February 11, 2008, 8:09 PM CT

New Greenland Ice And Climate Change Models

A comprehensive new study authored by University at Buffalo researchers and their colleagues for the first time documents in detail the dynamics of parts of Greenland's ice sheet, important data that have long been missing from the ice sheet models on which projections about sea level rise and global warming are based.

The research, published online this month in the Journal of Glaciology, also demonstrates how remote sensing and digital imaging techniques can produce rich datasets without field data in some cases.

Traditionally, ice sheet models are very simplified, as per Beata Csatho, Ph.D., assistant professor of geology in the UB College of Arts and Sciences and lead author of the paper.

"Ice sheet models commonly don't include all the complexity of ice dynamics that can happen in nature," said Csatho. "This research will give ice sheet modelers more precise, more detailed data".

The implications of these richer datasets may be dramatic, Csatho said, particularly as they impact climate projections and sea-level rise estimates, such as those made by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

"If current climate models from the IPCC included data from ice dynamics in Greenland, the sea level rise estimated during this century could be twice as high as what they are currently projecting," she said......... Posted by: Tyler      Read more         Source

February 10, 2008, 10:10 PM CT

Studying rivers for clues to global carbon cycle

In the science world, in the media, and recently, in our daily lives, the debate continues over how carbon in the atmosphere is affecting global climate change. Studying just how carbon cycles throughout the Earth is an enormous challenge, but one Northwestern University professor is doing his part by studying one important segment -- rivers.

Aaron Packman, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering in the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science, is collaborating with ecologists and microbiologists from around the world to study how organic carbon is processed in rivers.

Packman, who specializes in studying how particles and sediment move around in rivers, is co-author of a paper on the topic published online in the journal Nature Geoscience.

The paper evaluates our current understanding of carbon dynamics in rivers and reaches two important conclusions: it argues that carbon processing in rivers is a bigger component of global carbon cycling than people previously thought, and it lays out a framework for how researchers should go about assessing those processes.

Much more is known about carbon cycling in the atmosphere and oceans than in rivers. Evaluating large-scale material cycling in a river provides a challenge -- everything is constantly moving, and a lot of it moves in floods. As a result, much of what we know about carbon processing in rivers is based on what flows into the ocean......... Posted by: Tyler      Read more         Source

February 6, 2008, 9:35 PM CT

Racing Ahead at the Speed of Light

Imagine trying to catch up to something moving close to the speed of light - the fastest anything can move - and sending ahead information in time to make mid-path flight corrections. Impossible? Not quite. Physicists at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), a particle accelerator at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory, have achieved this tricky task - and the results may save the Lab money and time in their quest to understand the inner workings of the early universe.

The physicists have developed a way to measure subtle fluctuations in RHIC's particle beams as they speed around their 2.4-mile-circumference high-tech racetrack - and send that information ahead to specialized devices that smooth the fluctuations when the beam arrives.

"These corrections help to keep the beams focused and colliding, recreating thousands of times a second the conditions that existed just after the Big Bang," said Steven Vigdor, Brookhaven Lab's Associate Laboratory Director for Nuclear and Particle Physics, who manages the RHIC program.

Already, RHIC researchers have learned that mere microseconds after the Big Bang, the universe was more interesting than imagined - a nearly "perfect" liquid with virtually no viscosity and strong interactions among its constituents. With the ability to race ahead of RHIC's beams and keep them focused, the researchers will be able to create a number of more "mini-Bangs" for study. The increase in data will help them investigate and measure the detailed properties of this "perfect" liquid, and test certain predictions stimulated by an unanticipated link between RHIC findings and "string theory," an appealing approach to incorporate gravity into a unified theory that describes all of Nature's forces......... Posted by: Kevin      Read more         Source

February 6, 2008, 9:12 PM CT

Breakthrough in single-molecule sensing

In a study that could lay the foundation for mass-produced single-molecule sensors, physicists and engineers at Rice University have demonstrated a means of simultaneously making optical and electronic measurements of the same molecule.

