Earth

A new study has found a link between abrupt ocean warming at the end of the last ice age and the sudden onset of low-oxygen, or hypoxic, conditions that led to vast marine dead zones.

Results of the research, which was funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), are published today in the journal Nature.

Entanglement is one of the strangest phenomena predicted by quantum mechanics, the theory that underlies most of modern physics. It says that two particles can be so inextricably connected that the state of one particle can instantly influence the state of the other, no matter how far apart they are.

Earth's oxygen-rich atmosphere emerged in whiffs from a kind of blue-green algae in shallow oceans around 2.5 billion years ago, according to new research from Canadian and US scientists.

These whiffs of oxygen likely happened in the following 100 million years, changing the levels of oxygen in Earth's atmosphere until enough accumulated to create a permanently oxygenated atmosphere around 2.4 billion years ago - a transition widely known as the Great Oxidation Event.

Earth scientists from the University of Alberta, University of Waterloo, Arizona State University, University of California Riverside, and Georgia Institute of Technology have found evidence that Earth's transition to a permanently oxygenated atmosphere was anything but smooth.

Combustion engines still have much potential to save energy and reduce emissions. The present trend is to use smaller engines of the same or even increased power. Engines with a reduced cylinder capacity consume less fuel due to their smaller weight, smaller friction, and smaller amount of exhaust heat. This so-called downsizing, however, is associated with even higher mechanical and thermal loads acting on the already highly loaded components of diesel injection systems, for instance.

The warming of arctic waters in the wake of climate change is likely to produce radical changes in the marine habitats of the High North. This is indicated by data from long-term observations in the Fram Strait, which researchers from the Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI) have now analysed. Their most important finding: even a short-term influx of warm water into the Arctic Ocean would suffice to fundamentally impact the local symbiotic communities, from the water's surface down to the deep seas.

Superconductors are marvellous materials that are able to transport electric current and energy without dissipation. For this reason, they are extremely useful for constructing magnets that can generate enormous magnetic fields without melting. They have found important applications as essential components of the Large Hadron Collider particle accelerator at CERN, levitating trains, and the magnetic resonance imaging tool widely used for medical purposes. Yet, one reason why the waiting list for an MRI scan is sometimes so long is the cost of the equipment.

UPTON, NY--An international team of physicists including theorists from the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory has published the first calculation of direct "CP" symmetry violation--how the behavior of subatomic particles (in this case, the decay of kaons) differs when matter is swapped out for antimatter.

The cuckoo is not only capable of finding its way from unknown locations; it does this through a highly complex individual decision making process. Such skills have never before been documented in migratory birds. A new study shows that navigation in migratory birds is even more complex than previously assumed. The Center for Macroecology, Evolution and Climate at the University of Copenhagen led the study with the use of miniature satellite tracking technology.

OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Nov. 19, 2015 -- Atomic-level imaging of catalysts by scientists at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory could help manufacturers lower the cost and improve the performance of emission-free fuel cell technologies.

Fuel cells rely on costly platinum catalysts to enable the reactions that convert chemical energy into electricity. Alloying platinum with noble metals such as cobalt reduces the overall cost, but such alloyed catalysts vary in performance based on their atomic structure and processing history.

The production of energy from natural gas without generating carbon dioxide emissions could fast become a reality, thanks to a novel technology developed by researchers of the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS) in Potsdam and the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). In a joint project initiated by Nobel Laureate and former IASS Scientific Director Professor Carlo Rubbia, the two institutions have been researching an innovative technique to extract hydrogen from methane in a clean and efficient way.

The twenty-first tropical depression of the Eastern Pacific Ocean season strengthened into a tropical storm on Nov. 19 and was renamed Tropical Storm Rick bringing the storm into a small elite group of late-season storms. NOAA's GOES-West satellite provided an early daylight image of the storm that showed it had become more organized since it formed on Nov 18.

Shortly after the United States Food and Drug Administration concluded a 20-year long scientific review of the AquAvantage Salmon and approved it, an Atlantic genetically modified with a gene from a Chinook that allows it to grow all year instead of only during two seasons, the environmental activist group Friends of the Earth mobilized lobbyists and lawyers to denounce science once again.

The production of energy from natural gas without generating carbon dioxide emissions could fast become a reality, thanks to a novel technology developed by researchers of the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS) in Potsdam and the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). In a joint project initiated by Nobel Laureate and former IASS Scientific Director Professor Carlo Rubbia, the two institutions have been researching an innovative technique to extract hydrogen from methane in a clean and efficient way.

As Tropical Storm In-fa continued to affect Micronesia and the Marianas Islands, NASA's RapidScat instrument measured surface winds and the Global Precipitation Measurement mission or GPM core satellite measured areas of intense rainfall. In-fa became a typhoon early on Nov. 18 and weakened slightly to a tropical storm later in the day, maintaining tropical-storm force on Nov. 19.