An international team of scientists has developed a relatively simple mathematical explanation for the rogue ocean waves that can develop seemingly out of nowhere to sink ships and overwhelm oil platforms with walls of water as much as 25 meters high.
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To project how much food can be produced in the future, researchers use agricultural models that estimate crop yield, or how much of a crop can be produced in a certain amount of space. These models take into account factors like climate and weather variability, irrigation, fertilizer, and soil type. A new study published in the journal Nature Communications shows that the type of soil used in such a model can often outweigh the effects of weather variability--such as year to year changes in rainfall and temperature.
Alpine forests will be at great risk should weather phenomena such as droughts and torrential rain become more frequent. As a study by the Technical University of Munich (TUM) shows, the mountain forests of the Bavarian Alps have seen a significant reduction in topsoil organic matter over the past three decades. The study authors' recommendation is therefore to preserve, or better still, increase soil humus regardless of climate change by implementing humus-promoting forest management to safeguard the mountain forest's protective function and to mitigate floods.
Irvine, Calif., June 21, 2016 - A new way of recycling millions of tons of plastic garbage into liquid fuel has been devised by researchers from the University of California, Irvine and the Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry (SIOC) in China.
"Synthetic plastics are a fundamental part of modern life, but our use of them in large volume has created serious environmental problems," said UCI chemist Zhibin Guan. "Our goal through this research was to address the issue of plastic pollution as well as achieving a beneficial outcome of creating a new source of liquid fuel."
Researchers from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona have revealed the latest archaeological discoveries on the origins and consolidation of the first farming societies in Upper Mesopotamia, in Iraqi Kurdistan.
The research is the result of a project conducted by an interdisciplinary team under the leadership of professors Anna Gómez Bach and Miquel Molist, from the UAB Department of Prehistory. The area had been closed off since the 1990s to archaeological research and the UAB is the only research team from Spain participating in the dig.
The Swedish power supply is largely free of carbon emissions. Indeed, it is mainly based on a combination of hydroelectric and nuclear power combined with power exchange with neighbouring Scandinavian countries. A study published in EPJ Plus investigates the possibility of replacing nuclear power with wind power, which is by nature intermittent. According to the study, this, in turn, would finally lead to a reduction in the use of hydroelectricity if the annual consumption remained constant.
A transistor, conceived of in digital terms, has two states: on and off, which can represent the 1s and 0s of binary arithmetic.
But in analog terms, the transistor has an infinite number of states, which could, in principle, represent an infinite range of mathematical values. Digital computing, for all its advantages, leaves most of transistors' informational capacity on the table.
There are several ways to change a molecule, chemically or physically. One way is to heat it; another is to bombard it with light particles, or photons. A lesser known method relies on electron collision, or e-beam technology, which is becoming increasingly popular in industry. In a review outlining new research avenues based on electron scattering, Michael Allan from the University of Fribourg, Switzerland and colleagues explain the subtle intricacies of the extremely brief electron-molecule encounter, in particular with gentle, i.e., very low energy electrons.
SOLOMONS, MD (June 21, 2016)--We all know by now that methane is bad for the environment. It's one of those greenhouse gases that trap heat in the earth's atmosphere and contribute to our warming climate. It's regularly emitted during the production and transport of coal and oil, and sometimes even cows get the blame. However, a new study finds that estuaries like the Chesapeake Bay could be contributing significantly more methane to the atmosphere than once thought.
WASHINGTON, D.C., June 20, 2016 - Scientists in South Korea have made ultra-thin photovoltaics flexible enough to wrap around the average pencil. The bendy solar cells could power wearable electronics like fitness trackers and smart glasses. The researchers report the results in the journal Applied Physics Letters, from AIP Publishing.
For the past year, staff at the Department of Energy's National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC) have been preparing users of 20 leading science applications for the arrival of the second phase of its newest supercomputer, Cori, which consists of more than 9,300 nodes containing Intel's Xeon Phi Knights Landing processor - which was officially unveiled June 20 at the International Supercomputer Conference in Germany. The first compute cabinets are scheduled to arrive in July.
Refugees are often considered an economic burden for the countries that take them in, but a new study conducted by UC Davis with the United Nations World Food Program indicates that refugees receiving aid--especially in the form of cash--can can give their host country's economy a substantial boost.
The researchers found that these economic benefits significantly exceeded the amount of the donated aid.
A team of researchers from Stanford University, Stanford, California have demonstrated magnetic actuation of microfluidic water droplets using miniature EPMs and oil-based ferrofluids. Water droplets, immersed in a continuous oil ferrofluid phase, experience a repulsive magnetophoretic force in the presence of an inhomogeneous magnetic field. EPMs, capable of generating strong magnetic fields and gradients, are used for the first time in microfluidic applications.
Researchers from North Carolina State University have developed a new technique that improves the ability of computer vision technologies to better identify and separate objects in an image, a process called segmentation.
Image processing and computer vision are important for multiple applications, from autonomous vehicles to detecting anomalies in medical imaging.
Computer vision technologies use algorithms to segment, or outline the objects, in an image. For instance, separating the outline of a pedestrian against the backdrop of a busy street.
COLUMBIA, Mo. - The U.S. clothing industry is a multi-billion dollar industry, but for the millions of Americans with disabilities and their families, a lack of options in the apparel industry presents daily challenges. Now researchers from the University of Missouri are looking at the relationship between apparel and marginalization for people with disabilities. Allison Kabel, assistant professor of health sciences in the School of Health Professions, found that the lack of adequate, accessible apparel created barriers for people with disabilities from engaging in their communities.