The research, which is available online, is slated to appear in an upcoming issue of the journal Nano Letters. The experiments were performed on a nanoelectronic device consisting to two tiny electrodes separated by a molecule-sized gap. Using electric current, the scientists measured conduction through single molecules in the gap. In addition, light-focusing properties of the electrodes allowed the scientists to identify the molecule by a unique optical fingerprint.

"We can mass-produce these in known locations, and they have single-molecule sensitivity at room temperature in open air," said co-author of study Douglas Natelson, associate professor of physics and astronomy and co-director of Rice's Quantum Magnetism Laboratory (QML). "In principle, we think the design may allow us to observe chemical reactions at the single-molecule level".

While researchers have used electronic and optical instruments to measure single molecules before, Rice's system is the first that allows both simultaneously -- a process known as "multimodal" sensing -- on a single small molecule......... Posted by: Kevin      Read more         Source

February 6, 2008, 8:14 PM CT

Crayfish Fossils Provide Missing Evolutionary Link

Crayfish body fossils and burrows discovered in Victoria, Australia, have provided the first physical evidence that crayfish existed on the continent as far back as the Mesozoic Era, says Emory University paleontologist Anthony Martin, who headed up a study on the finds.

"Studying the fossil burrows gives us a glimpse into the ecology of southern Australia about 115 million years ago, when the continent was still attached to Antarctica," says Martin, a senior lecturer in environmental studies at Emory and an honorary research associate at Monash University in Melbourne. During that era, diverse plants grew in what is today Antarctica and dinosaurs roamed in prolonged polar darkness along southern Australia river plains. The period is of particular interest to researchers since it is thought to bethe last time the Earth experienced pronounced global warming, with an average temperature of 68 degrees Fahrenheit - just 10 degrees warmer than today.

On Feb. 2, the earth science journal Gondwana Research published online the results of the crayfish study, which was conducted by Martin and a consortium of Australian scientists, including Thomas Rich and Gary Poore of the Museum of Victoria; Mark Schultz and Christopher Austin of Charles Darwin University; and Lesley Kool and Patricia Vickers-Rich of Monash......... Posted by: William      Read more         Source

February 4, 2008, 9:55 PM CT

Hidden art could be revealed by new terahertz device

Like X-rays let doctors see the bones beneath our skin, "T-rays" could let art historians see murals hidden beneath coats of plaster or paint in centuries-old buildings, University of Michigan engineering scientists say.

T-rays, pulses of terahertz radiation, could also illuminate penciled sketches under paintings on canvas without harming the artwork, the scientists say. Current methods of imaging underdrawings can't detect certain art materials such as graphite or sanguine, a red chalk that some of the masters are believed to have used.

The team of researchers, which includes researchers at the Louvre Museum, Picometrix, LLC and U-M, used terahertz imaging to detect colored paints and a graphite drawing of a butterfly through 4 mm of plaster. They believe their technique is capable of seeing even deeper. A paper on the research is reported in the February edition of Optics Communications.

In March, the researchers will take their equipment to France to help archaeologists examine a mural they discovered recently behind five layers of plaster in a 12th century church.

"It's ideal that the method of evaluation for historical artifacts such as frescoes and mural paintings, which are typically an inherent part of a building's infrastructure, be non-destructive, non-invasive, precise and applicable on site. Current technologies may satisfy one or more of these requirements, but we believe our new technique can satisfy all of them," said John Whitaker, an author of the paper who is a research scientist and adjunct professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at U-M......... Posted by: William      Read more         Source

February 4, 2008, 9:52 PM CT

Geotimes explores oil around the world

With oil hovering around $90 a barrel, Geotimes magazine examines emerging trends and issues in several obvious, and some not-so-obvious locations, in this months cover story Oil Around the World.

Land disputes, foreign sanctions, terrorism, war and economics play into the exploration and recovery of the worlds oil and natural gas reserves. Be it Libya, Iraq or Norway, the South China Sea or India, a number of of the issues are the same, leading to complications that often keep investors away from vast oil and natural gas reserves.

Land disputes rule the future of oil and gas exploration in a number of parts of the world. Uncertainty about the boundary between Norway and Russia in the Barents Sea is an obstacle to the development of vast oil and gas resources. Likewise, Asian countries continue to dispute areas of the South China Sea, locking away the possible oil and gas resources from the global economy. Yet, the economic possibilities are bringing countries together in cooperative seismic studies. Will this yield the potential for international agreement and investment?

