http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/science-blog.html Science blog from networlddirectory, the place for information. Fri, 26 Jun 2009 01:12:14 GMT en-us http://www.networlddirectory.com/images/blogs/science-blog.jpg http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/science-blog.html 128 85 http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/6-2009/outpace-production.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/6-2009/outpace-production.html Fri, 26 Jun 2009 01:12:14 GMT With the caloric needs of the planet expected to soar by 50 percent in the next 40 years, planning and investment in global agriculture will become critically important, according a new report released recently (June 25). The report, produced by Deutsche Bank, one of the world's leading global investment banks, in collaboration with the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, provides a framework for investing in sustainable agriculture against a backdrop of massive population growth and escalating demands for food, fiber and fuel........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/6-2009/a-glimpse-of-things-to-come.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/6-2009/a-glimpse-of-things-to-come.html Fri, 26 Jun 2009 01:12:14 GMT Herschel opened its 'eyes' on 14 June and the Photoconductor Array Camera and Spectrometer obtained images of M51, 'the whirlpool galaxy' for a first test observation. Researchers obtained images in three colours which clearly demonstrate the superiority of Herschel, the largest infrared space telescope ever flown........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/6-2009/dino-not-so-soaring.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/6-2009/dino-not-so-soaring.html Fri, 26 Jun 2009 01:12:14 GMT The largest animals ever to have walked the face of the earth may not have been as big as previously thought, reveals a paper published recently in the Zoological Society of London's Journal of Zoology Researchers have discovered that the original statistical model used to calculate dinosaur mass is flawed, suggesting dinosaurs have been oversized........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/6-2009/in-a-geologic-instant.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/6-2009/in-a-geologic-instant.html Fri, 26 Jun 2009 01:12:14 GMT Modern glaciers, such as those making up the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, are capable of undergoing periods of rapid shrinkage or retreat, as per new findings by paleoclimatologists at the University at Buffalo. The paper, published on June 21 in Nature Geoscience, describes fieldwork demonstrating that a prehistoric glacier in the Canadian Arctic rapidly retreated in just a few hundred years........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/6-2009/climate-change-is-already-having-.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/6-2009/climate-change-is-already-having-.html Fri, 26 Jun 2009 01:12:14 GMT Extreme weather, drought, heavy rainfall and increasing temperatures are a fact of life in a number of parts of the U.S. as a result of human-induced climate change, scientists report today in a new evaluation. These and other changes will continue and likely increase in intensity into the future, the researchers found........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/6-2009/extreme-makeover-chemistry-style.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/6-2009/extreme-makeover-chemistry-style.html Fri, 26 Jun 2009 01:12:14 GMT In revisiting a chemical reaction that's been in the literature for several decades and adding a new wrinkle of their own, scientists with Berkeley Lab and the University of California (UC) Berkeley have discovered a mild and relatively inexpensive procedure for removing oxygen from biomass. This procedure, if it can be effectively industrialized, could allow a number of of today's petrochemical products, including plastics, to instead be made from biomass........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/6-2009/magnetic-superatoms.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/6-2009/magnetic-superatoms.html Fri, 26 Jun 2009 01:12:14 GMT A team of Virginia Commonwealth University researchers has discovered a 'magnetic superatom' - a stable cluster of atoms that can mimic different elements of the periodic table - that one day appears to be used to create molecular electronic devices for the next generation of faster computers with larger memory storage........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/6-2009/record-for-past-half-million-years.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/6-2009/record-for-past-half-million-years.html Fri, 26 Jun 2009 01:12:14 GMT Scientists here have used sediment from the deep ocean bottom to reconstruct a record of ancient climate that dates back more than the last half-million years. The record, trapped within the top 20 meters (65.6 feet) of a 400-meter (1,312-foot) sediment core drilled in 2005 in the North Atlantic Ocean by the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program, gives new information about the four glacial cycles that occurred during that period........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/6-2009/global-warming-from-carbon-emissions.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/6-2009/global-warming-from-carbon-emissions.html Fri, 26 Jun 2009 01:12:14 GMT Damon Matthews, a professor in Concordia University's Department of Geography, Planning and the Environment has found a direct relationship between carbon dioxide emissions and global warming. Matthews, together with colleagues from Victoria and the U.K., used a combination of global climate models and historical climate data to show that there is a simple linear relationship between total cumulative emissions and global temperature change. These findings would be reported in the next edition of Nature, to be released on June 11, 2009........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/6-2009/maybe-its-raining-less-than-we-thought.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/6-2009/maybe-its-raining-less-than-we-thought.html Fri, 26 Jun 2009 01:12:14 GMT It's conventional wisdom in atmospheric science circles: large raindrops fall faster than smaller drops, because they're bigger and heavier. And no raindrop can fall faster than its "terminal speed"its speed when the downward force of gravity is exactly the same as the upward air resistance. Now two physicists from Michigan Technological University and his colleagues at the Universidad Nacional Autnoma de Mxico (National University of Mexico) have discovered that it ain't necessarily so........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/6-2009/graphene-may-have-advantages-over-copper.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/6-2009/graphene-may-have-advantages-over-copper.html Fri, 26 Jun 2009 01:12:14 GMT The unique properties of thin layers of graphite-known as graphene-make the material attractive for a wide range of potential electronic devices. Scientists have now experimentally demonstrated the potential for another graphene application: replacing copper for interconnects in future generations of integrated circuits........