Earth

A UT Arlington landscape architect and his graduate students have published three case studies for the 2013 Case Study Investigation Series for the Landscape Architecture Foundation that help show environmental, economic and social benefits of notable projects in that sector.

Washington, D.C.—Table salt, sodium chloride, is one of the first chemical compounds that schoolchildren learn. New research from a team including Carnegie's Alexander Goncharov shows that under certain high-pressure conditions, plain old salt can take on some surprising forms that violate standard chemistry predictions and may hold the key to answering questions about planet formation. Their work is published December 20 in Science.

This news release is available in German.

Though it was hailed as a triumph for the "Standard Model" of physics – the reigning model of fundamental forces and particles – physicists were quick to emphasize that last year's discovery of the Higgs boson still left gaps in our understanding of the universe.

The coexistence of two opposing phenomena might be the secret to understanding the enduring mystery in physics of how materials heralded as the future of powering our homes and communities actually work, according to Princeton University-led research. Such insight could help spur the further development of high-efficiency electric-power delivery.

A small band of particle-seeking scientists at Yale and Harvard has established a new benchmark for the electron's almost perfect roundness, raising doubts about certain theories that predict what lies beyond physics' reigning model of fundamental forces and particles, the Standard Model.

In the very beginning of the school chemistry course, we are told of NaCl as an archetypal ionic compound. Being less electronegative, sodium loses its electron to chlorine, which, following the "octet rule", thus acquires the 8-electron electronic configuration of a noble gas. All the rules predict NaCl to be the only possible compound formed by chlorine and sodium. The research team led by Artem R. Oganov, Professor of Crystallography at Stony Brook University, has discovered new sodium chlorides that call for revision of textbook chemistry.

Boulder, Colo., USA – GSA Bulletin articles posted online ahead of print on 6 and 13 December 2013 cover earthquake hazards of the Santa Barbara suburban area; apatite and the skeletons of early animals; the peculiar geological features of Faial (Azores, Portugal); the nature of Mount Rainier; the origin of Pearya terrane, Canada; a re-interpretation of the Chilhowee Group of the Appalachian Blue Ridge; and more. Authors hale from the U.S., Italy, South Africa, and Canada.

The NRDA researchers found that moderate to severe lung disease was five times more likely in the Barataria Bay dolphins, with symptoms including lung masses and consolidation. The researchers also found that 25 percent of the Barataria Bay dolphins were significantly underweight and the population overall had very low levels of adrenal hormones, which are critical for responding to stress.

The figures come out in a study made at Aalto University in Finland examining developments in food availability and food self-sufficiency in 1965. Researchers of Aalto University examined the development of food availability in recent decades for the first time.

Food availability has improved especially in the Middle East and North Africa, Latin America, China, and Southeast Asia. Although food availability has increased on the global level, food self-sufficiency has remained relatively low.

Electronic devices such as mobile phones and tablets spur on a scientific race to find smaller and smaller information processing and storage elements. One of the challenges in this race is to reproduce certain magnetic effects at nanometre scale.

This work was recently published in Physical Review Letters.

Specific types of fish farming can be accomplished with minimal or no harm to the coastal ocean environment as long as proper planning and safeguards are in place, according to a new report from researchers at NOAA's National Ocean Service.

The study, led by scientists at National Ocean Service's National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science (NCCOS), evaluated the environmental effects of finfish aquaculture, including interactions with water quality, benthic habitats, and marine life across various farming practices and habitat types.

It is increasingly recognized that climate change has the potential to threaten people and nature, and that it is imperative to tackle the drivers of climate change, namely greenhouse gases. One way to slow climate change is to increase the number of trees on Earth, as they, through photosynthesis, take up the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, converting it to carbon products which are stored in the vegetation (in the form of wood, roots, leaves) and oxygen.

Boulder, Colo., USA - Can spaceborne radar help predict sinkholes? What do ancient ambers reveal about paleochemotaxonomy? How does serpentinization affect sub-seafloor environments? Can OAE2 help us understand current global warming? Did trilobites venture into upper intertidal zones? When did vast landmasses first emerge above sea level? What does the 27 March 2013 6.2 M earthquake reveal about central Taiwan? How do you reconstruct snapshots of a catastrophic radial current? What is a cryptic coral-crinoid hanging garden?