Earth

Lions, wolves and other large carnivores are frightening beasts that strike fear into humans and other animals. A new study led by Western University demonstrates that the fear these top predators inspire can have cascading effects down the food chain critical to maintaining healthy ecosystems, making large carnivore conservation all the more valuable given the significant 'ecosystem service' the fear of them provides.

An international team has used the light produced by the Free Electron Laser FERMI at the research Centre Elettra Sincrotrone Trieste in the AREA Science Park to control the ultrafast movement of electrons. The experiment, published in the journal Nature Photonics, opens the way to the study of more complex processes which occur in nature on the scale of attoseconds (billionths of a billionth of a second), such as photosynthesis, combustion, catalysis and atmospheric chemistry.

In the 1970s, scientist Edward Lorenz famously asked whether the flapping of a butterfly's wings in Brazil could lead to a tornado in Texas.

During the decades since, the butterfly effect and chaos theory have sparked countless debates and pop culture references. But the question also holds practical importance: What do small, unpredictable events mean for the future of weather prediction?

Researchers at the University of York have been part of the first comprehensive study of how Zanzibar was formed, charting the extinction of various animals from the island.

In a collaborative project between environmental scientists and archaeologists, a team charted the history of sea level change by examining mangrove sediments, and conducting analysis on animal remains found in Kuumbi Cave - an important archaeological site.

BOULDER -- Sweltering heat waves that typically strike once every 20 years could become yearly events across 60 percent of Earth's land surface by 2075, if human-produced greenhouse gas emissions continue unchecked.

If stringent emissions-reductions measures are put in place, however, these extreme heat events could be reduced significantly. Even so, 18 percent of global land areas would still be subjected yearly to these intense heat waves, defined as three exceptionally hot days in a row.

The newly-exposed edges of deforested areas are highly susceptible to drastic temperature changes, leading to hotter, drier and more variable conditions for the forest that remains, according to new research from the University of Colorado Boulder.

The findings suggest that thermal biology -- an emerging discipline that examines the effects of temperature on biological and ecological processes -- could be an effective tool for understanding how temperature changes in fragmented habitats can potentially wreak havoc on species activity and other critical ecosystem functions.

AMHERST, Mass. - Results from a new climate reconstruction of how Antarctica's ice sheets responded during the last period when atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) reached levels like those expected to occur in about 30 years, plus sediment core findings reported in a companion paper, suggest that the ice sheets are more vulnerable to rising atmospheric CO2 than previously thought.

Details appear in two papers in the current Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The life of a subatomic particle can be hectic. The charged nuclei and electrons that zip around the vacuum vessels of doughnut-shaped fusion machines known as tokamaks are always in motion. But while that motion helps produce the fusion reactions that could power a new class of electricity generator, the turbulence it generates can also limit those reactions.

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. -- A team of researchers has created a way to quickly and remotely evaluate fluid flow in subsurface fractures that could impact aquifers, oil and gas extraction, sequestration of greenhouse gases or nuclear waste and remediation of leaked contaminants.

Laura Pyrak-Nolte and David Nolte, both professors of physics at Purdue University, found a nearly universal scaling relationship between fracture stiffness and fluid flow that applies to low porosity rock, or roughly more than 50 percent of all rock on Earth.

ANN ARBOR--A new study lends insight into how children react to discipline practices used by parents and teachers, and sheds light on their view of what's fair.

Mathematical models are used to predict just about everything from traffic and weather to plant metabolism and industrial biotechnology.

However, while they are valuable tools in a broad range of fields, predictive models are still plagued by uncertainties, or errors, and a great deal of effort is directed at determining the extent and effects of these errors.

Now, a team of researchers led by the University of Delaware's Dion Vlachos has developed a framework to address this issue by looking at the effects of correlated parameters.

NEW ORLEANS - The 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill significantly altered microbial communities thriving near shipwrecks in the Gulf of Mexico, potentially changing these diverse ecosystems and degrading the historically and culturally significant ships they live on, according to new research being presented here. The findings are also revealing how decades-old, or even centuries-old, shipwrecks could be used to monitor the health of deep-ocean ecosystems, and the effects of oil and gas activity in the Gulf, according to the researchers.

Ever since Curie conjectured on "the symmetry in physical phenomena, symmetry of an electric field and a magnetic field", it has long been a dream for material scientists to search for this rather unusual class of material exhibiting the coexistence of magnetism and ferroelectricity in a single compound known as a multiferroic compound.

Findings from one of the first comprehensive field studies by a collaborative team of researchers demonstrate the active layer microbiome of tundra soil was significantly altered after only 1.5 years of experimental warming--a rapid response demonstrating high sensitivity of this ecosystem to warming. Collectively, the results of this study suggest the vulnerability of permafrost ecosystem carbon to climate warming and the significance of microbial feedbacks in mediating this vulnerability.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE from the UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO

February 22, 2016

University of Toronto physicists discover new laws governing the "developmental biology of materials"

TORONTO, ON - When one atom first meets another, the precise nature of that interaction can determine much about what kinds of physical properties and behaviours will emerge.