Earth

A recent global analysis indicates that more than half of coral reefs are located less than 30 minutes from the nearest human settlement, but these reefs are receiving less protection than reefs located farther away from people. This suggests that conservation efforts are targeting reefs that may already be receiving protection due to their isolation.

In the largest study of contraceptive practices of women with epilepsy, 30% did not use highly effective contraception despite being at higher risk of having children with fetal malformations due to the anti-epilepsy medications they take.

The study also found that almost one-half of the women used hormonal contraception, which is considered highly effective but has yet to be proven so in women with epilepsy.

A spate of major earthquakes on small faults could overturn traditional views about how earthquakes start, according to a study from researchers at the Centro de Investigación Científica y de Educación Superior in Ensenada, Mexico, and the University of California, Davis.

The study, published Feb. 15 in the journal Nature Geoscience, highlights the role of smaller faults in forecasting California's risk of large earthquakes.

The concepts of rotation and angular momentum play a crucial role in many areas of physics, ranging from nuclear spectroscopy to molecular collisions and precision measurements. In a paper appearing in the leading physics journal Physical Review X on February 12, 2016, Mikhail Lemeshko, Professor at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (IST Austria), and Richard Schmidt, Postdoc at Harvard University, introduce a technique to understand and calculate angular momentum in settings where many particles interact with each other, so-called many-particle systems.

WASHINGTON, D.C., Feb. 16, 2016 - A bit of serendipity while carrying out a routine calibration led a researcher at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's (Berkeley Lab) BELLA Center to discover a new method to measure the pressure of supersonic nozzles. This is a significant breakthrough -- with wide-ranging applications that include miniature satellites, lab-on-a-chip devices and laser plasma accelerators.

An international team of scientists that includes UMD physicists has opened an unprecedented new window on the universe with the first observation of ripples in the fabric of space-time. These ripples, known as gravitational waves, were generated by the colliding of two massive black holes a billion light-years away from Earth. Though such black hole collisions have long been predicted, they had never before been observed.

Coral reef islands and atolls in the Pacific are predominantly surrounded by vast areas of ocean that have very low nutrient levels and low ecological production. However, the ecosystems near these islands and atolls are often extremely productive and support an enhanced nearshore food-web, leading to an abundance of species and increased local fisheries.

University of Texas at Arlington chemists have developed new high-performing materials for cells that harness sunlight to split carbon dioxide and water into useable fuels like methanol and hydrogen gas. These "green fuels" can be used to power cars, home appliances or even to store energy in batteries.

Fluid flows can take one of two forms: well-ordered "laminar" or highly disordered "turbulent" motion. Although everyday experience shows that laminar motion in simple shear flows as in pipes or channels gives way to turbulence as the flow speed increases, the exact nature of this transition has remained a riddle since its first study in the 19th century.

Graphene is a single-atomic carbon sheet with a hexagonal honeycomb network (Fig. 1). Electrons in graphene take a special electronic state called Dirac-cone where they behave as if they have no mass. This allows them to flow at very high speed, giving graphene a very high level of electrical conductivity.

This is significant because electrons with no mass flowing with no resistance in graphene could lead to the realization of an ultimately high-speed nano electronic device.

Geologists studying a region in the Mexican state of Veracruz have discovered evidence to explain the origin of the Wilcox Formation, one of Mexico's most productive oil plays, as well as support for the theory that water levels in the Gulf of Mexico dropped dramatically as it was separated from the rest of the world's oceans and the earth entered a period of extreme warming.

The drop in water levels and the warming, known as the Paleocene-Eocene thermal maximum (PETM), occurred around 55.8 million years ago. The Gulf refilled about 850,000 years later.

An international group of researchers has synthesized an extremely rare mineral and used it as a catalyst precursor to improve two reactions that are of great importance to the chemical industry.

Using a technique called supercritical anti-solvent precipitation (SAS), the group produced large quantities of highly pure georgeite, a disordered copper-hydroxycarbonate that is found naturally only in Australia and in an old copper mine in Snowdonia, Wales.

Enhanced levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide are a likely key driver of global dryland greening, according to a paper published today in the journal Scientific Reports.

The positive trend in vegetation greenness has been observed through satellite images, but the reasons for it had been unclear.

A 60 year-old theory to explain why seas surrounding islands and atolls are particularly productive has just been proven by a marine biologist from Bangor University's School of Ocean Science, working with a colleague at the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Snowshoe hares arrived on tiny Hay Island, at the mouth of the Bay of Fundy, in 1959, traveling by boat from Grand Manan Island, New Brunswick, Canada, with Wesley Ingalls and his nephew, Junior. The two fishermen had the idea that trapping hares would make an entertaining winter activity, when they were not fishing, and bring in a little extra money.