Earth

Sulfate aerosols cool climate less than assumed
05/14/2013 - 08:46

Life span of cloud-forming sulfate particles in the air is shorter than assumed due to a sulfur dioxide oxidation pathway which has been neglected in climate models so far. Sulfur dioxide is as antagonist of greenhouse gases less effective than previously assumed. It forms sulfate aerosol particles in the air, which reflect sunlight, and as so-called cloud condensation nuclei influence the chemical processes within clouds. Therefore, sulfate aerosol particles help to cool the earth, making them an important factor in climate models.

 

more
Lake Found in Sierra Nevada with the Oldest Remains of Atmospheric Contamination in Southern Europe
04/30/2013 - 13:55

Atmospheric contamination due to heavy metals is currently a severe problem of global proportions, with important repercussions in public health. However, this type of pollution is not a recent fact and can even be detected during pre-historic times.

 

more
Scientists discover new materials to capture methane
04/16/2013 - 12:10

Scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL)  and UC Berkeley and have discovered new materials to capture methane, the second highest concentration greenhouse gas emitted into the atmosphere.

 

more
Discovery of 1,800-year-old “Rosetta Stone” for Tropical Ice Cores
04/05/2013 - 09:24

Researchers at The Ohio State University retrieved the cores from a Peruvian ice cap in 2003, and then noticed some startling similarities to other ice cores that they had retrieved from Tibet and the Himalayas. Patterns in the chemical composition of certain layers matched up, even though the cores were taken from opposite sides of the planet.

more
Extreme water
03/13/2013 - 09:34

Earth is the only known planet that holds water in massive quantities and in all three phase states. But the earthly, omnipresent compound water has very unusual properties that become particularly evident when subjected to high pressure and high temperatures. In the latest issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a German-Finnish-French team published what happens when water is subjected to pressure and temperature conditions such as those found in the deep Earth.

 

more
Physicist's Work Sheds New Light on Possible "Fifth Force of Nature"
02/22/2013 - 10:23

In a breakthrough for the field of particle physics, Professor of Physics Larry Hunter and colleagues at Amherst and The University of Texas at Austin have established new limits on what scientists call “long-range spin-spin interactions” between atomic particles. These interactions have been proposed by theoretical physicists but have not yet been seen. Their observation would constitute the discovery of a “fifth force of nature” (in addition to the four known fundamental forces: gravity, weak, strong and electromagnetic) and would suggest the existence of new particles, beyond those presently described by the Standard Model of particle physics.

 

more