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Rare Earth Elements in U.S. Not So Rare

*Significant Deposits Found in 14 States*

Rare Earth Elements. Image credit: USGS

Approximately 13 million metric tons of rare earth elements (REE) exist within known deposits in the United States, according to the first-ever nationwide estimate of these elements by the U.S. Geological Survey.

This estimate of domestic rare earth deposits is part of a larger report that includes a review of global sources for REE, information on known deposits that might provide domestic sources of REE in the future, and geologic information crucial for studies of the availability of REE to U.S. industry.

The report describes significant deposits of REE in 14 states, with the largest known REE deposits at Mountain Pass, Calif.; Bokan Mountain, Alaska; and the Bear Lodge Mountains, Wyo. The Mountain Pass mine produced REE until it closed in 2002. Additional states with known REE deposits include Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Missouri, Nebraska, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, and South Carolina. (more…)

Tropical Forest Diversity Increased During Ancient Global Warming Event

Environment, Nature, Science

The steamiest places on the planet are getting warmer. Conservative estimates suggest that tropical areas can expect temperature increases of 3 degrees Celsius by the end of this century. Does global warming spell doom for rainforests? Maybe not. Carlos Jaramillo, staff scientist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, and colleagues report in the journal Science that nearly 60 million years ago rainforests prospered at temperatures that were 3-5 degrees higher and at atmospheric carbon dioxide levels 2.5 times today’s levels.

About the image: This is a scanning electron microscopy image of characteristic angiosperm pollen taxa from the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum. Image credit: Francy Carvajal, Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (more…)

Microsoft Lync 2010: The Future of Communications, Right Now

Technology

*Microsoft Lync puts people at the center of communications, connecting in new ways, across the PC, phone and browser.*

REDMOND, Wash. — Nov. 17, 2010 — Three years ago, the introduction of Microsoft Office Communications Server (OCS) changed the way people stay connected. An individual’s identity and presence became the center of business communication, thanks to the integration of unified communications across e-mail, voice, instant messaging, audio- and videoconference tasks — and even desktop sharing. People could choose how to manage their conversations, redirect calls, set their level of availability, and decide how and when they could be reached. (more…)

IBM Sets Benchmark Record for x86-64 Transaction Processing, Bests HP by 27%

Technology

ARMONK, N.Y. – 18 Nov 2010: IBM said today it scored the highest TPC-C benchmark performance result ever achieved by an x86-64 processor-based server. The IBM System x3850 X5 server handled 2,308,099 tpmC (transactions per minute C) at price/performance of $.64 USD / tpmC. (1)

Running on the latest Intel® Xeon® 7500 Series processor, and equipped with IBM’s MAX5 technology, the System x3850 X5 showed a 27% performance boost over HP’s result of 1,807,347 tpmC.(2)

The new result demonstrates the leadership performance that is possible with MAX5, an industry-first technology that decouples memory from the processor allowing memory to be expanded independently of the processor to increase the productivity of a single system. By increasing the memory capacity of the x3850 X5 by 50%, MAX5 allows the system to process more transactions per minute. (more…)

Social Costs of School Success are Highest for Blacks, U-M Study Shows

Culture

ANN ARBOR, Mich.— African American and Native American teens who do well in school suffer from a higher “nerd penalty” than white, Asian, and Hispanic youth, according to a new analysis. (more…)

More Than 100 Million Mobile Consumers in EU5 Received SMS Advertising

Technology

*Smartphone Adoption Shifts Dynamics of Mobile Marketing Toward Web/App Ads*

LONDON, UK, 17 November, 2010 – comScore, Inc., a leader in measuring the digital world, today released data from its comScore MobiLens service showing that mobile marketing in the EU5 countries UK, France, Germany, Spain and Italy reached 100 million mobile phone subscribers via SMS ads. Conversely, more than 57 million subscribers recalled seeing an ad on their mobile phone when browsing the internet or accessing an application. Smartphone owners accounted for more than half of the subscribers who received and recalled seeing Web/App ads. (more…)

Change in Temperature Uncovers Genetic Cross Talk in Plant Immunity

Nature, Science

*University of Missouri investigators’ discovery sheds light on how plants fight off bacterial infections*

Columbia, MO — Like us, plants rely on an immune system to fight off disease. Proteins that scout out malicious bacterial invaders in the cell and communicate their presence to the nucleus are important weapons in the plant’s disease resistance strategy. Researchers at the University of Missouri recently “tapped” into two proteins’ communications with the nucleus and discovered a previously unknown level of cross talk. The discovery adds important new information about how plant proteins mediate resistance to bacteria that cause disease and may ultimately lead to novel strategies for boosting a plant’s immune system.

Special proteins in the plant, called resistance proteins, can recognize highly specific features of proteins from pathogen, called effector proteins. When a pathogen is detected, a resistance protein triggers an “alarm” that communicates the danger to the cell’s nucleus. The communication between the resistance protein and nucleus occurs through a mechanism called a signaling pathway. (more…)

‘Novel Ocean-Crust Mechanism Could Affect World’s Carbon Budget’

Environment, Science

The Earth is constantly manufacturing new crust, spewing molten magma up along undersea ridges at the boundaries of tectonic plates. The process is critical to the planet’s metabolism, including the cycle of underwater life and the delicate balance of carbon in the ocean and atmosphere.

Now, scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) have observed ocean crust forming in an entirely unexpected way—one that may influence those cycles of life and carbon and, in turn, affect the much-discussed future of the world’s climate.

Working at the Guaymas basin in the Gulf of California, WHOI scientists confirmed what they suspected from brief glimpses of the area during previous missions: The inner Earth is injecting swaths of magma called sills as far as 50 kilometers away from the plate boundary, on each side of the ridge —nearly 10 times farther from such an active ocean ridge than had been observed before. (more…)