Earth

Scientists show that non-volatile memory made from a sandwich of silver nanoparticle-laced plastic retains its on/off state over a wider voltage range when operating at toasty temperatures.

In a study published in this week's issue of Nature, Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) senior scientist Gauis Shaver and his colleagues, including lead author Michelle Mack of the University of Florida, describe the dramatic impacts of a massive Arctic wildfire on carbon releases to the atmosphere. The 2007 blaze on the North Slope of the Alaska's Brooks Mountain Range released 20 times more carbon to the atmosphere than what is annually lost from undisturbed tundra.

RIVERSIDE, Calif. – Chemists at the University of California, Riverside have accomplished in the lab what until now was considered impossible: transform a family of compounds which are acids into bases.

As our chemistry lab sessions have taught us, acids are substances that taste sour and react with metals and bases (bases are the chemical opposite of acids). For example, compounds of the element boron are acidic while nitrogen and phosphorus compounds are basic.

MADISON – During the last prolonged warm spell on Earth, the oceans were at least four meters – and possibly as much as 6.5 meters, or about 20 feet – higher than they are now.

Where did all that extra water come from? Mainly from melting ice sheets on Greenland and Antarctica, and many scientists, including University of Wisconsin-Madison geoscience assistant professor Anders Carlson, have expected that Greenland was the main culprit.

Nutmeg-loving toucans wearing GPS transmitters recently helped a team of scientists at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama address an age-old problem in plant ecology: accurately estimating seed dispersal. The tracking data revealed what scientists have long suspected: toucans are excellent seed dispersers, particularly in the morning. Also, for the first time, the data enabled researchers to create a map of the relative patterns and distances that toucans distribute the seeds of a nutmeg tree.

Endangered leatherback sea turtles migrate and forage across vast areas of the Pacific Ocean and Indo Pacific seas and require greater international collaboration for their protection, according to a recent study conducted by NOAA Fisheries Service and western Pacific research and conservation scientists.

The most common surname in Korea – Kim – has been traced back 1500 years using a statistical model, providing evidence of a strong, stable culture that has remained intact to this day.

In a study published today, 28 July 2011, in the Institute of Physics and German Physical Society's New Journal of Physics, researchers have been able to estimate that in the year 500 AD, 50,000 people carried a Korean family name, of which there were 150 variations and 10,000 people carrying the name Kim.

Every mountain and hill shall be made low, declared the ancient prophet Isaiah. In other words: erosion happens. But for the modern geologist a vexing question remains: how fast does this erosion happen?

For more than a century, scientists have looked for ways to measure and compare erosion rates across differing landscapes around the globe—but with limited success.

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - A team of Purdue University researchers is among a small group in the world that has successfully created ultrapure material that captures new states of matter and could have applications in high-speed quantum computing.

The material, gallium arsenide, is used to observe states in which electrons no longer obey the laws of single-particle physics, but instead are governed by their mutual interactions.

CORVALLIS, Ore. – Chemists at Oregon State University have discovered that the same crystal structure they identified two years ago to create what may be the world's best blue pigment can also be used with different elements to create other colors, with significant potential in the paint and pigment industries.

First on the list, appropriately, is a brilliant orange pigment – appropriate for the OSU Beavers whose team colors are black and orange, and a university in a "Powered by Orange" advancement campaign.

GAINESVILLE, Fla. --- After a 10,000-year absence, wildfires have returned to the Arctic tundra, and a University of Florida study shows that their impact could extend far beyond the areas blackened by flames.

In a follow-up of extremely low-birth-weight children, the rates of chronic health conditions overall, and asthma specifically, did not change between the ages of 8 and 14 years, although the rate of obesity did increase, according to a study in the July 27 issue of JAMA.

Changes in perinatal care in the 1990s resulted in improved survival among extremely low-birth-weight (ELBW) infants (weight less than 2.2 lbs.).

Palo Alto, CA—Decisions by farmers to plant on productive land with little snow enhances the potential for reforestation to counteract global warming, concludes new research from Carnegie's Julia Pongratz and Ken Caldeira. Previous research has led scientists and politicians to believe that regrowing forests on Northern lands that were cleared in order to grow crops would not decrease global warming. But these studies did not consider the importance of the choices made by farmers in the historical past.

MERCED, Calif. — An increase in wildfires due to climate change could rapidly and profoundly alter the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, according to a new study authored by environmental engineering and geography Professor Anthony Westerling of the University of California, Merced.

MADISON – Climate is changing fire patterns in the west in a way that could markedly change the face of Yellowstone National Park, according to new research.

A study published online the week of July 25 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows that climate change could increase the frequency of large fires in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem to a point that sparks dramatic shifts in the forest vegetation, from conifer-dominated mature forests to younger stands and more open vegetation.