Earth

Alexandria, Va. -- Hurricane Sandy struck the U.S. East Coast in October 2012, leaving about $65 billion of damage in its wake and raising the question of how to mitigate the damage from future storms. It's a question that arises in the wake of most natural disasters: What steps can society take to protect itself from storms, floods, landslides, earthquakes, tsunamis or volcanic eruptions? But the question itself illustrates the complexity of preparing for natural disasters.

WASHINGTON, Nov. 17, 2014 -- They are seemingly the most popular thing on the Internet, the subject of millions of videos and hundreds of memes: cats. This week Reactions answers some of the biggest kitty questions out there: Why does catnip make most cats go crazy? What does it mean when your cat rubs against your leg? How does kitty litter clump? Check out the nearly purr-fect video here: http://youtu.be/6_C9i-2QGeU.

The first tropical cyclone of the Southern Indian Ocean cyclone season has formed over 300 miles from Diego Garcia. When NASA-NOAA Suomi NPP satellite passed over Tropical Storm Adjali the VIIRS instrument aboard took a visible picture of the storm that showed bands of thunderstorms wrapped around its center.

In contrast to previous assumptions, conservation schemes that focus only on forests may thus fail to significantly reduce CO2 emissions from land-use change. If ecosystem protection policies aim at climate protection, they need to cover the whole range of land types, according to comprehensive computer simulations. To compensate for such restrictions on land use, intensification of agriculture to generate higher yields is important.

A team of New York University and University of Barcelona physicists has developed a method to control the movements occurring within magnetic materials, which are used to store and carry information. The breakthrough could simultaneously bolster information processing while reducing the energy necessary to do so.

Cambridge, Mass. - November 17, 2014 - A vast majority of scientists believe that the Earth is warming at an unprecedented rate and that human activity is almost certainly the dominant cause. But on the topics of response and mitigation, there is far less consensus.

One of the most controversial propositions for slowing the increase in temperatures here on Earth is to manipulate the atmosphere above. Specifically, some scientists believe it should be possible to offset the warming effect of greenhouses gases by reflecting more of the sun's energy back into space.

If you want to see into the future, you have to understand the past. An international consortium of researchers under the auspices of the University of Bonn has drilled deposits on the bed of Lake Van (Eastern Turkey) which provide unique insights into the last 600,000 years. The samples reveal that the climate has done its fair share of mischief-making in the past. Furthermore, there have been numerous earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. The results of the drilling project also provide a basis for assessing the risk of how dangerous natural hazards are for today's population.

The Southern Ocean plays an important role in the exchange of carbon dioxide between the atmosphere and the ocean. One aspect of this is the growth of phytoplankton, which acts as a natural sponge for carbon dioxide, drawing the troublesome greenhouse gas from the atmosphere into the sea. When these plankton die they can sink to the bottom of the ocean and store some of the carbon dioxide they have absorbed, a process scientists call the "biological carbon pump".

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Since the 1850's scientists have known that crystalline materials are organized into fourteen different basic lattice structures. However, a team of researchers from Vanderbilt University and Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) now reports that it has discovered an entirely new form of crystalline order that simultaneously exhibits both crystal and polycrystalline properties, which they describe as "interlaced crystals."

HOUSTON, Nov. 13, 2014 - A team of University of Houston (UH) chemistry researchers have developed a molecule that assembles spontaneously into a lightweight structure with microscopic pores capable of binding large quantities of several potent greenhouse gases.

"Greenhouse gases, such a carbon dioxide, have received much attention lately because of their potential to dramatically affect Earth's climate, primarily the temperature of the planet," said Ognjen Miljanić, a UH associate professor of chemistry and leader of the team.

Boulder, Colo., USA - Seismic hazards in the Puget Lowland of northwestern Washington include deep earthquakes associated with the Cascadia subduction zone and shallow earthquakes associated with crustal faults across the region. Research presented in Geosphere this month establishes not only that one of the more prominent crustal faults, the Darrington-Devils Mountain fault zone, displays evidence of strong earthquakes in the past, but that it will likely be a source of strong earthquakes in the future.

Research has shown that when two individuals meet repeatedly they are more likely to cooperate with one another. Flávio Pinheiro and colleagues from the Universities of Minho and Lisbon show that the most successful strategy for cooperation occurs only after an experience of group unanimous behaviour.