Earth

A team of scientists from the University of Sheffield and Bangor University have used a computer climate model to study how freshwater entering the oceans at the end of the penultimate Ice Age 140,000 years ago affected the parts of the ocean currents that control climate.

A network of high-frequency radar systems designed for mapping ocean surface currents now provides detail of coastal ocean dynamics along the U.S. West Coast never before available.

The network has grown over the last decade from a few radars to what is now considered the largest network of its kind in the world consisting of 78 sites in operation as of May 1.

Medical students in the United States are frequently exposed to pharmaceutical marketing, even in their preclinical years, and the extent of their contact with industry is associated with positive attitudes about marketing and skepticism towards any negative implications. These findings from research led by Kirsten Austad and Aaron S.

NEW ORLEANS, LA – May 24, 2011 -- A new bacterium that uses caffeine for food has been discovered by a doctoral student at the University of Iowa. The bacterium uses newly discovered digestive enzymes to break down the caffeine, which allows it to live and grow.

"We have isolated a new caffeine-degrading bacterium, Pseudomonas putida CBB5, which breaks caffeine down into carbon dioxide and ammonia," says Ryan Summers, who presents his research today at the 111th General Meeting of the American Society for Microbiology in New Orleans.

Alexandria, VA – On Feb. 22, a magnitude-6.1 earthquake struck Christchurch, New Zealand, killing nearly 200 people and causing $12 billion in damage. About three weeks later, a massive magnitude-9.0 earthquake struck northern Honshu, Japan. The quake and tsunami killed about 30,000 people and caused an estimated $310 billion in damage. Both events are stark reminders of human vulnerability to natural disasters and provide a harsh reality check: Even technologically advanced countries with modern building codes are not immune from earthquake disasters.

A novel way to immobilise radioactive forms of iodine using a microwave, has been discovered by an expert at the University of Sheffield.

In a large study of men in Japan, the presence of fatty liver disease by ultrasonography showed an inverse ( reduced risk) association with the frequency of moderate alcohol consumption; however, there was some suggestion of an increase in fatty liver disease with higher volume of alcohol consumed per day. Moderate drinkers had lower levels of obesity than did non-drinkers, and both obesity and metabolic abnormalities were positively associated with fatty liver disease.

The magnitude 9 earthquake and resulting tsunami that struck Japan on March 11 were like a one-two punch – first violently shaking, then swamping the islands – causing tens of thousands of deaths and hundreds of billions of dollars in damage. Now Stanford researchers have discovered the catastrophe was caused by a sequence of unusual geologic events never before seen so clearly.

PULLMAN, Wash.—Don't get him wrong: Fred Gittes is, in his words, "extremely squeamish."

But then a scientist with forensics training told him that crime scene investigators could use a better way to analyze blood spatters. The physicist in Gittes rose to the challenge.

"It seems as though what was being done was very crude from a physics point of view and that intrigued me," he says.

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y., May 23, 2011 -- Adding just a few more weeks of pregnancy can cut a newborn's risk of death in half – even if the pregnancy has reached "term" -- adding more evidence to the argument that continuing a pregnancy to at least 39 weeks is crucial to a baby's health.

ANN ARBOR, Mich.---If a gay or bisexual man seeks sex or dating online, the type of partner or relationship he wants is a good indicator of whether he'll engage in safe sex, a new study suggests.

High-temperature superconductivity can be looked at as a fight for survival at the atomic scale. In an effort to reach that point where electrons pair up and resistance is reduced to zero, superconductivity must compete with numerous, seemingly rival phases of matter.

Understanding those phases and whether or not they are rivals or complementary phenomena has consumed the attention of theoreticians and experimentalists in the quest to find superconducting materials capable of functioning at close-to-room temperature, a potential that has gone unrealized for nearly three decades.

Earthquake scientists trying to unravel the mysteries of an unfelt, weeks-long seismic phenomenon called episodic tremor and slip have discovered a strange twist. The tremor can suddenly reverse direction and travel back through areas of the fault that it had ruptured in preceding days, and do so 20 to 40 times faster than the original fault rupture.

Rima Taher, an expert in the design of low-rise buildings for extreme winds and hurricanes, will speak next week at the Annual Conference of Construction Specifications Canada (Devis de Construction Canada) in Montreal. Taher, a university lecturer in NJIT's College of Architecture and Design, is a civil and structural engineer, http://www.njit.edu/news/experts/taher.php.

Researchers from the King Juan Carlos University (URJC) have carried out a research study published in Biological Conservation, which looked at whether spiders were more tolerant of human impact than other animals. The answer was no: arachnids suffer the consequences of changes to their landscape just like any other animal.