Earth

SAN FRANCISCO -- The growing network of GPS stations has transformed the study of earthquakes, allowing scientists to observe and track very low frequency, seismic activity associated with slow slip or "silent earthquakes." A special collection of papers, published by the Seismological Research Letters (SRL), focuses on new approaches to evaluating the expanding volume of data continuously collected by the GPS networks.

By bouncing eye-safe laser pulses off a mirror on a hillside, researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have transferred ultraprecise time signals through open air with unprecedented precision equivalent to the "ticking" of the world's best next-generation atomic clocks.

(Santa Barbara, Calif.) –– By using light, researchers at UC Santa Barbara have manipulated the quantum state of a single atomic-sized defect in diamond –– the nitrogen-vacancy center –– in a method that not only allows for more unified control than conventional processes, but is more versatile, and opens up the possibility of exploring new solid-state quantum systems. Their results are published in the latest edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of the Sciences.

SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA – An Australian team led by researchers at the University of New South Wales has achieved a breakthrough in quantum science that brings the prospect of a network of ultra-powerful quantum computers - connected via a quantum internet –closer to reality.

The team is the first in the world to have detected the spin, or quantum state, of a single atom using a combined optical and electrical approach.

New Haven, Conn.— That human land use destroys natural ecosystems is an oft-cited assumption in conservation, but ecologists have discovered that instead, traditional ranching techniques in the African savanna enhance the local abundance of wild, native animals. These results offer a new perspective on the roles humans play in natural systems, and inform ongoing discussions about land management and biodiversity conservation.

With the successful retrieval of a string of instruments from deep beneath the seafloor, an international team of scientists has completed an unprecedented series of operations to obtain crucial temperature measurements of the fault that caused the devastating Tohoku earthquake and tsunami in March 2011.

The behaviour of seabirds during migration – including patterns of foraging, rest and flight – has been revealed in new detail using novel computational analyses and tracking technologies.

Using a new method called 'ethoinformatics', described as the application of computational methods in the investigation of animal behaviour, scientists have been able to analyse three years of migration data gathered from miniature tracking devices attached to the small seabird the Manx Shearwater (Puffinus puffinus).

Uncertainty issues are paramount in the assessment of risks posed by natural hazards and in developing strategies to alleviate their consequences.

The atoms that make up ordinary matter fall down, so do antimatter atoms fall up? Do they experience gravity the same way as ordinary atoms, or is there such a thing as antigravity?

These questions have long intrigued physicists, says Joel Fajans of the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), because "in the unlikely event that antimatter falls upwards, we'd have to fundamentally revise our view of physics and rethink how the universe works."

Antimatter is strange stuff. It has the opposite electrical charge to normal matter and, when it meets its matter counterpart, the two annihilate in a flash of light.

Four University of California, Berkeley, physicists are now asking whether matter and antimatter are also affected differently by gravity. Could antimatter fall upward – that is, exhibit anti-gravity – or fall downward at a different rate than normal matter?

Deposits left by the eruption of a subglacial volcano, or tuya, 1.8 million years ago could hold the secret to more accurate palaeo-glacial and climate models, according to new research by University of British Columbia geoscientists.

The detailed mapping and sampling of the partially eroded Kima' Kho tuya in northern British Columbia, Canada shows that the ancient regional ice sheet through which the volcano erupted was twice as thick as previously estimated.

Atmospheric contamination due to heavy metals is currently a severe problem of global proportions, with important repercussions in public health. However, this type of pollution is not a recent fact and can even be detected during pre-historic times.

A quantum computer is controlled by the laws of quantum physics; it promises to perform complicated calculations, or search large amounts of data, at a speed that exceeds by far those that today's fastest supercomputers are capable of.

Baltimore, MD.—Mammalian females ovulate periodically over their reproductive lifetimes, placing significant demands on their ovaries for egg production. Whether mammals generate new eggs in adulthood using stem cells has been a source of scientific controversy. If true, these "germ-line stem cells" might allow novel treatments for infertility and other diseases. However, new research from Carnegie's Lei Lei and Allan Spradling demonstrates that adult mice do not use stem cells to produce new eggs.

Washington, D.C.—Forecasting volcanic eruptions with success is heavily dependent on recognizing well-established patterns of pre-eruption unrest in the monitoring data. But in order to develop better monitoring procedures, it is also crucial to understand volcanic eruptions that deviate from these patterns.