Earth

US and Swiss researchers have, for the first time, modelled a climate system with extremely high carbon emissions in an attempt to test the boundaries of the current computer simulation programs that inform us.

Published today, Tuesday 5 July, in IOP Publishing's journal Environmental Research Letters, the study has revealed the potentially devastating effects that high carbon emissions could have on our climate.

Warming of the ocean's subsurface layers will melt underwater portions of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets faster than previously thought, according to new University of Arizona-led research. Such melting would increase the sea level more than already projected.

The research, based on 19 state-of-the-art climate models, proposes a new mechanism by which global warming will accelerate the melting of the great ice sheets during this century and the next.

The Mary river turtle (Elusor macrurus), which is restricted to only one river system in Australia, will suffer from multiple problems if temperatures predicted under climate change are reached, researchers from the University of Queensland have shown.

The scientists, who are presenting their work at the Society for Experimental Biology Annual conference in Glasgow on 3rd July 2011, incubated turtle eggs at 26, 29 and 32⁰C. Young turtles which developed under the highest temperature showed reduced swimming ability and a preference for shallower waters.

College Park, Md. (July 1, 2011) -- Ever since an ordinary office inkjet printer had its ink cartridges swapped out for a cargo of cells about 10 years ago and sprayed out cell-packed droplets to create living tissue, scientists and engineers have never looked at office equipment in quite the same way. They dream of using a specialized bio-inkjet printer to grow new body parts for organ transplants or tissues for making regenerative medicine repairs to ailing bodies. Both these new therapies begin with a carefully printed mass of embryonic stem cells.

Researchers can now see objects more precisely and faster at the nanoscale due to utilising the full colour spectrum of synchrotron light, opening the way for faster 3D nanoimaging.

This new methodology will provide for enhanced nanoimaging for studying bio samples for medical research, improved drug development and advanced materials for engineering.

Scientists have shown that soccer players with superior ability in areas such as passing accuracy or sprint speed do not necessarily achieve better overall performance on the pitch.

Gwendolyn David, PhD researcher at the University of Queensland, says "Athletic abilities measured in the lab were not associated with any measure of performance on the pitch. In other words, it's not your ability, it's what you do with it that counts."

Zooplankton can use specialised adaptations that allow them to hide from predators in areas of the ocean where oxygen levels are so low almost nothing can survive - but they may run into trouble as these areas expand under climate change.

In this month's special issue of Physics World, which examines the science and applications of invisibility, Martin McCall and Paul Kinsler of Imperial College London describe a new type of invisibility cloak that does not just hide objects – but events.

Using the ultimate bank heist as an example, McCall and Kinsler explain how a thief could, in principle, use an "event cloak" to steal money from a safe, without even the CCTV surveillance cameras being aware.

Researchers have been investigating the connection between fifth century Himalayan instruments used in religious ceremonies and modern physics.

In a study published today, 1 July 2011, in IOP Publishing's journal Nonlinearity, researchers have captured high speed images of the dynamics of fluid-filled Tibetan bowls and quantified how droplets are propelled from the water's surface as the bowls are excited.

The first scientific results from an ambitious voyage led by a group of graduate students from Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego offer a stark view of human pollution and its infiltration of an area of the ocean that has been labeled as the "Great Pacific Garbage Patch."

BOULDER--Researchers have found that areas near commercial airports sometimes experience a small but measurable increase in rain and snow when aircraft take off and land under certain atmospheric conditions.

Ground-level ozone is an air pollutant that harms humans and plants. Both climate and weather play a major role in ozone damage to plants. Researchers at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, have now shown that climate change has the potential to significantly increase the risk of ozone damage to plants in northern and central Europe by the end of this century.

Puntarenas, Costa Rica – New samples of rock and sediment from the depths of the eastern Pacific Ocean may help explain the cause of large, destructive earthquakes similar to the Tohoku Earthquake that struck Japan in mid-March.

Nearly 1500 meters (almost one mile) of core collected from the ocean floor near the coast of Costa Rica reveal detailed records of approximately 2 million years of tectonic activity along a seismic plate boundary.

Panama City, Panama – Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP) Expedition 335 Superfast Spreading Rate Crust 4 recently completed operations in Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) Hole 1256D, a deep scientific borehole that extends more than 1500 meters below the seafloor into the Pacific Ocean's igneous crust – rocks that formed through the cooling and crystallization of magma, and form the basement of the ocean floor.

Higher temperatures could significantly impact California and other premium winegrowing regions of the United States in the next 30 years, according to a new study led by Stanford University climate scientists.