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New Understanding of Earth’s Mantle Beneath The Pacific Ocean

By Guest PostMarch 24, 2012Scienceasthenosphere, boundary, carnegie, crust, earth, evolution, factors, gutenberg discontinuity, lab, lithosphere, lithosphere asthenosphere boundary, mineral, molten rock, nick schmerr, pacific ocean basin, planet, plate tectonics

Washington, D.C. — Scientists have long speculated about why there is a large change in the strength of rocks that lie at the boundary between two layers immediately under Earth’s crust: the lithosphere and underlying asthenosphere. Understanding this boundary is central to our knowledge of plate tectonics and thus the formation and evolution of our planet as we know it today. A new technique for observing this transition, particularly in the portion of Earth’s mantle that lies beneath the Pacific Ocean basin, has led Carnegie and NASA Goddard scientist Nick Schmerr to new insight on the origins of the lithosphere and asthenosphere. His work is published March 23 in Science.

The lithosphere-asthenosphere boundary, or LAB, represents the transition from hot, convecting mantle asthenosphere to overlying cold and rigid lithosphere. The oceanic lithosphere thickens as it cools over time, and eventually sinks back into the mantle at Earth’s so-called subduction zones. (more…)

Study of Patagonian Glacier’s Rise and Fall Adds to Understanding of Global Climate Change

By Guest PostMarch 24, 2012Environment17th century, andes, antonio de vea, chilean glacier, climate, climate change, climate system, earth, fernando torrejon, fluctuation, glacial environment, glacial melt, glacier, glacier fluctuation, glaciomarine sediment, global temperature, golfo elefantes, gualas glacier, holocene glacier, icebreaker, marine environment, nathaniel b palmer, neoglacial fluctuation, northern patagonian icefield, past temperature, patagonia, patagonias fjords, rainfall data, san rafael, sebastien bertrand, sediment record, spanish explorers, university of ghent, voyages, whoi

Glaciers play a vital role in Earth’s climate system, and it’s critical to understand what contributes to their fluctuation.

Increased global temperatures are frequently viewed as the cause of glacial melt, but a new study of Patagonia’s Gualas Glacier highlights the role of precipitation in the glacier’s fluctuation. The study, conducted by Sébastien Bertrand of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and his colleagues, reconstructs a 5,400 year-record of the region’s glacial environment and climate, comparing past temperature and rainfall data with sediment records of glacier fluctuations and the historical observations of early Spanish explorers. (more…)

Graphene and DNA

By Guest PostMarch 24, 2012Scienceatom, branislav nikolic, carbon atom, cees dekker, device concept, dna detection, dna sequencing, electron beam, electronic current, genetic sequencing, grapheme, graphite, honeycomb pattern, jene golovchenko, kamal saha, marija drndic, nanodevice, nanopores, nanoribbon, nobel prize, quantum, university of delaware, university of pennsylvania, wonder material

‘Wonder material’ may hold key to fast, inexpensive genetic sequencing

Look at the tip of that old pencil in your desk drawer, and what you’ll see are layers of graphite that are thousands of atoms thick. Use the pencil to draw a line on a piece of paper, and the mark you’ll see on the page is made up of hundreds of one-atom layers.

But when scientists found a way—using, essentially, a piece of ordinary sticky tape—to peel off a layer of graphite that was just a single atom thick, they called the two-dimensional material graphene and, in 2010, won the Nobel Prize in physics for the discovery. (more…)

IBM Strengthens Presence in India with New Office in Ludhiana, Punjab

By Guest PostMarch 23, 2012Technologybranch office, capital chandigarh, great mind challenge, guwahati, ibm, India, jugdiep singh, largest technical contest, leaf, ludhiana, punjab, sps apollo hospital, territory executive, vivek malhotra

LUDHIANA, India – 23 Mar 2012: IBM today announced the opening of a new branch office in Ludhiana, Punjab as part of the company’s continued geographic expansion across India.

The Ludhiana branch is IBM’s seventh new office to be opened in India in the past 12 months after those in Coimbatore, Indore, Guwahati, Dehradun, Raipur and Visakhapatnam. IBM is currently focused on increasing its presence in smaller, rapidly developing cities as India’s regions play an increasingly important part in the country’s economic growth. (more…)

March Multi-Screen Madness: Smartphones and Tablets Drive 20 Percent of Web Traffic for First Round Games of NCAA Tournament

By Guest PostMarch 23, 2012Technology2012, Comscore, comscore device essentials, debbie bradley, media format, mobile device, ncaa tournament, olympics, on the go, sports content, super bowl, tournament game, web usage

*Sports Category Traffic Jumps 79 Percent on First Day of Tournament, with Smartphone and Tablet Growth Outpacing the Average*

RESTON, VA, March 23, 2012 – comScore, Inc., a leader in measuring the digital world, today released the results of a study of web usage related to the 2012 NCAA Tournament based on data from comScore Device Essentials™. The study, which analyzed browser-based (i.e. non-app) page views to the Sports content category, showed that consumers dramatically increased their access of Sports content across all three primary screens for web access – computer, tablet and smartphone – as they tried to stay plugged into the first 32 games of the tournament in real-time. (more…)

Web Tool, Phone App Pinpoint Tsunami Dangers, Quick Getaway Routes

By Guest PostMarch 23, 2012Environment, Technologyalaska, android, cascadia subduction zone, flood, iTunes, jan newton, Japan, jonathan allan, magnitude, megathrust earthquake, mynanoos, oregon, oregon coasts, pacific northwest, phone application, quake, smartphone app, tohoku, tool, tribal oral histories, tsunami, tsunami inundation, tsunami warning center, tsunami warnings, tsunamievac n, Washington, west coast, zones

A new online portal and smartphone app lets Washington and Oregon residents enter the addresses of their homes, schools, workplaces or kids’ day care centers to check if they’re in harm’s way should a tsunami hit.

Materials available via the tool or phone application can be used to map out evacuation routes for you, your family, employees or students so everyone is ready when danger arises. There’s a way to create a free account so users can map and save multiple locations and evacuation routes in one place. (more…)

‘Runner’s High’ Played a Role in Human Evolution

By Guest PostMarch 23, 2012Scienceadam foster, aerobic activity, aerobic exercise, alexandre seillier, andrea giuffrida, anthropologist, athletes, cannabis, david raichlen, dog, endocannabinoids, gregory gerdeman, human, neurotransmitters, obesity, reward centers, runner, university of texas

Aerobic exercise triggers a reward system in the body of long-distance running creatures like humans and dogs, but not ferrets, a study led by UA anthropologist David Raichlen suggests.

In the last century, something unexpected happened: Humans became sedentary. We traded in our active lifestyles for a more immobile existence.

But these were not the conditions under which we evolved – our hunter-gatherer predecessors were long-distance endurance athletes. (more…)

Recovery Continues for U.S. Economy, Adding 5 Million Jobs

By Guest PostMarch 23, 2012Economyamerica, bernie degroat, daniil manaenkov, Economy, gross domestic product, Japan, joan crary, job, matthew hall, unemployment, university of michigan

ANN ARBOR, Mich.— America’s economy will continue its recovery this year and next as it adds nearly 5 million jobs and unemployment falls below 8 percent, say University of Michigan economists.

“The performance of the U.S. economy during much of 2011 did nothing to alter the perception that we were mired in a sluggish recovery,” said U-M economist Joan Crary. (more…)

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