Earth

(Syracuse, NY – May 27, 2014) Setting strong standards for climate-changing carbon emissions from power plants would provide an added bonus – reductions in other air pollutants that can make people sick; damage forests, crops, and lakes; and harm fish and wildlife. This, according to a first-of-its-kind study released today by scientists at Syracuse University and Harvard who mapped the potential environmental and human health benefits of power plant carbon standards.

WASHINGTON, May 27, 2014 — We all know bacon is delicious, but what is it about cooking bacon that makes it smell so tantalizing? In the American Chemical Society's (ACS') latest Reactions video, the team puts its nose into everyone's favorite breakfast food. We collaborated with the Compound Interest blog to break down the science of that sweet smell. The video is available at http://youtu.be/2P_0HGRWgXw

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MADISON, Wis. — Soils that formed on the Earth's surface thousands of years ago and that are now deeply buried features of vanished landscapes have been found to be rich in carbon, adding a new dimension to our planet's carbon cycle.

The finding, reported today (May 25, 2014) in the journal Nature Geoscience, is significant as it suggests that deep soils can contain long-buried stocks of organic carbon which could, through erosion, agriculture, deforestation, mining and other human activities, contribute to global climate change.

Shortly after dawn broke in the Eastern Pacific Ocean this morning, May 23, Tropical Depression 1E organized and strengthened into the first tropical storm of the season: Amanda

NOAA's GOES-West satellite provided a visible image of Amanda on May 23 at 1500 UTC (11 a.m. EDT/8 a.m. PDT). The GOES imagery showed strong thunderstorms in the northern and western quadrants and is indicative of a better structure in the banding of thunderstorms around the low-level center of circulation.

Researchers from CIC nanoGUNE, in collaboration with ICFO and Graphenea, introduce a platform technology based on optical antennas for trapping and controlling light with the one-atom-thick material graphene. The experiments show that the dramatically squeezed graphene-guided light can be focused and bent, following the fundamental principles of conventional optics. The work, published yesterday in Science, opens new opportunities for smaller and faster photonic devices and circuits.

Wildfires and flooding affect many more people in the USA than earthquakes and landslide and yet the dread, the perceived risk, of the latter two is much greater than for those hazards that are more frequent and cause greater loss of life. Research published in the International Journal of Risk Assessment and Management, suggests that a new paradigm for risk assessment is needed so that mitigation plans in the face of natural disasters can be framed appropriately by policy makers and those in the emergency services.

Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory have discovered a previously unknown phase in a class of superconductors called iron arsenides. This sheds light on a debate over the interactions between atoms and electrons that are responsible for their unusual superconductivity.

"This new magnetic phase, which has never been observed before, could have significant implications for our understanding of unconventional superconductivity," said Ray Osborn, an Argonne physicist and coauthor on the paper.

Wind energy is one of the most promising renewable energy resources in the world today. Dr. Hui Hu and his group at Iowa State University studied the effects of the relative rotation directions of two tandem wind turbines on the power production performance, the flow characteristics in the turbine wake flows, and the resultant wind loads acting on the turbines. The experimental study was performed in a large-scale Aerodynamics/Atmospheric Boundary Layer (AABL) Wind Tunnel available at Aerospace Engineering Department of Iowa State University.

Washington, D.C.—Breaking research news from a team of scientists led by Carnegie's Ho-kwang "Dave" Mao reveals that the composition of the Earth's lower mantle may be significantly different than previously thought. These results are to be published by Science.

Scientists from the Magma and Volcanoes Laboratory (CNRS/IRD/Université Blaise Pascal) and the European Synchrotron, the ESRF, have recreated the extreme conditions 600 to 2900 km below the Earth's surface to investigate the melting of basalt in the oceanic tectonic plates. They exposed microscopic pieces of rock to these extreme pressures and temperatures while simultaneously studying their structure with the ESRF's extremely powerful X-ray beam. The results show that basalt produced on the ocean floor has a melting temperature lower than the peridotite which forms the Earth's mantle.

Images taken by Rice University scientists show that some diamonds are not forever.

The Rice researchers behind a new study that explains the creation of nanodiamonds in treated coal also show that some microscopic diamonds only last seconds before fading back into less-structured forms of carbon under the impact of an electron beam.

The research by Rice chemist Ed Billups and his colleagues appears in the American Chemical Society's Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters.

This video shows how the constant addition of tubulin bound to GTP provides a cap that prevents the microtubule from falling apart. UC Berkeley scientists found that the hydrolyzation of GTP to GDP (change of red to violet) compacts the tubulin into a strained configuration that rapidly peels the microtubule apart if the cap disappears.

(Photo Credit: Eva Nogales lab, UC Berkeley)

The way a woman feels about tackling everyday physical activities, including exercise, may be a predictor of how much weight she'll retain years after childbirth says a Michigan State University professor.

James Pivarnik, a professor of kinesiology and epidemiology at MSU, co-led a study that followed 56 women during pregnancy and measured their physical activity levels, along with barriers to exercise and the ability to overcome them.