Earth

New research, published this week in Science, suggests that the largest single contributor to global sea level rise, a glacier of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, may continue thinning for decades to come. Geologists from the UK, USA and Germany found that Pine Island Glacier (PIG), which is rapidly accelerating, thinning and retreating, has thinned rapidly before. The team say their findings demonstrate the potential for current ice loss to continue for several decades yet.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — A new high-accuracy calibration of the LUX (Large Underground Xenon) dark matter detector demonstrates the experiment's sensitivity to ultra-low energy events. The new analysis strongly confirms the result that low-mass dark matter particles were a no-show during the detector's initial run, which concluded last summer.

In a paper published this week in the journal Physical Review Letters, MIT researchers propose an experiment that may close the last major loophole of Bell's inequality — a 50-year-old theorem that, if violated by experiments, would mean that our universe is based not on the textbook laws of classical physics, but on the less-tangible probabilities of quantum mechanics.

Boulder, Colo., USA – GSA Bulletin postings for February cover the sculpting of Earth's surface as seen in the Pyrenees; facies architecture in Washington State, USA; atmospheric circulation recorded in the Permian Maroon Formation; preglacial fluvial gorges and valleys; banded iron formations; paleosols in Wapadsberg Pass, South Africa; Ediacaran fossils from Mistaken Point, Newfoundland; geologic forensics and sedimentary fingerprints; catastrophic outburst floods recorded in the Tibetan Plateau; the Sudbury impact structure, Canada; and observations at the Sanctuary of Zeus.

Researchers at the San Diego Supercomputer Center at the University of California, San Diego, have developed software that greatly expands the types of multi-scale QM/MM (mixed quantum and molecular mechanical) simulations of complex chemical systems that scientists can use to design new drugs, better chemicals, or improved enzymes for biofuels production.

Philadelphia, PA—Vast amounts of data related to climate change are being compiled by research groups all over the world. Data from these many and various sources results in different climate projections; hence, the need arises to combine information across data sets to arrive at a consensus regarding future climate estimates.

WACO, Texas (Feb. 18, 2014)-- Baylor University researchers, in collaboration with an international team of scientists, have discovered definitive evidence of the environment inhabited by the early ape Proconsul on Rusinga Island, Kenya. The groundbreaking discovery provides additional information that will help scientists understand and interpret the connection between habitat preferences and the early diversification of the ape-human lineage.

RIVERSIDE, Calif. — A team of biogeochemists at the University of California, Riverside, give us a nontraditional way of thinking about the earliest accumulation of oxygen in the atmosphere, arguably the most important biological event in Earth history.

While taking in the scenery during long road trips, passengers also may be taking in potentially harmful ultrafine particles (UFPs) that come into the car through outdoor air vents. Closing the vents reduces UFPs, but causes exhaled carbon dioxide to build up. Now, scientists report in the ACS journal Environmental Science & Technology that installing a newly developed high-efficiency cabin air filter (HECA) could reduce UFP exposure by 93 percent and keep carbon dioxide levels low.

A new study published in the journal Science says that the total impact of switching to natural gas depends heavily on leakage of methane (CH4) during the natural gas life cycle, and suggests that more can be done to reduce methane emissions and to improve measurement tools which help inform policy choices.

​In a recent early online edition of Nature Chemistry, ASU scientists, along with colleagues at Argonne National Laboratory, have reported advances toward perfecting a functional artificial leaf.

Designing an artificial leaf that uses solar energy to convert water cheaply and efficiently into hydrogen and oxygen is one of the goals of BISfuel – the Energy Frontier Research Center, funded by the Department of Energy, in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Arizona State University.

In May 2011, when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers used explosives to breach a levee south of Cairo, Ill., diverting the rising waters of the Mississippi and Ohio rivers to prevent flooding in the town, about 130,000 acres of Missouri farmland were inundated. It was the largest flood of the lower Mississippi ever recorded, and researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign took advantage of this "once-in-a-scientific-lifetime" occurrence to study the damage, funded by a National Science Foundation Rapid Response Grant.

Spraying reflective particles into the atmosphere to reflect sunlight and then stopping it could exacerbate the problem of climate change, according to new research by atmospheric scientists at the University of Washington.

Carrying out geoengineering for several decades and then stopping would cause warming at a rate that will greatly exceed that expected due to global warming, according to a study published Feb. 18 in Environmental Research Letters.

Winter in the Arctic is not only cold and dark, it is also storm season when hurricane-like cyclones traverse the northern waters from Iceland to Alaska. These cyclones are characterized by strong localized drops in sea level pressure, and as Arctic-wide decreases in sea level pressure are one of the expected results of climate change, this could increase extreme Arctic cyclone activity, including powerful storms in the spring and fall.

HOUSTON – (Feb. 17, 2014) – A single-walled carbon nanotube grows from the round cap down, so it's logical to think the cap's formation determines what follows. But according to researchers at Rice University, that's not entirely so.

Theoretical physicist Boris Yakobson and his Rice colleagues found through exhaustive analysis that those who wish to control the chirality of nanotubes – the characteristic that determines their electrical properties – would be wise to look at other aspects of their growth.