Earth

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), which is the medical application of nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, is a powerful diagnostic tool. MRI works by resonantly exciting hydrogen atoms and measuring the relaxation time -- different materials return to equilibrium at different rates; this is how contrast develops (i.e. between soft and hard tissue). By comparing the measurements to a known spectrum of relaxation times, medical professionals can determine whether the imaged tissue is muscle, bone, or even a cancerous growth.

Washington, D.C.— Molybdenum disulfide is a compound often used in dry lubricants and in petroleum refining. Its semiconducting ability and similarity to the carbon-based graphene makes molybdenum disulfide of interest to scientists as a possible candidate for use in the manufacture of electronics, particularly photoelectronics.

New work from a team including several Carnegie scientists reveals that molybdenum disulfide becomes metallic under intense pressure. It is published in Physical Review Letters.

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – Your teeth can tell stories about you, and not just that you always forget to floss.

A study led by University of Florida geology researcher George D. Kamenov showed that trace amounts of lead in modern and historical human teeth can give clues about where they came from. The paper will be published in the August issue of Science of The Total Environment.

The method overcomes limitations of existing techniques which are limited to the surface or small-sized specimens, and allows a 3-D representation of the phase fractions within the sample volume. The work has just been published in the journal "Advanced Materials".

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Chemists at Indiana University Bloomington have described the self-assembly of large, symmetrical molecules in bricks-and-mortar fashion, a development with potential value for the field of organic electronic devices such as field-effect transistors and photovoltaic cells.

DURHAM, N.H. – Climate modelers from the University of New Hampshire have shown that the most likely explanation for the initiation of Antarctic glaciation during a major climate shift 34 million years ago was decreased carbon dioxide (CO2) levels. The finding counters a 40-year-old theory suggesting massive rearrangements of Earth's continents caused global cooling and the abrupt formation of the Antarctic ice sheet. It will provide scientists insight into the climate change implications of current rising global CO2 levels.

One of the famous examples of the weirdness of quantum mechanics is the paradox of Schrödinger's cat.

If you put a cat inside an opaque box and make his life dependent on a random event, when does the cat die? When the random event occurs, or when you open the box?

Scientists studying the potential effects of climate change on the world's animal and plant species are focusing on the wrong factors, according to a new paper by a research team from the Wildlife Conservation Society, University of Queensland, and other organizations. The authors claim that most of the conservation science is missing the point when it comes to climate change.

an analysis of the roughly 3,000 pieces is still in its infant stage but it is already evident that the results will be of major significance, say the researchers. "Amazingly often, we are finding–in addition to Asian forms–the same insect species in Fushun amber that we found in Baltic amber," explained Bonn paleontologist Professor Dr. Jes Rust.

CORVALLIS, Ore. – The world's oceans are vast and deep, yet rapidly advancing technology and the quest for extracting resources from previously unreachable depths is beginning to put the deep seas on the cusp of peril, an international team of scientists warned this week.

Scientists from the University of Illinois at Chicago have synthesized a catalyst that improves their system for converting waste carbon dioxide into syngas, a precursor of gasoline and other energy-rich products, bringing the process closer to commercial viability.

Spintronics is an emerging field of electronics, where devices work by manipulating the spin of electrons rather than the current generated by their motion. This field can offer significant advantages to computer technology. Controlling electron spin can be achieved with materials called 'topological insulators', which conduct electrons only across their surface but not through their interior. One such material, samarium hexaboride (SmB6), has long been theorized to be an ideal and robust topological insulator, but this has never been shown practically.

In a paper published online today in the journal Scientific Reports, published by Nature, Northeastern researchers Evan Kodra and Auroop Ganguly found that while global temperature is indeed increasing, so too is the variability in temperature extremes. For instance, while each year's average hottest and coldest temperatures will likely rise, those averages will also tend to fall within a wider range of potential high and low temperate extremes than are currently being observed.

A 2°C increase in temperature will happen around the world by 2050, according to one of the scenarios predicted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). That certainly sounds bad but it may be advantageous to the physiology and the biochemical and biophysical processes involved in the growth of forage plants such as Stylosanthes capitata Vogel, a legume utilized for livestock grazing in tropical countries such as Brazil.

WASHINGTON D.C., July 29, 2014 – Over the vast, empty reaches of interstellar space, countless small molecules tumble quietly though the cold vacuum. Forged in the fusion furnaces of ancient stars and ejected into space when those stars exploded, these lonely molecules account for a significant amount of all the carbon, hydrogen, silicon and other atoms in the universe. In fact, some 20 percent of all the carbon in the universe is thought to exist as some form of interstellar molecule.