Earth

WASHINGTON, D.C., November 22, 2010 -- Interest in developing alternative energy sources is driving the consideration of a promising technology that uses underwater turbines to convert ocean tidal flow energy into electricity.

Cleveland -- Materials scientists from Case Western Reserve University and the Institute of Solid State Research in Jülich, Germany have produced particularly clear changes in the atomic structure of sapphire following deformation at high temperatures.

Women are underrepresented and on average perform more poorly than men in introductory physics. But a recent study finds that this gap arises predominantly from differential preparation prior to college and psychological factors, rather than differences in ability.

As the eurozone continues to wobble, new analysis of countries' economic interconnectedness finds that some of the countries with the greatest potential to cause a global crash have surprisingly small gross domestic production.

This Thanksgiving, when you bite into the cranberry sauce and the tartness smacks your tongue as hard as that snide comment from your sister, consider the power of sour.Neurobiology researchers at the University of Southern California have made a surprising discovery about how some cells respond to sour tastes.

Of the five taste sensations — sweet, bitter, sour, salty and umami — sour is arguably the strongest yet the least understood. Sour is the sensation evoked by substances that are acidic, such as lemons and pickles. The more acidic the substance, the more sour the taste.

WASHINGTON, D.C., November 23, 2010 -- For centuries, intellectuals have met at the ring-stained surfaces of coffee shops to pore over the most pressing problems of the day -- but has anyone ever pondered the coffee rings they left behind? What causes the formation of stain patterns left behind by coffee droplets on a surface?

WASHINGTON, D.C., November 23, 2010 -- New research from the University of South Florida suggests that one of the evolutionary secrets of the shark's success hides in one of its tiniest traits -- flexible scales on the bodies of these peerless predators that make them better hunters by allowing them to change directions while moving at full speed.

Clouds play a major role in the climate-change equation, but they are the least-understood variable in the sky, observes a Texas A&M University geoscientist, who says mid-level clouds are especially understudied. The professor, Shaima Nasiri, is making those "in-between" clouds the focus of her research, which is being funded by NASA.

OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Nov. 23, 2010 -- A systematic study of phase changes in vanadium dioxide has solved a mystery that has puzzled scientists for decades, according to researchers at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

Scientists have known that vanadium dioxide exhibits several competing phases when it acts as an insulator at lower temperatures. However, the exact nature of the phase behavior has not been understood since research began on vanadium dioxide in the early 1960s.

In the nanoworld many things are different. Scientists only recently started unveiling and harnessing the underlying laws and principles. A team associated with Professor Johannes Barth from the Physics Department of the TU Muenchen have now succeeded in capturing rod-shaped molecules in a two-dimensional network in such a way that they autonomously form small rotors that turn in their honeycomb-like cages.

So far, it has only been possible to image magnetic domains in 2 dimensions. Now, for the first time, Scientists at Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin have managed to create 3-dimensional images of these domains deep within magnetic materials.

A research team led by the University of Bristol has used STFC's ISIS Neutron Source to come up with a new way to treat carbon dioxide (CO2), so that it can be used in efficient and environmentally friendly methods for extracting oil. These new CO2 soluble additives can also be used to reduce the environmental damage caused by every day industrial processes such as food processing and the manufacture of electronics. The results of this work are published in the journal Langmuir.

Scientists at The University of Nottingham have made a major breakthrough that could help shape the future of nanotechnology, by demonstrating for the first time that 3-D molecular structures can be built on a surface.

The discovery could prove a significant step forward towards the development of new nano devices such as cutting-edge optical and electronic technologies and even molecular computers.

WASHINGTON, D.C., November 23, 2010 -- To the causal aquarium visitor, the jellyfish doesn't seem to be a particularly powerful swimmer; compared to a fish, it glides slowly and peacefully.

But for Janna Nawroth, a graduate student at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, the undulations of this simple invertebrate hold secrets that may make possible a new generation of tiny pumps for medical applications and soft robotics -- work she describes today at the American Physical Society Division of Fluid Dynamics (DFD) meeting in Long Beach, CA