Tag Archives: data

A Dual Look at Photosystem II Using the World’s Most Powerful X-Ray Laser

By Guest PostFebruary 27, 2013Sciencealgae, berkeley lab, carbon dioxide, catalytic activities, cryogenic temperatures, cyanobacteria, data, earth, energy, free electron laser, green plants, jan kern, junko yano, laser pulses, lcls, light source, linac coherent, living cells, manganese calcium, metal ion, metalloenzyme crystal, metalloenzymes, mn4ca, molecular oxygen, most powerful, natural photosynthesis, nicholas sauter, nitrogen fixation, oxidation states, photo reduction, photon step cycle, photon steps, photosystem, protein complex, proteins, radiation damage, roberto alonso mori, s1 to s4, sensitive to radiation, simulate solar photons, slac, software tools, sunlight, uwe bergmann, vital to life, vittal yachandra, water, water molecules, world, xes, xfel, xray beams, xray diffraction, xray emission spectroscopy, xray laser, xrd

Berkeley Lab and SLAC Researchers Demonstrate Room Temperature Simultaneous Diffraction/Spectroscopy of Metalloenzymes

From providing living cells with energy, to nitrogen fixation, to the splitting of water molecules, the catalytic activities of metalloenzymes – proteins that contain a metal ion – are vital to life on Earth. A better understanding of the chemistry behind these catalytic activities could pave the way for exciting new technologies, most prominently artificial photosynthesis systems that would provide clean, green and renewable energy. Now, researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory have taken a major step towards achieving this goal.

Using ultrafast, intensely bright pulses of X-rays from SLAC’s Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS), the world’s most powerful X-ray laser, the researchers were able to simultaneously image at room temperature the atomic and electronic structures of photosystem II, a metalloenzyme critical to photosynthesis. (more…)

European Satellite Confirms UW Numbers: Arctic Ocean is on Thin Ice

By Guest PostFebruary 20, 2013Environmentandy ridout, arctic ocean, Arctic sea ice, arctic waters, assimilation system, axel schweiger, below the ice, cloud, cryosat 2 satellite, data, duncan wingham, european satellite, european space agency, extent, ice ocean modeling, icesat, jinlun zhang, katharine giles, land elevation satellite, NASA, ocean surface, pan arctic, piomas, polar scientist, rosemary willatt, satellite observation, seymour laxon, thin ice, total volume, uk, university of washington, vulnerable, warming

The September 2012 record low in Arctic sea-ice extent was big news, but a missing piece of the puzzle was lurking below the ocean’s surface. What volume of ice floats on Arctic waters? And how does that compare to previous summers? These are difficult but important questions, because how much ice actually remains suggests how vulnerable the ice pack will be to more warming.

New satellite observations confirm a University of Washington analysis that for the past three years has produced widely quoted estimates of Arctic sea-ice volume. Findings based on observations from a European Space Agency satellite, published online in Geophysical Research Letters, show that the Arctic has lost more than a third of summer sea-ice volume since a decade ago, when a U.S. satellite collected similar data. (more…)

CryoSat-2 Mission Reveals Major Arctic Sea-Ice Loss

By Guest PostFebruary 18, 2013Environmentalfred wegener institute, aperture radar altimeter, Arctic, Arctic sea ice, assimilation system, autumn, canadian archipelago, cracks, cryosat 2 satellite, data, energy, european space agency, german aerospace center, greenland, high resolution, ice ocean modelling, ice thickness, icesat satellite, jet propulsion laboratory, katharine giles, microwave, modelling, NASA, pan arctic, piomas, polar observation, pulse, sea ice, seymour laxon, svalbard, synthetic, uk, university of washington, volume, york university

Arctic sea ice volume has declined by 36 per cent in the autumn and 9 per cent in the winter between 2003 and 2012, a UK-led team of scientists has discovered.

Researchers from the Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling at UCL used new data from the European Space Agency’s CryoSat-2 satellite spanning 2010 to 2012, and data from NASA’s ICESat satellite from 2003 to 2008 to estimate the volume of sea ice in the Arctic. (more…)

How the World’s Saltiest Pond gets its Salt

By Guest PostFebruary 15, 2013Environmentboston university, brown university, chloride bearing salts, closed basins, dark streaks, data, david marchant, dead sea, deliquescence, don juan pond, dry valleys, flowing water, frozen desert, geologists, groundwater, high salt content, jay dickson, jim head, joseph levy, mars, mcmurdo dry valleys, moisture, oregon state, permafrost layer, present day mars, red planet, relative humidity, salinity of antarctica, salt, saltiest pond, snow, soil, temperature, time lapse photography, water tracks, world