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/6-2009/nanoscale-zipper-cavity.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/6-2009/nanoscale-zipper-cavity.html Fri, 26 Jun 2009 01:12:14 GMT Physicists at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have developed a nanoscale device that can be used for force detection, optical communication, and more. The device exploits the mechanical properties of light to create an optomechanical cavity in which interactions between light and motion are greatly strengthened and enhanced. These interactions, notes Oskar Painter, associate professor of applied physics at Caltech, and the principal investigator on the research, are the largest demonstrated to date........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/6-2009/control-heat-in-large-data-centers.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/6-2009/control-heat-in-large-data-centers.html Fri, 26 Jun 2009 01:12:14 GMT Approximately a third of the electricity consumed by large data centers doesn't power the computer servers that conduct online transactions, serve Web pages or store information. Instead, that electricity must be used for cooling the servers, a demand that continues to increase as computer processing power grows........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/6-2009/memory-with-a-twist.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/6-2009/memory-with-a-twist.html Fri, 26 Jun 2009 01:12:14 GMT Electronic memory chips may soon gain the ability to bend and twist as a result of work by engineers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). As published in the July 2009 issue of IEEE Electron Device Letters,* the engineers have found a way to build a flexible memory component out of inexpensive, readily available materials........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/6-2009/nanosecond-pressure-jump.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/6-2009/nanosecond-pressure-jump.html Fri, 26 Jun 2009 01:12:14 GMT A new method to induce protein folding by taking the pressure off of proteins is up to 100 times faster than prior methods, and could help guide more accurate computer simulations for how complex proteins fold, as per research by a team of University of Illinois researchers accepted for publication in the journal Nature Methods and posted on the journal's Web site May 31........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/6-2009/population-responses-to-climate-change.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/6-2009/population-responses-to-climate-change.html Fri, 26 Jun 2009 01:12:14 GMT Biologists have for several years modeled how different species are likely to respond to climate change. Most such studies ignore differences between populations within a species and the interactions between species, in the interest of simplicity. An article in the recent issue of BioScience, by Eric Post of Pennsylvania State University and five colleagues, shows how these limitations can be avoided. Their approach, which relies on multi-stage analyses of how populations fluctuate over time, could allow biologists to model responses to climate change with improved accuracy. In particular, the approach could help identify regions where local populations are vulnerable to climate change, and it could elucidate species interactions that may not be obvious........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/6-2009/who-will-pick-up-the-bill.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/6-2009/who-will-pick-up-the-bill.html Fri, 26 Jun 2009 01:12:14 GMT Ocean acidification, a direct result of increased CO2 emission, is set to change the Earth's marine ecosystems forever and may have a direct impact on our economy, resulting in substantial revenue declines and job losses. Intensive fossil-fuel burning and deforestation over the last two centuries have increased atmospheric CO2 levels by almost 40%, which has in turn fundamentally altered ocean chemistry by acidifying surface waters. Fish levels and other sea organisms such as planktons, crabs, lobsters, shrimp and corals are expected to suffer, which could leave fishing communities at the brink of economic disaster........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/5-2009/sea-level-rise-may-pose-greatest-threat.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/5-2009/sea-level-rise-may-pose-greatest-threat.html Fri, 26 Jun 2009 01:12:14 GMT The melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet this century may drive more water than previously thought toward the already threatened coastlines of New York, Boston, Halifax and other cities in the northeastern United States and Canada, as per new research. Results of the study are being published this week in Geophysical Research Letters They suggest that moderate to high rates of ice melt from Greenland may shift ocean circulation by about 2100, causing sea levels off the northeast coast of North America to rise by about 30 to 51 centimeters (12 to 20 inches) more than other coastal areas........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/5-2009/multiferroics.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/5-2009/multiferroics.html Fri, 26 Jun 2009 01:12:14 GMT Multiferroics are materials in which unique combinations of electric and magnetic properties can simultaneously coexist. They are potential cornerstones in future magnetic data storage and spintronic devices provided a simple and fast way can be found to turn their electric and magnetic properties on and off. In a promising new development, scientists with the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) working with a prototypical multiferroic have successfully demonstrated just such a switch -- electric fields........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/5-2009/global-warming-could-be-double-previous-estimates.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/5-2009/global-warming-could-be-double-previous-estimates.html Fri, 26 Jun 2009 01:12:14 GMT The most comprehensive modeling yet carried out on the likelihood of how much hotter the Earth's climate will get in this century shows that without rapid and massive action, the problem will be about twice as severe as previously estimated six years ago - and could be even worse than that. The study uses the MIT Integrated Global Systems Model, a detailed computer simulation of global economic activity and climate processes that has been developed and refined by the Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change since the early part of 1990s. The new research involved 400 runs of the model with each run using slight variations in input parameters, selected so that each run has about an equal probability of being correct based on present observations and knowledge. Other research groups have estimated the probabilities of various outcomes, based on variations in the physical response of the climate system itself. But the MIT model is the only one that interactively includes detailed therapy of possible changes in human activities as well - such as the degree of economic growth, with its associated energy use, in different countries........ ]]>