Earth

Climate change in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem will increase the frequency of wildfires and alter the composition of the forests by 2050, according to a team of ecologists who modeled the effects of higher temperatures on fire occurrence.

UPTON, NY — Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory have observed a new way that magnetic and electric properties — which have a long history of ignoring and counteracting each other — can coexist in a special class of metals. These materials, known as multiferroics, could serve as the basis for the next generation of faster and energy-efficient logic, memory, and sensing technology.

Jewelers abhor diamond impurities, but they are a bonanza for scientists.

Safely encased in super-hard diamond, impurities are unaltered, ancient minerals that tell the story of Earth's distant past.

Researchers analyzed data from more than 4,000 of these mineral inclusions to find that continents started the cycle of breaking apart, drifting, and colliding about three billion years ago.

The research results, published in this week's issue of the journal Science, pinpoint when this so-called Wilson cycle began.

Writing in the journal Nature Physics, the academics, who discovered the world's thinnest material at The University of Manchester in 2004, have revealed more about its electronic properties.

Research institutes and universities around the world are already looking at ways to build devices such as touch-screens, ultrafast transistors and photodetectors.

Now the research from the creators of the material promises to accelerate that research, and potentially open up countless more electronic opportunities.

CORVALLIS, Ore. – The Northwest Forest Plan enacted in 1993 was designed to conserve old-growth forests and protect species such as the northern spotted owl, but researchers conclude in a new study that it had another powerful and unintended consequence – increased carbon sequestration on public lands.

Fool's gold is providing scientists with valuable insights into a turning point in the Earth's evolution, which took place billions of years ago.

Scientists are recreating ancient forms of the mineral pyrite – dubbed fool's gold for its metallic lustre – that reveal details of past geological events.

(Santa Barbara, Calif.) –– Scientists at UC Santa Barbara and other institutions say their new research is expected to profoundly affect the field of ecology and can assist the management of ecosystems, including forests, lakes, and oceans. And it's all because of parasites.

The research, published this week in the journal Science, includes parasites in a comprehensive study of ecosystems. By doing so, the scientists say they have revealed new ecological rules.

On July 10, The Denver Post published two side-by-side op-ed pieces on hydraulic fracturing. One by Dave McCurdy, president and CEO of the American Gas Association, argued that the natural gas extraction process has led to an energy revolution in the U.S., one that reduces the nation's dependence on foreign energy, creates domestic jobs and safely helps the nation meet its diverse and growing energy needs while reducing its carbon footprint.

Washington, D.C.—Jewelers abhor diamond impurities, but they are a bonanza for scientists. Safely encased in the super-hard diamond, impurities are unaltered, ancient minerals that can tell the story of Earth's distant past. Researchers analyzed data from the literature of over 4,000 of these mineral inclusions to find that continents started the cycle of breaking apart, drifting, and colliding about 3 billion years ago. The research, published in the July 22, 2011, issue of Science, pinpoints when this so-called Wilson cycle began.

(Edmonton) Two University of Alberta researchers have published a step by step plan to one-day end the use of environmentally harmful chemicals on commercial crops by developing plants that produce their own fertilizer.

Modified metals that change colour in the presence of particular gases could warn consumers if packaged food has been exposed to air or if there's a carbon monoxide leak at home. This finding could potentially influence the production of both industrial and commercial air quality sensors.

"We initially found out by accident that modified rhodium reacts in a colourful way to different gases," says Cathleen Crudden, a professor in the Department of Chemistry. "That happy accident has become a driving force in our work with rhodium."

Scientists of the CDF collaboration at the Department of Energy's Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory announced the observation of a new particle, the neutral Xi-sub-b. This particle contains three quarks: a strange quark, an up quark and a bottom quark (s-u-b). While its existence was predicted by the Standard Model, the observation of the neutral Xi-sub-b is significant because it strengthens our understanding of how quarks form matter. Fermilab physicist Pat Lukens, a member of the CDF collaboration, presented the discovery at Fermilab on Wednesday, July 20.

Researchers have made a major advance in predicting and quashing environmental decoherence, a phenomenon that has proven to be one of the most formidable obstacles standing in the way of quantum computing.

The findings – based on theoretical work conducted at the University of British Columbia and confirmed by experiments at the University of California Santa Barbara – are published online in the July 20 issue of the journal Nature.

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A cohesive team environment, assessing one's own performance rather than comparing with others, and involvement in enjoyably challenging practices are the main conditions needed for children to have a positive developmental experience playing team sports.