Earth

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — In its first three months of operation, the Large Underground Xenon (LUX) experiment has proven itself to be the most sensitive dark matter detector in the world, scientists with the experiment announced today.

SAN FRANCISCO, October 30, 2013 -- A scientist from Cologne University has used Google's online street view scans to document the damage caused by the 2009 L'Aquila earthquake and suggests that the database would be a useful tool for surveying damage caused by future earthquakes. The findings are published in the November issue of the Seismological Research Letters.

The magnitude 6.3 2009 L'Aquila earthquake in the Italian Abruzzi Mountains caused widespread damage in the city and surrounding villages.

Models universities partially use to forecast scientists' future contributions are not as reliable as previously thought. In a recent study, Aalto University and IMT Institute for Advanced Studies Lucca researchers demonstrate mathematical analysis of past performance cannot reliably determine the future performance. This means that current models dangerously overestimate the predictability and should not be used for career advancement decision process.

WASHINGTON, D.C. Oct. 29, 2013 -- As any amateur baker knows, proper mixing is crucial to a perfect pastry. Mix too little and ingredients will not be evenly distributed; beat instead of fold, and a soufflé will fall flat. Mixing strategies are even more critical for industrial products, where every batch that is manufactured must meet the same exacting standards and yet, to manage costs, be created in the least amount of time.

Many people use tree ring records to see into the past. But redwoods – the iconic trees that are the world's tallest living things – have so far proven too erratic in their growth patterns to help with reconstructing historic climate.

A University of Washington researcher has developed a way to use the trees as a window into coastal conditions, using oxygen and carbon atoms in the wood to detect fog and rainfall in previous seasons.

Coral reefs may be able to adapt to moderate climate warming, improving their chance of surviving through the end of this century, if there are large reductions in carbon dioxide emissions, according to a study funded by NOAA and researched by the agency's scientists and its academic partners. Results further suggest corals have already adapted to part of the warming that has occurred.

An international team of scientists, led by physicists from the University of York, has shed important new light on coral skeleton formation.

Their investigations, carried out at the nanoscale, provide valuable new information for scientists and environmentalists working to protect and conserve coral from the threats of acidification and rising water temperatures.

As corals grow, they produce limestone – calcium carbonate - skeletons which build up over time into vast reefs. The skeleton's role is to help the living biofilm to move towards the light and nutrients.

A new study offers an explanation for the extraordinary run of wet summers experienced by Britain and northwest Europe between 2007 and 2012. The study found that loss of Arctic sea ice shifts the jet stream further south than normal resulting in increased rain during the summer in northwest Europe.

CORVALLIS, Ore. – Researchers at Oregon State University and the University of Oregon today announced a scientific advance that has eluded researchers for more than 100 years – a platform to fully study and understand the aqueous chemistry of aluminum, one of the world's most important metals.

The findings, reported in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, should open the door to significant advances in electronics and many other fields, ranging from manufacturing to construction, agriculture and drinking water treatment.

RIVERSIDE, Calif. — Oxygen in the atmosphere and ocean rose dramatically about 600 million years ago, coinciding with the first proliferation of animal life. Since then, numerous short lived biotic events — typically marked by significant climatic perturbations — took place when oxygen concentrations in the ocean dipped episodically.

Gas and oil deposits in shale have no place to hide from an Oak Ridge National Laboratory technique that provides an inside look at pores and reveals structural information potentially vital to the nation's energy needs.

The research by scientists at the Department of Energy laboratory could clear the path to the more efficient extraction of gas and oil from shale, environmentally benign and efficient energy production from coal and perhaps viable carbon dioxide sequestration technologies, according to Yuri Melnichenko, an instrument scientist at ORNL's High Flux Isotope Reactor.

Nearly 17,000 kilometres of road were built in the Brazilian Amazon rainforest every year between 2004 and 2007.

Although road-building is a major contributor to deforestation and habitat loss, the way in which road networks develop is still poorly understood.

A new study is among the first to measure the number of roads built in a rainforest ecosystem over an extended period of time. It was published this month in the journal Regional Environmental Change by researchers including two Life Scientists from Imperial College London.

Imagine you order a delivery of several glass vases in different colors. Each vase is sent as a separate parcel. What would you think of the courier if the parcels arrive apparently undamaged, yet when you open them, it turns out that all the red vases are intact and all the green ones are smashed to pieces? Physicists from the University of Warsaw and the Gdansk University of Technology have demonstrated that when quantum information is transmitted, nature can be as whimsical as this crazy delivery man.

Ulsan, S. Korea, Oct 28, 2013 – A Korean research team from Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST), S. Korea, developed a high performance and stable metal-free electrocatalyst for ORR and the research work was published in a science journal, Nanoscale by the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC). (Title: "Covalent Functionalization Based Heteroatom Doped Graphene Nanosheet as a Metal-Free Electrocatalysts for Oxygen Reduction Reaction")

Taxonomic descriptions, introduced by Linnaeus in 1735, are designed to allow scientists to tell one species from another. Now there is a new futuristic method for describing new species that goes far beyond the tradition. The new approach combines several techniques, including next generation molecular methods, barcoding, and novel computing and imaging technologies, that will test the model for big data collection, storage and management in biology. The study has just been published in the Biodiversity Data Journal.