Earth

New research shows that 2010 set new records for the melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet, expected to be a major contributor to projected sea level rises in coming decades.

"This past melt season was exceptional, with melting in some areas stretching up to 50 days longer than average," said Dr. Marco Tedesco, director of the Cryospheric Processes Laboratory at The City College of New York (CCNY – CUNY), who is leading a project studying variables that affect ice sheet melting.

Madison, WI JANUARY 20, 2011 -- Chronic water quality problems caused by agricultural and urban runoff, municipal wastewater, and atmospheric deposition from the burning of fossil fuels leads to oxygen depletion, loss of biodiversity, and harmful algal blooms. This nutrient pollution is prevalent in many coastal marine and estuarine ecosystems worldwide. Chesapeake Bay is the largest estuary in North America and although many efforts have been taken to improve its water quality, nutrient pollution still keeps it at unacceptable levels.

The levels of environmental contaminants in a mother's body decrease during breast-feeding. After a year of lactation, the levels of a number of environmental contaminants in breast milk drop by 15 – 94 per cent, according to a recent study from the Norwegian Institute of Public Health. There has been little study into this topic previously.

With little more than a conventional photocopier and transparency film, anyone can build a functional microfluidic chip.

Electronics researchers love graphene. A two-dimensional sheet of carbon one atom thick, graphene is like a superhighway for electrons, which rocket through the material with 100 times the mobility they have in silicon. But creating graphene-based devices will be challenging, say researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), because new measurements show that layering graphene on a substrate transforms its bustling speedway into steep hills and valleys that make it harder for electrons to get around.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — University of Illinois materials scientists have developed a simple, generalizable technique to fabricate complex structures that assemble themselves.

ANN ARBOR, Mich.---The decreases in Earth's snow and ice cover over the past 30 years have exacerbated global warming more than models predict they should have, on average, new research from the University of Michigan shows.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Researchers have determined the structure and mechanism of an enzyme that performs the crucial first step in the formation of cholesterol and a key virulence factor in staph bacteria.

A complex sugar may someday become one of the most effective weapons to stop the spread of cholera, a disease that has claimed thousands of lives in Haiti since the devastating earthquake last year.

CORVALLIS, Ore. – A new analysis of the Northern Hemisphere's "albedo feedback" over a 30-year period concludes that the region's loss of reflectivity due to snow and sea ice decline is more than double what state-of-the-art climate models estimate.

The findings are important, researchers say, because they suggest that Arctic warming amplified by the loss of reflectivity could be even more significant than previously thought.

(Boston) – Researchers from Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) have for the first time shown that reduced vitamin D absorption in patients with quiescent Crohn's disease (CD) may be the cause for their increased risk for vitamin D deficiency. The findings, which currently appear on-line in Inflammatory Bowel Diseases, also showed that the only way to determine absorption efficiency is to perform a vitamin D bioavailability test.

WASHINGTON -- The first global simulation study of equatorial spread F (ESF) bubble evolution using a comprehensive 3D ionosphere model, SAMI3, has been demonstrated. The model self-consistently solves for the neutral wind driven dynamo electric field and the gravity driven electric field associated with plasma bubbles.

WASHINGTON -- The first global simulation study of equatorial spread F (ESF) bubble evolution using a comprehensive 3D ionosphere model, SAMI3, has been demonstrated. The model self-consistently solves for the neutral wind driven dynamo electric field and the gravity driven electric field associated with plasma bubbles.

ANN ARBOR, Mich.---With an invention that can be made from some of the same parts used in CD players, University of Michigan researchers have developed a way to measure the growth and drug susceptibility of individual bacterial cells without the use of a microscope.

The new biosensor promises to speed treatment of bacterial infections, said Raoul Kopelman, who is the Richard Smalley Distinguished University Professor of Chemistry, Physics and Applied Physics and a professor of biomedical engineering, biophysics and chemical biology.