Earth

How can society plan for the future if we only look at individual issues in isolation? Climate change impact studies typically focus on a single sector such as agriculture, forestry or water, ignoring the implications of how different sectors interact.

UPTON, NY--For nearly 60 years, scientists have been trying to determine how manganese oxide (MnO) achieves its long-range magnetic order of alternating up and down electron spins. Now, a team of scientists has used their recently developed mathematical approach to study the short-range magnetic interactions that they believe drive this long-range order.

The use of natural gas as a raw material for chemicals production is a goal pursued intensively in chemical research. Scientists working under Javier Pérez-Ramírez, Professor of Catalysis Engineering, have now succeeded in optimising a process which enables natural gas constituents to be upgraded into higher-value chemicals. "We take a molecule of the natural gas constituent methane (CH4) and replace one of its hydrogen atoms with a bromine atom to form methyl bromide (CH3Br)," explains Pérez-Ramírez.

WASHINGTON, May 24, 2016 -- Have you ever seen a foam cup appear to melt away in acetone? Foam cups, bowls and containers are made of a lightweight but strong material - expanded polystyrene. How then does acetone reduce this substance to a blob of goo? In this week's video, Reactions teams up with chemistry professor Matt Hartings, Ph.D., to explain the viral phenomenon. Check it out here: https://youtu.be/FrnDB2_Kt-4.

WASHINGTON, DC -- Deep in vents on the ocean floor, methane-producing microbes feed off chemical reactions between water and rock. Now evidence of this process has been found on land in a freshwater spring in California.

A team of scientists report in a new study that they have found evidence of hardy, methane-producing microbes in water that surfaces from deep underground at The Cedars, a set of freshwater springs in Sonoma County.

TORONTO, May 24, 2016 -- Artificial sweeteners help individuals with obesity to cut calories and lose weight but may have negative health effects, according to researchers at York University's Faculty of Health.

"Our study shows that individuals with obesity who consume artificial sweeteners, particularly aspartame, may have worse glucose management than those who don't take sugar substitutes," says Professor Jennifer Kuk, obesity researcher in the School of Kinesiology and Health Science.

A new analysis of global data related to wildfire, published by the Royal Society, reveals major misconceptions about wildfire and its social and economic impacts.

Prof. Stefan Doerr and Dr Cristina Santin from Swansea University's College of Science carried out detailed analysis of global and regional data on fire occurrence, severity and its impacts on society.

Their research, published in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, looked at charcoal records in sediments and isotope-ratio records in ice cores, to build up a picture of wildfire in the past.

Scientists at The University of Texas at Austin have developed a new method to rapidly detect a single virus in urine, as reported this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

While the technique presently works on just one virus, scientists say it could be adapted to detect a range of viruses that plague humans, including Ebola, Zika and HIV.

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- The history of Greenland's snowfall is chronicled in an unlikely place: the remains of aquatic plants that died long ago, collecting at the bottom of lakes in horizontal layers that document the passing years.

Using this ancient record, scientists are attempting to reconstruct how Arctic precipitation fluctuated over the past several millennia, potentially influencing the size of the Greenland Ice Sheet as the Earth warmed and cooled.

HANOVER, N.H. - Dartmouth College researchers have discovered a method to design faster pulses, offering a new way to accurately control quantum systems.

The findings appear in the journal Physical Review A. A PDF is available on request.

Alexandria, VA - When people think of dangerous faults in America, the the San Andreas probably comes to mind first. But another potentially greater threat lurks in the East Bay region of Northern California, just a stone's throw from San Francisco and the tech hub of Silicon Valley: the Hayward Fault. In the June issue, EARTH Magazine guest author Steven Newton lays out just what is at risk, and what to expect when an earthquake strikes on what may be the most dangerous fault in America.

A team led by the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory used neutron analysis to better understand a protein implicated in the replication of HIV, the retrovirus that causes AIDS. The enzyme, known as HIV-1 protease, is a key drug target for HIV and AIDS therapies.

What once took months by some of the world's leading scientists can now be done in seconds by undergraduate students thanks to software developed at the University of Waterloo's Institute for Quantum Computing, paving the way for fast, secure quantum communication.

Researchers at the Institute for Quantum Computing (IQC) at the University of Waterloo developed the first available software to evaluate the security of any protocol for Quantum Key Distribution (QKD).

University of California, Berkeley, scientists are releasing a Japanese version of an Android app that crowdsources ground-shaking information from smartphones to detect quakes and eventually warn users of impending jolts from nearby quakes.

A study of newly made chemical compounds is giving scientists a fresh understanding of an elusive element.

Researchers made compounds of neptunium -- which is difficult to work with owing to its high radioactivity -- and examined them to learn more about its properties and behaviour.

These challenging experiments, carried out in a specialised lab, were designed to give insight into the fundamental structure and bonding properties of elements in parts of the periodic table that have not been studied in detail.