Earth

SALT LAKE CITY, Dec. 16, 2010 – University of Utah physicists stored information for 112 seconds in what may become the world's tiniest computer memory: magnetic "spins" in the centers or nuclei of atoms. Then the physicists retrieved and read the data electronically – a big step toward using the new kind of memory for both faster conventional and superfast "quantum" computers.

December 16, 2010 - Scientists have discovered that a class of materials known to convert heat to electricity and vice versa behaves quite unexpectedly at the nanoscale in response to changes in temperature. The discovery - described in the December 17, 2010, issue of Science - is a new "opposite-direction" phase transition that helps explain the strong thermoelectric response of these materials. It may also help scientists identify other useful thermoelectrics, and could further their application in capturing energy lost as heat, for example, in automotive and factory exhaust.

AMES, Iowa – Advancements in fabrication technologies may lead to superlenses and other designer optical materials, according to an Iowa State University and Ames Laboratory physicist.

To answer the big questions, it often helps to look at the smallest details. That is the approach Stanford mineral physicist Wendy Mao is taking to understanding a major event in Earth's inner history. Using a new technique to scrutinize how minute amounts of iron and silicate minerals interact at ultra-high pressures and temperatures, she is gaining insight into the biggest transformation Earth has ever undergone – the separation of its rocky mantle from its iron-rich core approximately 4.5 billion years ago.

KINGSTON, R.I. – December 16, 2010 – Geologists from the University of Rhode Island and Princeton University, in collaboration with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, have taken an important step toward helping the United States government monitor nuclear explosions by improving a 3-dimensional model originally developed at Harvard University. The improvements make the model more accurate at detecting the location, source and depth of seismic activity.

The results of their research were presented today at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco.

For the first time in history, a change will be made to the atomic weights of some elements listed on the Periodic table of the chemical elements posted on walls of chemistry classrooms and on the inside covers of chemistry textbooks worldwide.

Rising concentrations of zinc in a waterway on Colorado's Western Slope may be the result of climate change that is affecting the timing of annual snowmelt, says a new study led by the University of Colorado at Boulder.

A new study from researchers at North Carolina State University sheds light on how a technique that is commonly used for making single-metal nanoparticles can be extended to create nanoparticles consisting of two metals – and that have tunable properties. The study also provides insight into the optical properties of some of these nanoparticles.

Tuning the optical properties of nanoparticles is of interest for applications such as security technology, and for use in making chemical reactions more efficient – which has multiple industrial and environmental applications.

Two scientists at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego have provided the first details about the mysterious flashes of dazzling bioluminescent light produced by a little-known sea snail.

A three-year study by Yale School of Medicine researchers has found that vaccinating pregnant women against influenza is over 90 percent effective in preventing their infants from being hospitalized with influenza in the first six months of life. Published in the December 15 issue of Clinical Infectious Diseases, the study builds on preliminary data the research team presented last year at the Infectious Disease Society of America in Philadelphia.

KINGSTON, R.I. – December 13, 2010 -- While there continues to be considerable debate among geologists about the availability of oxygen in the Earth's mantle, recent discoveries by a University of Rhode Island scientist are bringing resolution to the question.

Washington, D.C. (December 14, 2010) -- One of the rarest metals on Earth may be an excellent option for enabling future flash memory chips to continue to increase in speed and density, according to a group of researchers in Taiwan.

Washington, D.C. (December 14, 2010) -- Moving a step closer toward quantum computing, a research team in the Netherlands recently fabricated a photodetector based on a single nanowire, in which the active element is a single quantum dot with a volume of a mere 7,000 cubic nanometers. The device is described in the American Institute of Physics' journal Applied Physics Letters.