Environment
Targeting solar geoengineering to minimize risk, inequality
October 22, 2012 9:30 am | News | CommentsBy tailoring geoengineering efforts by region and by need, a new model promises to maximize the effectiveness of solar radiation management while mitigating its potential side effects and risks. The study explores the feasibility of using solar geoengineering to counter the loss of Arctic sea ice.
Acidification recorder recovered from icy Antarctic waters
October 19, 2012 10:23 am | News | CommentsA research team from the University of California, Santa Barbara and Portland State University has retrieved a sensor containing previously unavailable data about changes in chemistry or acidification in the remote waters of McMurdo Sound in Antarctica. The device collected data through June, when the battery expired in the harsh polar sea.
Food vs. fuel: Is there surplus land for bioenergy?
October 18, 2012 8:37 am | News | CommentsIncreasing demand for bioenergy feedstock is generating land-use conflicts and food vs. fuel controversies. An team of 11 scientists from seven European countries and the United States have recently published a study that gives scientific background to the debate. It supports a reassessment of the land available for bioenergy feedstock production.
Elevated indoor carbon dioxide impairs decision-making performance
October 18, 2012 8:04 am | News | CommentsOverturning decades of conventional wisdom, researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have found that moderately high indoor concentrations of carbon dioxide can significantly impair people's decision-making performance. The results were unexpected and may have particular implications for schools and other spaces with high occupant density.
Ice sheet retreat controlled by the landscape
October 17, 2012 12:56 pm | News | CommentsA U.K. research team has recently determined that the geometry of channels beneath the ice can be a strong control on ice behaviour, temporarily hiding the signals of retreat. The findings, which provide the first simulation of past ice-sheet retreat and collapse over a ten thousand year period in Antarctica, shed new light on what makes ice stable or unstable and will help refine predictions of future ice extent and global sea-level rise, the researchers say.
Jelly-like atmospheric particles resist chemical aging
October 16, 2012 4:46 pm | News | CommentsAtmospheric chemists at Harvard University have found that when it comes to secondary organic material (SOM) in the atmosphere, there are two distinct breeds: liquids and jellies. Their experiments, using particle of a-pinene SOM and adipic acid, have shown that a drop in humidity can send these common aerosols into a jelly-like phase, in which they resist chemical aging almost entirely.
Engineers to design affordable carbon dioxide thickener to augment oil extraction
October 16, 2012 1:48 pm | News | CommentsCrude oil extraction could be improved significantly and accessible domestic oil reserves could be expanded with an economical carbon dioxide thickener being developed by University of Pittsburgh engineers, thanks to a $1.3 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy.
Earth’s brief polarity reversal linked to other extreme events
October 16, 2012 12:45 pm | News | CommentsFor the first time, three separately found extreme Earth events have been compared by researchers who now believe they may be linked. About 41,000 years ago, a complete and rapid reversal of the geomagnetic field occurred, lasting for just a few hundred years. Around the same time, a super volcano erupted and major climate changes occurred.
Absorbent nanomaterial cleans up toxic water
October 15, 2012 2:14 pm | News | CommentsScience is full of surprises. College of Wooster chemist Paul Edminston's search for a new way to detect explosives at airports instead led to the creation of what's now called "Osorb," swellable, organically modified silica, or glass, capable of absorbing oil and other contaminants from water.
Earth sunblock only needed if planet warms easily
October 11, 2012 6:00 pm | by Mary Beckman, PNNL | News | CommentsTo combat the effects of climate change, some scientists have proposed temporarily reducing the amount of sunlight reaching the earth. These various geoengineering schemes have typically thought as a standalone fix, but a new computer analysis of future climate change considers emissions reductions together with sunlight reduction. The model shows that such drastic steps to cool the earth would only be necessary in certain scenarios.
Experts: Global warming means more Antarctic ice
October 10, 2012 5:59 pm | by Seth Borenstein, AP Science Writer | News | CommentsWhile the North Pole has been losing sea ice over the years, the water nearest the South Pole has been gaining it. Antarctic sea ice hit a record 7.51 million square miles in September, just days after reports of the biggest loss of Arctic sea ice on record. Climate change skeptics have seized on this example, but scientists say the skeptics are misinterpreting what's happening and why.
The mathematics of leaf decay
October 4, 2012 4:48 am | by Jennifer Chu | News | CommentsThe natural decay of organic carbon contributes more than 90% of the yearly carbon dioxide released into Earth's atmosphere and oceans. Understanding the rate at which leaves decay can help scientists predict this global flux of carbon dioxide. But a single leaf may undergo different rates of decay depending on a number of variables. Researchers have just built a mathematical model that incorporates these variables, and have discovered a commonality within the diversity of leaf decay.
