Earth

CORVALLIS, Ore. – The largest and most comprehensive study yet done on the effect of biofuel production from West Coast forests has concluded that an emphasis on bioenergy would increase carbon dioxide emissions from these forests at least 14 percent, if the efficiency of such operations is optimal.

The findings are contrary to assumptions and some previous studies that suggest biofuels from this source would be carbon-neutral or even reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

In this research, that wasn't true in any scenario.

Global warming, simultaneous warming events in the northern and southern hemispheres, have not occurred in the past 20 000 years, which is as far back as it is possible to analyze with sufficient precision to compare with modern developments.

The study by Svante Björck, a climate researcher at Lund University in Sweden, goes 14 000 years further back in time than previous studies have done."What is happening today is unique from a historical geological perspective", he says.

A peer-reviewed study commissioned by NOAA shows the American people assign an estimated total economic value of $33.57 billion for the coral reefs of the main Hawaiian Islands.

"The study shows that people from across the United States treasure Hawaii's coral reefs, even though many never get to visit them," said Jane Lubchenco, Ph.D., under secretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere and NOAA administrator. "It illustrates the economic value of coral reefs to all Americans, and how important it is to conserve these ecosystems for future generations."

WASHINGTON -- The Antarctic ozone hole, which yawns wide every Southern Hemisphere spring, reached its annual peak on Sept. 12. It stretched to 10.05 million square miles, the ninth largest ozone hole on record. Above the South Pole, the ozone hole reached its deepest point of the season on Oct. 9, tying this year for the 10th lowest in this 26-year record.

HOUSTON -- (Oct. 20, 2011) -- Giant flakes of graphene oxide in water aggregate like a stack of pancakes, but infinitely thinner, and in the process gain characteristics that materials scientists may find delicious.

A new paper by scientists at Rice University and the University of Colorado details how slices of graphene, the single-atom form of carbon, in a solution arrange themselves to form a nematic liquid crystal in which particles are free-floating but aligned.

Theoretical chemists at Emory University have solved an important mystery about the rates of chemical reactions and the so-called Polanyi rules.

The findings, published in the journal Science, reveal why a reaction involving methane does not conform to the known rules, a problem that has baffled physical chemists in recent years.

The Antarctic ozone hole, which yawns wide every Southern Hemisphere spring, reached its annual peak on September 12, stretching 10.05 million square miles, the ninth largest on record. Above the South Pole, the ozone hole reached its deepest point of the season on October 9 when total ozone readings dropped to 102 Dobson units, tied for the 10th lowest in the 26-year record.

A team of scientists from Italy and Germany has recently developed a model to predict the friction occurring when a rough surface in wet conditions (such as a road on a rainy day) is in sliding contact with a rubber material (such as a car tire tread block) in an article to be published shortly in the journal EPJE.

Seeking to better understand the level of death and destruction that would result from a large meteorite striking the Earth, Princeton University researchers have developed a new model that can not only more accurately simulate the seismic fallout of such an impact, but also help reveal new information about the surface and interior of planets based on past collisions.

CORVALLIS, Ore. – Wildfire, insect outbreaks and hurricanes destroy huge amounts of forest every year and increase the amount of carbon dioxide entering the atmosphere, but scientists are now learning more about another force that can significantly affect their climate impact.Researchers conclude in a new study that the albedo effect, which controls the amount of energy reflected back into space, is important in the climatic significance of several types of major forest disturbances.

The first scientists to witness exploding rock and molten lava from a deep sea volcano, seen during a 2009 expedition, report that the eruption was near a tear in the Earth's crust that is mimicking the birth of a subduction zone.

Scientists on the expedition collected boninite, a rare, chemically distinct lava that accompanies the formation of Earth's subduction zones.

It has long been known that distinctive blue flashes--a type of bioluminescence--that are visible at night in some marine environments are caused by tiny, unicellular plankton known as dinoflagellates. However, a new study has, for the first time, detailed the potential mechanism for this bioluminesence.

The unification of quantum mechanics and Einstein's general relativity is one of the most exciting and still open questions in modern physics. General relativity, the joint theory of gravity, space and time gives predictions that become clearly evident on a cosmic scale of stars and galaxies. Quantum effects, on the other hand, are fragile and are typically observed on small scales, e.g. when considering single particles and atoms. That is why it is very hard to test the interplay between quantum mechanics and general relativity. Now theoretical physicists led by Prof.

(UC Santa Barbara –) Researchers at UC Santa Barbara have developed a new and highly efficient way to characterize the structure of polymers at the nanoscale – effectively designing a routine analytical tool that could be used by industries that rely on polymer science to innovate new products, from drug delivery gels to renewable bio-materials.

Using outbreak data from 2003-2010, Kathleen O'Reilly of Imperial College London, UK and colleagues develop a statistical model of the spread of wild polioviruses in Africa that can predict polio outbreaks six months in advance. The authors' findings, published in this week's PLoS Medicine, indicate that outbreaks of polio in Africa over the study period resulted mainly from continued transmission in Nigeria and other countries that reported polio cases, and from poor immunization status.