Along with China, the growth in India has been fingered as one of the causes of the spike in oil prices. Though not historically a major oil producer, Indias heritage and geology may yield some future surprises......... Posted by: Tyler      Read more         Source

January 30, 2008, 9:10 PM CT

New Adhesive That Mimics Gecko Toe Hairs

A new anti-sliding adhesive developed by engineers at the University of California, Berkeley, may be the closest man-made material yet to mimic the remarkable gecko toe hairs that allow the tiny lizard to scamper along vertical surfaces and ceilings.

The scientists say that such an adhesive could one day be used to outfit a small robot that could climb up walls.

Taking a cue from the millions of hairs covering a gecko's toes, scientists squeezed 42 million hard plastic microfibers onto each square centimeter of material and loaded it with various weights. They observed that on a smooth, clean, vertical surface, two square centimeters of the synthetic adhesive could hold 400 grams (0.88 pounds). At the same time, the adhesive easily lifts off with minimal force and no residue.

Researchers have long marveled at the gravity-defying feats of the gecko, and many research teams across the world are working on duplicating the lizard's adhesive forces. Ron Fearing, UC Berkeley professor of electrical engineering and computer sciences and head of the research team developing the new material, notes that prior research on gecko-like adhesives has focused on the strength of the adhesion. He said that the ease of attachment and detachment are equally important when developing a material that can practically be used for scaling vertical walls and ceilings......... Posted by: Kevin      Read more         Source

January 29, 2008, 10:00 PM CT

Touch Screen Voting a Hit

Electronic voting technology, particularly touch screen systems, easily pass the tests of voter confidence and satisfaction, but users still make too a number of mistakes and ask too often for help, says a major new study led by the University of Maryland and conducted with the University of Rochester and the University of Michigan.

The study finds that these usability concerns cannot be addressed by adding paper trails to e-voting systems, and concludes that most critics have focused on the wrong issues.

"Recent history is clear: the election problem most likely to tilt a close race is not security, but the inability of voters to cast their ballots the way they intended," says Paul Herrnson, principal investigator and a University of Maryland political scientist who directs the school's Center for American Politics and Citizenship. "The hazards of poor ballot design didn't end with Florida's hanging, pregnant and dimpled chads in 2000. But tremendous improvement in voters' abilities to cast their votes accurately and without assistance can be accomplished simply by improving the way ballots are laid out on touch screen and paper-based systems".

Summary of Findings and Recommendations

Voter Errors: The report describes the findings as both reassuring and sobering. While voters expressed confidence in the systems, all proved vulnerable to various types of voter error, such as unintentionally failing to cast a vote in some races, or worse, actually voting for the wrong candidate......... Posted by: Kevin      Read more         Source

January 29, 2008, 9:47 PM CT

Lithium and Beryllium No Longer "Lack Chemistry"

Even though the lightest known metals in the universe, lithium (Li) and beryllium (Be), do not bind to one another under normal atmospheric or ambient pressure, an interdisciplinary team of Cornell researchers predicts in the Jan. 24 issue of Nature that Li and Be will bond under higher levels of pressure and form stable Li-Be alloys that may be capable of superconductivity. Superconductivity is the flow of electricity with zero resistance.

The Inorganic, Bioinorganic and Organometallic Chemistry program at the National Science Foundation (NSF) supported the research because little work had been done to predict the properties of metals under high pressure.

"We observed that chemists working on inorganic compounds and inorganic reactions under high pressure were interested in the predictions and felt it would stimulate useful interactions between theorists and experimentalists," said NSF Program Manager Michael Clarke.

Of the four stable Li-Be alloys predicted by the scientists' computational study, the alloy with the ratio of one Li atom to one Be atom (LiBe) shows the greatest potential for superconducting applications.

A most unexpected finding in the study is the predicted existence of two-dimensional electron gas layers within a tightly compressed three-dimensional LiBe compound......... Posted by: Sarah      Read more         Source