Restricting nuclear power has little effect on the cost of climate policies
October 2, 2012 9:03 am | News | CommentsApplying a global energy-economy computer simulation that fully captures the competition between alternative power supply technologies, a team of scientists from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and the University of Dayton, Ohio, analyzed trade-offs between nuclear and climate policies. They found that incremental costs due to policy options restricting the use of nuclear power do not significantly increase the cost of even stringent greenhouse-gas emissions reductions.
The chemical memory of seawater
October 2, 2012 8:52 am | News | CommentsWater does not forget, says Prof. Boris Koch, a chemist at the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research. With the combination of some new techniques, Koch and colleagues can now identify and retrace some of the biomolecular tracks left by living organism. This dissolved organic matter, detectable with mass spectrometry, is one of the largest active, organic carbon reservoirs on earth.
M+W Group Acquires Spectrum Engineering Solutions in America
October 2, 2012 7:40 am | by The Associated Press | News | CommentsThe global engineering and construction company M+W Group strengthens its capabilities in the automation business. Today the company announced that M+W Automation, a subsidiary of their operations in the Americas, purchased 100 percent of Spectrum Engineering Solutions (Spectrum Engineering...
Sea-level study shows signs of things to come
October 2, 2012 3:34 am | News | CommentsOur greenhouse gas emissions up to now have triggered an irreversible warming of the Earth that will cause sea levels to rise for thousands of years to come, new research has show. The results come from a study which sought to model sea-level changes over millennial timescales, taking into account all of the Earth's land ice and the warming of the oceans.
Yearlong climate study launches
October 1, 2012 9:50 am | News | CommentsA Horizon Lines container ship outfitted with meteorological and atmospheric instruments installed by scientists from Argonne National Laboratory and Brookhaven National Laboratory will begin taking data for a yearlong mission aimed at improving the representation of clouds in climate models.
Officials mull seismic tests near Calif nuke plant
September 30, 2012 7:41 am | by JASON DEAREN - Associated Press - Associated Press | News | CommentsPlans to use an array of powerful air canons in an undersea seismic study near a Central California nuclear power plant have federal and state officials juggling concerns over marine life with public safety.Pacific Gas & Electric Co. wants to use big air guns to emit strong sound waves into a...
Bayshore Networks Names Andres Andreu, CISSP-ISSAP, Vice President, Engineering and Chief Architect
September 27, 2012 9:40 am | by The Associated Press | News | CommentsBayshore Networks, a leading provider of internal application firewall technology engineered to protect critical applications from advanced and internal threats, today named Andres Andreu Vice President, Engineering and Chief Architect, responsible for research and product development and...
The colors of fall: Are autumn reds and golds passing us by?
September 26, 2012 6:11 am | News | CommentsAccording to research done at the Harvard Forest Long-Term Ecological Research site in Masschusetts, autumn colors were different there a century, or even a half-century, ago. And they will likely continue to change as alterations to the landscape occur through changing climate, tree disease, and harvesting practices.
Global Hawk gets to the heart of what makes hurricanes tick
September 26, 2012 5:58 am | by Robert Gutro | News | CommentsNASA’s Hurricane and Severe Storm Sentinel (HS3) investigation is a five-year mission to better understand the processes that underlie hurricane intensity change in the Atlantic Ocean basin. The Global Hawk is a key part of that effort, and its flights into the hurricane’s environment allow several highly-advanced, autonomously operated instruments to gauge everything from wind speed to cloud structures.
Latest research from Okayama University
September 26, 2012 5:51 am | by ResearchSEA | News | Comments(Okayama, Japan, 20 September 2012) This e-Bulletin highlights pioneering insights into water splitting/photosynthesis, analysis of the Itokawa asteroid brought to Earth by Japan's Hayabusa space probe, stemming the spread of cancer and identification of a rice transporter for...
Report: public research universities in peril
September 25, 2012 6:41 am | by JUSTIN POPE - AP Education Writer - Associated Press | News | CommentsThey're the pride and backbone of American higher education, doing essential research and educating en masse the next generations of scientists and engineers. But a new report argues the mission of the country's 101 major public research universities is imperiled by budget cuts amounting to...
USGS Selects AQUARIUS Software by Aquatic Informatics to Centralize National Water Data Management & Operations
September 25, 2012 6:40 am | by The Associated Press | News | CommentsAquatic Informatics Inc., a global leader in providing innovative software solutions for hydrologic data management and analysis, is announcing today from the USGS National Water Data Conference in Portland, Oregon that the USGS has selected AQUARIUS Software for water time series...
Researchers make call for specialty metals recycling
September 24, 2012 2:56 pm | News | CommentsAccording to recent paper published by Yale University scientists, an international policy is needed for recycling scarce specialty metals that are critical in the production of consumer goods. Specialty metals account for more than 30 of the 60 metals on the periodic table, and their rapidly accelerating usage in many industries makes the complete lack of recycling a concern.
