Earth

Physicists at the Joint Quantum Institute (JQI), a collaboration of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the University of Maryland-College Park, have for the first time caused a gas of atoms to exhibit an important quantum phenomenon known as spin-orbit coupling. Their technique opens new possibilities for studying and better understanding fundamental physics and has potential applications to quantum computing, next-generation "spintronics" devices and even "atomtronic" devices built from ultracold atoms.

PHILADELPHIA — New research from the University of Pennsylvania demonstrates a more consistent and cost-effective method for making graphene, the atomic-scale material that has promising applications in a variety of fields, and was the subject of the 2010 Nobel Prize in Physics.

As explained in a recently published study, a Penn research team was able to create high-quality graphene that is just a single atom thick over 95% of its area, using readily available materials and manufacturing processes that can be scaled up to industrial levels.

Existing plans for antiviral and antibiotic use during a severe influenza pandemic could reduce wastewater treatment efficiency prior to discharge into receiving rivers, resulting in water quality deterioration at drinking water abstraction points.

These conclusions are published this week (2 March 2011) in a new paper in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, which reports on a study designed to assess the ecotoxicologic risks of a pandemic influenza medical response.

Fossilized bones discovered in Texas from a flying reptile that died 89 million years ago may be the earliest occurrence in the world of the prehistoric creature known as Pteranodon.

Previously, Pteranodon bones have been found in Kansas, South Dakota and Wyoming in the Niobrara and Pierre geological formations. This likely Pteranodon specimen is the first of its kind found in Texas, according to paleontologist Timothy S. Myers at Southern Methodist University, Dallas, who identified the reptile.

Many materials, when observed over a sufficiently long period of time, show changes in their mechanical properties. The exact course of these developments depends on the underlying microscopic mechanisms. However, the microscopic structure and the complexity of the systems make direct observation extremely difficult.

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - A Purdue University researcher is leading an effort to create a new scientific field that will use sound as a way to understand the ecological characteristics of a landscape and to reconnect people with the importance of natural sounds.

Diatoms account for a large proportion of the phytoplankton found in the water, and live both in the open sea and in freshwater lakes. By reviving 100-year-old spores that had laid buried and inactive in bottom sediment, researchers at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, have shown that diatoms are also genetically stable and survival artists.

New York University physicists have developed a method for packing microscopic spheres that could lead to improvements in commercial products ranging from pharmaceutical lotions to ice cream. Their work, which relies on an innovative application of statistical mechanics, appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Nanometre-scale gold particles are currently intensively investigated for possible applications in catalysis, sensing, photonics, biolabelling, drug carriers and molecular electronics. The particles are prepared in a solution from gold salts and their reactive gold cores can be stabilised with various organic ligands. Particularly stable particles can be synthesised by using organothiolate ligands that have a strong chemical interaction to gold. The chemical process of preparing such particles has been known since the mid-1990s and many different stable sizes and compositions are known.

The SWAN (Simulating WAves Nearshore) wave prediction model developed at TU Delft has been a huge international success for many years. This model predicts the distribution of wave heights close to the shore. It was recently expanded to include the SWASH (Simulating WAves till SHore) model, which enables the modelling of wave behaviour right up to the shore, including how they break and overflow.

Through his participation, the research team from Bochum, Duisburg-Essen, and Hamburg now has succeeded in an energy-state occupancy readout of those artificial atoms – using common interfaces to classic computers. This is a big step towards the application of such systems. They report about their findings in Nature Communications.

One million instead of individual atoms

By studying seismographs from the earthquake that hit Chile last February, earth scientists at the Georgia Institute of Technology have found a statistically significant increase of microearthquakes in central California in the first few hours after the main shock. The observation provides an additional support that seismic waves from distant earthquakes could also trigger seismic events on the other side of the earth. The results may be found online in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

Wheat growers in the Southwest have a better idea about how to adjust to climate change in the decades ahead, thanks to U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) scientists in Arizona.

How severe can climate change become in a warming world?

Worse than anything we've seen in written history, according to results of a study appearing this week in the journal Science.

An international team of scientists led by Curt Stager of Paul Smith's College, New York, has compiled four dozen paleoclimate records from sediment cores in Lake Tanganyika and other locations in Africa.

The records show that one of the most widespread and intense droughts of the last 50,000 years or more struck Africa and Southern Asia 17,000 to 16,000 years ago.

Early in the formation of the Earth, some forms of the element chromium separated and disappeared deep into the planet's core, a new study by UC Davis geologists shows.

The finding, to be published online by the journal Science Feb. 24, will help scientists understand the early stages of planet formation, said Qing-Zhu Yin, professor of geology at UC Davis and coauthor on the paper.