UK researchers have developed a porous material that can preferentially soak up CO2 from the atmosphere. NOTT-202 is a “metal-organic framework” that works like a sponge, absorbing a number of gases at high pressures. But as the pressure is reduced, CO2 is retained as other gases are released. The development, reported in Nature Materials, holds…
Natural fluctuations alone do not explain warming in the upper layers of the planet’s oceans, confirms a new computer modeling study. The ingredient necessary to fully account for rising water temperatures in the last 50 years? Humans’ greenhouse gas emissions. While attributing global warming to humans is hardly a new conclusion, this study adds to…
A study of rocks in Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Syria provides powerful support for the theory that a major impact helped wipe out mammoths and other megafauna, and destroyed a major prehistoric culture. They’ve discovered melt-glass material dating back nearly 13,000 years, and formed at temperatures of 1,700 to 2,200 degrees Celsius. The new data…
It’s clear touch and emotion can be closely tied: The brush of a hand can provoke excitement, comfort or repulsion — all depending on who’s delivering the touch and when. But new research indicates the emotional connection shows up early as the brain processes a social touch. Using brain scans to monitor responses from heterosexual…
Better lithium ion batteries have led to an explosion in availability of plug-in passenger cars. And now, thanks to relatively cheap electricity and the simplicity of the electric drivetrain, electric vehicles have even more potential for use in the extremely cost-sensitive public transportation arena—a concept that is only just taking root. In particular, two projects…
Smooth wrinkles and sharply crumpled regions are familiar motifs in biological and synthetic sheets, such as plant leaves and crushed foils, say physicists Benny Davidovitch, Narayanan Menon and colleagues at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, but how a featureless sheet develops a complex shape has long remained elusive. Now, in a cover story of the…
“Prometheus,” the new movie from the director Ridley Scott, is a scientific and spiritual quest. The scientists in the movie think somebody or something else created us. Creationism? Yes, in a way, but creationism for geeks, of the sort that science fiction writers and scientists have long indulged in. It does not run counter to…
Researchers who were looking for organisms that eke out a living in some of the most inhospitable soils on Earth have found a hardy few. A new DNA analysis of rocky soils in the martian-like landscape on some volcanoes in South America has revealed a handful of bacteria, fungi, and other rudimentary organisms, called archaea,…
A climate time machine has been erected in Australia. The contraption, comprised of several nine-story-tall frames with pipes that pump carbon dioxide into the air surrounding a forest, is part of an experiment to measure the effect of carbon dioxide on real woodlands — and get a glimpse of the future. The four-acre project, called…
Neutrinos are most definitely not faster than light after all, says CERN. The laws of physics got the good news at the 25th International Conference on Neutrino Physics and Astrophysics in Kyoto, in a talk titled “The neutrino velocity measurement by OPERA experiment.” Slides accompanying the talk say the faster-than-light results generated in 2011 were…