Earth

Storing light in a bottle is easier than one might think: Laser light can be coupled into an optical glass fiber in such a way that it does not travel along the fiber but rather spirals around it in a bulged, bottle-like section. In such a bottle microresonator light can be stored for about ten nanoseconds, corresponding to 30,000 revolutions around the fiber. This is long enough to enable interactions between the light and single atoms, which are brought very close to the fiber surface.

Australian scientists have narrowed the predicted range of global warming through groundbreaking new research.

Dr Roger Bodman from Victoria University and Professors David Karoly and Peter Rayner from the University of Melbourne have generated what they say are more reliable projections of global warming estimates at 2100.

Their paper, published in Nature Climate Change today, found that exceeding 6 degrees warming was now unlikely while exceeding 2 degrees is very likely for business-as-usual emissions.

El Niño wreaks havoc across the globe, shifting weather patterns that spawn droughts in some regions and floods in others. The impacts of this tropical Pacific climate phenomenon are well known and documented.

A mystery, however, has remained despite decades of research: Why does El Niño always peak around Christmas and end quickly by February to April?

MADISON, Wis. – Studying complex systems like ecosystems can get messy, especially when trying to predict how they interact with other big unknowns like climate change.

In a new paper published this week (May 20) in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and elsewhere validate a fundamental assumption at the very heart of a popular way to predict relationships between complex variables.

A new study by archaeologists at the University of York challenges evolutionary theories behind the development of our earliest ancestors from tree dwelling quadrupeds to upright bipeds capable of walking and scrambling.

The researchers say our upright gait may have its origins in the rugged landscape of East and South Africa which was shaped during the Pliocene epoch by volcanoes and shifting tectonic plates.

The temperature in the permafrost on Ellesmere Island in the Canadian high Arctic is nearly as cold as that of the surface of Mars. So the recent discovery by a McGill University led team of scientists of a bacterium that is able to thrive at –15ºC, the coldest temperature ever reported for bacterial growth, is exciting.

The bacterium offers clues about some of the necessary preconditions for microbial life on both the Saturn moon Enceladus and Mars, where similar briny subzero conditions are thought to exist.

What people take from nature – water, food, timber, inspiration, relaxation – are so abundant, it seems self-evident. Until you try to quantitatively understand how and to what extent they contribute to humans.

In today's world, where competition for and degradation of natural resources increases globally, it becomes ever more crucial to quantify the value of ecosystem services – the precise term that defines nature's benefits, and even more important to link how different types of ecosystem services affect various components of human well-being.

When a solar flare filled with charged particles erupts from the sun, its magnetic fields sometime break a widely accepted rule of physics. The flux-freezing theorem dictates that the magnetic lines of force should flow away in lock-step with the particles, whole and unbroken. Instead, the lines sometimes break apart and quickly reconnect in a way that has mystified astrophysicists.

Fairbanks, Alaska— Alaska's melting glaciers remain one of the largest contributors to the world's rising sea levels, say two University of Alaska Fairbanks scientists.

Anthony Arendt and Regine Hock, UAF Geophysical Institute geophysicists, joined 14 scientists from 10 countries, who combined data from field measurements and satellites to get the most complete global picture to date of glacier mass losses and their contribution to rising sea levels.

In the tropics at heights more than 10 miles above the surface, the prevailing winds alternate between strong easterlies and strong westerlies roughly every other year. This slow heartbeat in the tropical upper atmosphere, referred to as the quasibiennial oscillation (QBO), impacts the winds and chemical composition of the global atmosphere and even the climate at Earth's surface.

CAMBRIDGE, MA -- A typical pair of running shoes generates 30 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions, equivalent to keeping a 100-watt light bulb on for one week, according to a new MIT-led lifecycle assessment.

But what's surprising to researchers isn't the size of a shoe's carbon footprint, but where the majority of that footprint comes from.

This news release is available in German.

With their SQUIDs, low-temperature specialists of the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB) have made it possible for the magnetic moments of atoms of the rare isotope 3He (helium-3) to be measured with extreme sensitivity. With the aid of these sensors, highly sensitive nuclear resonance spectrometers were developed which have now provided deep insights into the state of matter at extremely low temperatures.

Researchers at North Carolina State University have developed a new technique for creating high-quality semiconductor thin films at the atomic scale – meaning the films are only one atom thick. The technique can be used to create these thin films on a large scale, sufficient to coat wafers that are two inches wide, or larger.

Toronto – If you're a small charity looking for some corporate largesse, pegging your ask to a big morale-boosting event planned for your community may help seal the deal, suggests a new study on corporate giving.

The paper found that corporate philanthropy spikes upward during "mega-events" such as the Olympics, the Super Bowl, or even political conventions. The finding goes against previous research that says corporate giving tends to stay stable.