Earth

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- For years the tobacco industry has argued that efforts to ban tobacco advertising near schools would constitute a total ban on tobacco advertising in urban areas.

But public health researchers at the University at Buffalo and Roswell Park Cancer Institute have presented research that shows this is not the case in Buffalo and Niagara Falls, N.Y. The UB and RPCI researchers presented their study results in a poster session on Feb. 18 at the annual meeting of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco held in Toronto.

Cambridge, Mass. - February 19, 2011 - By studying cellular movements at the level of both the individual cell and the collective group, applied physicists have discovered that migrating tissues flow very much like colloidal glass.

The research, led by investigators at Harvard's School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) and the University of Florida, advances scientists' understanding of wound healing, cancer metastasis, and embryonic development.

The finding was published online February 14 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Researchers studying the origin of Earth's first breathable atmosphere have zeroed in on the major role played by some very unassuming creatures: plankton.

In a paper to appear in the online Early Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), Ohio State University researcher Matthew Saltzman and his colleagues show how plankton provided a critical link between the atmosphere and chemical isotopes stored in rocks 500 million years ago.

By studying collections of a marine bryozoan that date back to a famous 1901 expedition to the South Pole, researchers have found that those organisms were growing steadily up until 1990, when their growth more than doubled. The data, reported in the February 22 issue of Current Biology, a Cell Press publication, provide the highest-latitude record of a century of growth and some of the first evidence that polar carbon sinks may be increasing.

EAST LANSING, Mich. — Climate change is already having an effect on the safety of the world's food supplies and unless action is taken it's only going to get worse, a Michigan State University professor told a symposium at this year's meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

On an isolated segment of islands in the Pacific Ring of Fire, residents endure volcanoes, tsunamis, dense fog, steep cliffs and long and chilly winters.

Sounds homey, huh?

At least it might be for inhabitants of the Kuril Islands, an 810-mile archipelago that stretches from Japan to Russia. The islands, formed by a collision of tectonic plates, are nearly abandoned today, but anthropologists have learned that thousands of people have lived there on and off as far back as at least 6000 B.C., persevering despite natural disasters.

A panel of scientists speaking today at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) unveiled new research and models demonstrating how climate change could increase exposure and risk of human illness originating from ocean, coastal and Great Lakes ecosystems, with some studies projecting impacts to be felt within 30 years.

Once regarded as the stuff of science fiction, antimatter—the mirror image of the ordinary matter in our observable universe—is now the focus of laboratory studies around the world.

While physicists routinely produce antimatter with radioisotopes and particle colliders, cooling these antiparticles and containing them for any length of time is another story. Once antimatter comes into contact with ordinary matter it "annihilates"—or disappears in a flash of gamma radiation.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Introductory college science classes need to improve their coverage of issues related to sustainability, a noted chemistry educator told the American Association for the Advancement of Science today.

"Across the nation, we have a problem," said Catherine Middlecamp, a distinguished faculty associate in chemistry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. "We are using a 20th-century curriculum, and this is the 21st century."

From The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, The University of Western Australia, and the, Kings Park and Botanic Garden, the scientists argue that deliberately increasing the frequency of fires may lead to ecosystem degradation and loss of biodiversity.

In a paper published this month in Trends in Plant Science they acknowledge that as climate change increases the combustibility of vegetation, human lives and property are more at risk.

When people on airplanes ask Alan Newell what he works on, he tells them "flower arrangements."

He could also say "fingerprints" or "sand ripples" or "how plants grow."

"Most patterns you see, including the ones on sand dunes or fish or tigers or leopards or in the laboratory – even the defects in the patterns – have many universal features," said Newell, a Regents' Professor of Mathematics at the University of Arizona.

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When a team of scientists drilling near an Icelandic volcano hit magma in 2009, they had to abandon their planned experiments on geothermal energy. But the mishap could point the way to an alternative source of geothermal power.

MADISON — Most people cross borders such as doorways or state lines without thinking much about it. Yet not all borders are places of limbo intended only for crossing. Some borders, like those between two materials that are brought together, are dynamic places where special things can happen.

For an electron moving from one material toward the other, this space is where it can join other electrons, which together can create current, magnetism or even light.

Champaign, IL – February 4, 2011 - An article in the current issue of Global Change Biology Bioenergy reviews the suitability of Agave as a bioenergy feedstock that can sustain high productivity in spite of poor soil and stressful climatic conditions accompanying climate change.

Agave, which grows successfully under hot, dry conditions, is currently used in the production of beverages, food, and fiber, and has only recently been considered a promising source of biofuel.