Earth

Wind blowing on the ocean is a crucial factor mixing the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide into the ocean depths and keeping it from going back into the atmosphere.

For more than two decades scientists have suspected there's another – possibly substantial – source of energy for mixing that's generated in the ocean where cold, heavy water collides with warm, light water. However, there's never been a way to get enough measurements of such a "front" to prove this – until now.

A team led by Professor Andre Geim, a recipient of the 2010 Nobel Prize for graphene, can now show that electric current – a flow of electrons – can magnetise graphene.

The results, reported in Science, could be a potentially huge breakthrough in the field of spintronics.

Spintronics is a group of emerging technologies that exploit the intrinsic spin of the electron, in addition to its fundamental electric charge that is exploited in microelectronics.

Researchers from Mount Sinai School of Medicine will present several key studies at the American Academy of Neurology (AAN) annual meeting, including research providing critical insight into the prognosis and clinical treatment course of people with a certain subtype of Multiple Sclerosis (MS). The meeting is taking place April 9-16 in Honolulu.

An International team of scientists in the XENON collaboration, including several from the Weizmann Institute, announced on Thursday the results of their search for the elusive component of our universe known as dark matter. This search was conducted with greater sensitivity than ever before.

Scientists have discovered a method to control the gas-phase selective catalytic combustion of methane, so finely that if done at room temperature the reaction produces ethylene, while at lower temperatures it yields formaldehyde. The process involves using gold dimer cations as catalysts — that is, positively charged diatomic gold clusters. Being able to catalyze these reactions, at or below room temperature, may lead to significant cost savings in the synthesis of plastics, synthetic fuels and other materials.

COLLEGE PARK, Md. -- University of Maryland researchers have discovered a way to control magnetic properties of graphene that could lead to powerful new applications in magnetic storage and magnetic random access memory.

The finding by a team of Maryland researchers, led by Physics Professor Michael S. Fuhrer of the UMD Center for Nanophysics and Advanced Materials is the latest of many amazing properties discovered for graphene.

A step change in research relating to plasma nanoscience is needed for the world to overcome the challenge of sufficient energy creation and storage, says a leading scientist from CSIRO Materials Science and Engineering and the University of Sydney, Australia.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- When one cloud of gas meets another, they normally pass right through each other. But now, MIT physicists have created clouds of ultracold gases that bounce off each other like bowling balls, even though they are a million times thinner than air — the first time that such impenetrable gases have been observed.

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Last year's $2 billion shutdown of European airspace following a volcanic eruption in Iceland alerted everyone to the danger that ash clouds can pose to aircraft engines.

Now, researchers have discovered that a new class of ceramic coatings could offer jet engines special protection against volcanic ash damage in the future.

A newly discovered magnetic phenomenon could accelerate data storage by several orders of magnitude.

With a constantly growing flood of information, we are being inundated with increasing quantities of data, which we in turn want to process faster than ever. Oddly, the physical limit to the recording speed of magnetic storage media has remained largely unresearched. In experiments performed on the particle accelerator BESSY II of Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin, Dutch researchers have now achieved ultrafast magnetic reversal and discovered a surprising phenomenon.

PHILADELPHIA—A widely-available yet expensive radiotherapy technique used to treat prostate cancer patients after surgery has promising benefits—higher dose and less damage to the rectum and bladder—compared to a less precise technique, Thomas Jefferson University researchers document for the first time in a new study published in Practical Radiation Oncology.

Cambridge, Mass. – April 12, 2011 – A new discovery about the dynamic impact of individual energetic particles into a solid surface improves our ability to predict surface stability or instability of materials under irradiation over time.

The finding may lead to the design of improved structural materials for nuclear fission and fusion power plants, which must withstand constant irradiation over decades. It may also accelerate the advent of fusion power, which does not produce radioactivity.

ROCKVILLE, Maryland, April 12, 2011 – Neuralstem, Inc. (NYSE Amex: CUR) announced that Eva Feldman, M.D., Ph.D., Principal Investigator of the Phase I safety trial of Neuralstem's human spinal cord stem cells (HSSC's) in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS or Lou Gehrig's disease), and unpaid Neuralstem consultant, presented interim safety data on the first nine patients. Dr.

Reactive nitrogen compounds from agriculture, transport, and industry lead to increased emissions of the greenhouse gas nitrous oxide (N2O) from forests in Europe. Nitrous oxide emission from forest soils is at least twice as high as estimated so far by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). This is one of the key messages of the first study on nitrogen in Europe (European Nitrogen Assessment, ENA) that is presented this week at the International Conference "Nitrogen and Global Change 2011" in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Long-distance, high speed communications depend on lasers. But when information is transmitted down fiber optic cables, it's critical that the signal be clear enough to be decoded at the other end. Two factors are important in this respect: the color of the light, otherwise known as the wavelength, and the orientation of the light wave, known as polarization. A team from EPFL and the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology (EMPA) has developed a technique that improves control over these two parameters.