Earth

Extreme weather and climate events like storms, heavy precipitation and droughts and heat waves prevent the update of 3 giga-tonnes of carbon by the global vegetation. A team of scientists under the lead of Markus Reichstein, Director of the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry in Jena, Germany, investigated the effect of extremes on the carbon cycle from the terrestrial ecosystem perspective for the first time.

The damage scientists expect climate change to do to crop yields can differ greatly depending on which type of model was used to make those projections, according to research based at Princeton University. The most dire scenarios can loom large in the minds of the public and policymakers, yet neither audience is usually aware of how the model itself influenced the outcome, the researchers said.

The first study of interactions between a common clinical inhibitor and the HIV-1 protease enzyme has been carried out by an international team with members from the US, Britain and France using neutrons at the Institut Laue-Langevin in Grenoble, France. It provides medical science with the first true picture of how an antiviral drug used to block virus replication actually works, and critically how its performance could be improved.

Memory devices like disk drives, flash drives and RAM play an important role in our lives. They are an essential component of our computers, phones, electronic appliances and cars. Yet current memory devices have significant drawbacks: dynamic RAM memory has to be refreshed periodically, static RAM data is lost when the power is off, flash memory lacks speed, and all existing memory technologies are challenged when it comes to miniaturization.

Good metal-based systems for hydrogen storage cannot be developed without knowing how this element permeates through metals. Researchers at the Institute of Physical Chemistry of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw managed to apply a user-friendly electrochemical method to study hydrogen diffusion in highly reactive metals.

Early on a winter morning a few years ago, many residents of western Norway who lived or worked along the shores of the nation's fjords were startled to see the calm morning waters suddenly begin to rise and fall. Starting at around 7:15 local time and continuing for nearly 3 hours, waves up to 1.5 meters (about 5 feet) high coursed through the previously still fjord waters. The scene was captured by security cameras and by people with cell phones, reported to local media, and investigated by a local newspaper.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — A high-angle helix helps microorganisms like sperm and bacteria swim through mucus and other viscoelastic fluids, according to a new study by researchers from Brown University and the University of Wisconsin. The findings help clear up some seemingly conflicting findings about how microorganisms swim using flagella, helical appendages that provide propulsion as they rotate.

Proton therapy, using high-energy subatomic particles, may offer a precise, organ-sparing treatment option for children with high-risk forms of neuroblastoma. For patients in a new study of advanced radiation treatment, proton therapy spared the liver and kidneys from unwanted radiation, while zeroing in on its target.

WASHINGTON D.C. August 13, 2013 -- Adjacent to the walls of our arterioles, capillaries, and venules -- the blood vessels that make up our microcirculation -- there exists a peculiar thin layer of clear plasma, devoid of red blood cells. Although it is just a few millionths of a meter thick, that layer is vital. It controls, for example, the speed with which platelets can reach the site of a cut and start the clotting process.

NEW YORK CITY — A woman's work is never done — or so the saying goes. Though women still do about two thirds of household chores, the division of labor may depend on what her mate does for a living.

The ability of cities to combat the cause of climate change and to adapt to future weather patterns depends on where we live, new research suggests.Scientists at Newcastle University, UK, have revealed a "postcode lottery of preparedness" across the UK based on what each city is doing to not only reduce greenhouse emissions but also adapt to future climate change and extremes of weather such as flooding and drought.

Researchers at the University of Rochester have measured for the first time light emitted by photoluminescence from a nanodiamond levitating in free space. In a paper published this week in Optics Letters, they describe how they used a laser to trap nanodiamonds in space, and – using another laser – caused the diamonds to emit light at given frequencies.

ADHD and texting both significantly impair driving performance among teenagers, according to a study published online today in JAMA Pediatrics.

Researchers from Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center used a driving simulator to test the driving performance of 16- and 17-year-old drivers; approximately half of the study's 61 participants had been diagnosed with ADHD, the other half had not. During the 40-minute driving simulation, researchers measured the speed and lane position of the young drivers as they texted and talked on the phone.

Levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere rise and fall each year as plants, through photosynthesis and respiration, take up the gas in spring and summer, and release it in fall and winter.

Now the range of that cycle is expanding as more carbon dioxide is emitted from burning fossil fuels and other human activities, according to a study led by scientists at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO).

The findings come from a multi-year airborne survey of atmospheric chemistry called HIAPER Pole-to-Pole Observations, or HIPPO.

Climate change alters the way in which species interact with one another--a reality that applies not just to today or to the future, but also to the past, according to a paper published by a team of researchers in this week's issue of the journal Science.

"We found that, at all time scales, climate change can alter biotic interactions in very complex ways," said paleoecologist Jessica Blois of the University of California, Merced, the paper's lead author.