Earth

Under new leadership, the Chemical Safety & Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) is hitting the reset button to put its embattled past behind it. The federal agency charged with investigating and issuing recommendations on chemical accidents wants to set an ambitious timeline for completing reports, but doing so will require a hold on new cases, according to an article in Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), the weekly newsmagazine of the American Chemical Society.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - University of Illinois engineers have found an energy-efficient material for removing salt from seawater that could provide a rebuttal to poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge's lament, "Water, water, every where, nor any drop to drink."

The San Andreas Fault system, which runs almost the entire length of California, is prone to shaking, causing about 10,000 minor earthquakes each year just in the southern California area.

However, cities that line the fault, like Los Angeles and San Francisco, have not experienced a major destructive earthquake -- of magnitude 7.5 or more -- since their intensive urbanizations in the early twentieth century. With knowledge that large earthquakes occur at about 150-year intervals on the San Andreas, seismologists are certain that the next 'big one' is near.

In order to predict how today's ecosystems will react to increasing temperatures over the course of global warming, palaeobiologists study how climate change happened in the earth's history and what the consequences were. In order to compare the events of the past with current changes researchers need data on the scope of the changes. What was the speed with which temperatures increased or decreased? What was the magnitude of the change in temperatures?

This is a picture of the co-author Santiago Madriñánon field work in Colombia. Credit: Santiago Madriñán

source: Frontiers

Wildfires on Arctic tundra can contribute to widespread permafrost thaw much like blazes in forested areas, according to a study published in the most recent issue of the online journal Scientific Reports.

The project, led by the U.S. Geological Survey, examined the effects of the massive Anaktuvuk River fire, which burned roughly 1,000 square kilometers of tundra on Alaska's North Slope in 2007. Using aerial data, researchers detected permafrost thaw in about a third of the fire's footprint, compared to less than 1 percent in undisturbed areas.

Wildfires on Arctic tundra can contribute to widespread permafrost thaw much like blazes in forested areas, according to a study published in the most recent issue of the online journal Scientific Reports.

The project, led by the U.S. Geological Survey, examined the effects of the massive Anaktuvuk River fire, which burned roughly 1,000 square kilometers of tundra on Alaska's North Slope in 2007. Using aerial data, researchers detected permafrost thaw in about a third of the fire's footprint, compared to less than 1 percent in undisturbed areas.

A team of physicists led by Stephen Jardin of the U.S. Department of Energy's Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) has discovered a mechanism that prevents the electrical current flowing through fusion plasma from repeatedly peaking and crashing. This behavior is known as a "sawtooth cycle" and can cause instabilities within the plasma's core. The results have been accepted for publication in Physical Review Letters. The research was supported by the DOE Office of Science (Office of Fusion Energy Sciences).

The swirling plasma in donut-shaped fusion facilities called tokamaks are subject to intense heat bursts that can damage the vessel's walls. Halting or mitigating these bursts, called Edge Localized Modes (ELMs), is a key goal of fusion research.

Magnetic reconnection, which occurs when magnetic lines of force break apart and reconnect with a violent burst of energy, gives rise to many beautiful and powerful phenomena in the natural world. These include solar flares, the Northern Lights, and geomagnetic storms that can disrupt cell-phone service or knock out power grids. Scientists have long known that the Sweet-Parker model typically used to describe magnetic reconnection was unable to explain the speed at which it operates.

For more than 50 years physicists have puzzled over a daunting mystery: Why do tokamak plasmas spiral apart when reaching a certain maximum density and halt fusion reactions? This "density limit" serves as a barrier that prevents tokamaks from operating at peak efficiency, and understanding what sets this maximum density would speed the development of fusion as a safe, clean and abundant energy source.

For more than 60 years, fusion scientists have tried to use "magnetic bottles" of various shapes and sizes to confine extremely hot plasmas, with the goal of producing practical fusion energy. But turbulence in the plasma has, so far, confounded researchers' ability to efficiently contain the intense heat within the core of the fusion device, reducing performance. Now, scientists have used one of the world's largest supercomputers to reveal the complex interplay between two types of turbulence known to occur in fusion plasmas, paving the way for improved fusion reactor design.

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- A new, onion-like nanoparticle could open new frontiers in biomaging, solar energy harvesting and light-based security techniques.

The particle's innovation lies in its layers: a coating of organic dye, a neodymium-containing shell, and a core that incorporates ytterbium and thulium. Together, these strata convert invisible near-infrared light to higher energy blue and UV light with record-high efficiency, a trick that could improve the performance of technologies ranging from deep-tissue imaging and light-induced therapy to security inks used for printing money.

Griffin, Ga. - In a recent study funded by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, University of Georgia researchers found that produce that contained bacteria would contaminate other produce items through the continued use of knives or graters--the bacteria would latch on to the utensils commonly found in consumers' homes and spread to the next item.

Boulder, Colo., USA - Dust begets life, and Earth's atmosphere 300 million years ago was perhaps the dustiest of all time, with large consequences for carbon cycling and the climate system. In a new paper for Geology, Sohini Sur and colleagues examine the bioavailability of iron in dust from Earth's penultimate icehouse of the late Paleozoic. Dust links to carbon because of the iron -- a key nutrient for nearly all life, so atmospheric dust acts as a fertilizer.