Jay Dickson and Jim Head have gathered time-lapse photography and other data about the sustained salinity of Antarctica’s Don Juan Pond, the most saline natural body of water on earth. Their findings, published online in Scientific Reports, suggest that such ponds could be possible on Mars.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Antarctica’s Don Juan Pond might be the unlikeliest body of water on Earth. Situated in the frigid McMurdo Dry Valleys, only the pond’s high salt content — by far the highest of any body of water on the planet — keeps it from freezing into oblivion. (more…)

Death and dying 2000-2009: Hospice Use Rises; So Does Aggressive Care

By Guest PostFebruary 14, 2013General, Healthadd-on, aggressive care, brown university, chronic, data, david goodman, death and dying, dying seniors, end of life, hospice use, icu utilization, joan teno, medical centers, obstructive pulmonary disease, pedro gozalo, physician culture, poor communication, regional differences, repeat hospitalizations, research team, susan miller, thomas scupp, trajectory

A study in the Journal of the American Medical Association documents an increase in hospice use over the last decade but also finds more ICU utilization, more repeat hospitalizations, and more late health care transitions. The data raises concern about whether aggressive care and burdensome transitions at the end of life are consistent with the wishes of patients or those of their family members.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — A study published Feb. 6 in the Journal of the American Medical Association finds that while more seniors are dying with hospice care than a decade ago, they are increasingly doing so for very few days right after being in intensive care. The story told by the data, said the study’s lead author, is that for many seniors palliative care happens only as an afterthought. (more…)

NASA Satellites Find Freshwater Losses in Middle East

By Guest PostFebruary 14, 2013Scienceamount of water, austin, basin, data, dead sea, drought, euphrates river, geosciences, german aerospace center, german research center, goddard, grace data, greenbelt, ground based data, hydrologic observations, hydrological modeling, international laws, iran, Iraq, irvine, jay famiglietti, lost freshwater reserves, matt rodell, middle east region, nasa satellites, pumping of groundwater, satellite data, space flight center, stakeholders, syria, tigris, turkey, underground reservoirs, united states, university of california, university of texas, water management

PASADENA, Calif. – A new study using data from a pair of gravity-measuring NASA satellites finds that large parts of the arid Middle East region lost freshwater reserves rapidly during the past decade.

Scientists at the University of California, Irvine; NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.; and the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., found during a seven-year period beginning in 2003 that parts of Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran along the Tigris and Euphrates river basins lost 117 million acre feet (144 cubic kilometers) of total stored freshwater. That is almost the amount of water in the Dead Sea. The researchers attribute about 60 percent of the loss to pumping of groundwater from underground reservoirs. (more…)

More Sex for Married Couples with Traditional Divisions of Housework

By Guest PostFebruary 7, 2013General, Health, Sexdata, divisions of housework, everyday life, gender identity, juan march institute, julie brines, katrina leupp, madrid, marital satisfaction, marriage, married couples, more sex, sabino kornrich, sex, sex and housework, sexual behavior, sexual frequency, traditional gender roles, traditional ways, types of chores, university of washington, us couples

Married men and women who divide household chores in traditional ways report having more sex than couples who share so-called men’s and women’s work, according to a new study co-authored by sociologists at the University of Washington.

Other studies have found that husbands got more sex if they did more housework, implying that sex was in exchange for housework. But those studies did not factor in what types of chores the husbands were doing. (more…)

Study: Alternate Walking and Running to Save Energy, Maintain Endurance

By Guest PostFebruary 4, 2013Healthalternate walking, best strategy, bus stop, calculation, conserve energy, data, exoskeletons, goal, human body, human energy costs, hypothesis, leroy long, less energy, maintain endurance, manoj srinivasan, marathon finish line, natural environment, notion, ohio state university, optimize energy, pam frost gorder, physical factor, prosthetic devices, running, save energy, transition region, treadmill

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Forget “slow and steady wins the race.” A new study shows that, at least sometimes, the best way to conserve energy and reach your destination on time is to alternate between walking and running—whether your goal is the bus stop or a marathon finish line.

In the January 30, 2013 issue of the Journal of the Royal Society Interface, researchers examined how people budget their time as they travel on foot to reach a destination at a particular appointed time. The study found that when people have neither too much time nor too little time to reach their destination, they naturally switch back and forth between walking and running, which turns out to be the best strategy for saving energy. (more…)