by graduate student Chen Li, published their results in the Nov. 4 issue of Physical Review Letters (PRL).

For the first time, demographer Emilio Zagheni of the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Rostock (MPIDR) has calculated a profile that illustrates the relationship between age and average per capita CO2 emissions. This profile applies to U.S. citizens, as data for this group were easily accessible. But the demographic-economic model developed for the analysis is universally valid, and can be applied to other countries.

Electrons moving in graphene behave in an unusual way, as demonstrated by 2010 Nobel Prize laureates for physics Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov, who performed transport experiments on this one-carbon-atom-thick material. A review article, just published in EPJ B¹, explores the theoretical and experimental results to date of electrons tunneling through energy barriers in graphene.

Nanotechnology researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have conducted the first direct comparison of two fundamental techniques that could be used for chemically doping sheets of two-dimensional graphene for the fabrication of devices and interconnects.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — In many pharmaceutical company and university laboratories, scientists are looking closely at kinase complexes because the enzymes play key roles in essential cell functions. By taking unusual steps to examine a kinase complex, researchers at Brown University and the National Institutes of Health have found a sought-after prize: an unprecedentedly detailed description of its structure complete with a rare location on its structure that could be a target for new therapeutic drugs.

Almost nine hundred years ago, in the mid-12th century, the southwestern U.S. was in the middle of a multi-decade megadrought. It was the most recent extended period of severe drought known for this region. But it was not the first.

The second century A.D. saw an extended dry period of more than 100 years characterized by a multi-decade drought lasting nearly 50 years, says a new study from scientists at the University of Arizona.

Is the Fine Structure Constant truly constant?

J. K. Webb, J. A. King, M. T. Murphy, V. V. Flambaum, R. F. Carswell, and M. B. Bainbridge

Phys. Rev. Lett. 107, 191101 (2011)

Whether a species can evolve to survive climate change may depend on the biodiversity of its ecological community, according to a new mathematical model that simulates the effect of climate change on plants and pollinators.

The findings, published in the early online edition of Evolutionary Applications, are important because some species that have survived large climatic change in the past might not be able to survive current and ongoing climate change.

Over the past 50 years, 60 percent of all ecosystem services have declined as a direct result of the conversion of land to the production of foods, fuels and fibers.

This should come as no surprise, say seven of the world's leading environmental scientists, who met to collectively study the pitfalls of utilizing markets to induce people to take account of the environmental costs of their behavior and solutions. We are getting what we pay for.

Xi-Jun Ren and Yang Xiang from Henan Universities in China, in collaboration with Heng Fan at the Institute of Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, have produced a theory for a quantum cloning machine able to produce several copies of the state of a particle at atomic or sub-atomic scale, or quantum state, in an article about to be published in EPJ D. This could have implications for quantum information processing methods used, for example, in message encryption systems.

Insects can run up walls, hang from ceilings, and perform other amazing feats that have for centuries fascinated human observers. Now scientists from the Zoological Institute at the University of Kiel, in Germany, who have been studying these able acrobats, have borrowed some of the insects' tricks to make a dry tape that can be repeatedly peeled off without losing its adhesive properties. The researchers presented their work at the AVS Symposium, held Oct. 30 – Nov. 4, in Nashville, Tenn.