Tag Archives: world

UMD-led Study Indicates India Is Replacing China as World’s Top Source of Sulfur Dioxide Air Pollution

COLLEGE PARK, Md.  – A new University of Maryland-led study finds that China’s sulfur dioxide emissions have fallen by 75 percent since 2007, while India’s emissions increased by 50 percent. The results suggest that India is becoming, if it is not already, the world’s top emitter of sulfur dioxide, an air pollutant that causes acid rain, haze and many health-related problems. It is produced predominantly when coal is burned to generate electricity. (more…)

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Questions for Jim Kellner: Measuring the height of the world’s forests

If we know the height of the world’s forests, then we can estimate how much carbon they store. That will improve our understanding of how forests interact with the atmosphere and their role in mitigating climate change. To make those measurements, a collaboration including Brown University ecologist Jim Kellner is putting a sophisticated laser scanner on the International Space Station in 2019. (more…)

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Researchers Create World’s Largest DNA Origami

Researchers from North Carolina State University, Duke University and the University of Copenhagen have created the world’s largest DNA origami, which are nanoscale constructions with applications ranging from biomedical research to nanoelectronics.

“These origami can be customized for use in everything from studying cell behavior to creating templates for the nanofabrication of electronic components,” says Dr. Thom LaBean, an associate professor of materials science and engineering at NC State and senior author of a paper describing the work. (more…)

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Brain of World’s First Known Predators Discovered

Scientists have found the fossilized remains of the brain of the world’s earliest known predators, from a time when life teemed in the oceans but had not yet colonized the land.

An international team of paleontologists has identified the exquisitely preserved brain in the fossil of one of the world’s first known predators that lived in the Lower Cambrian, about 520 million years ago. The discovery revealed a brain that is surprisingly simple and less complex than those known from fossils of some of the animal’s prey. (more…)

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Engineers Build World’s Smallest, Fastest Nanomotor

AUSTIN, Texas — Researchers at the Cockrell School of Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin have built the smallest, fastest and longest-running tiny synthetic motor to date. The team’s nanomotor is an important step toward developing miniature machines that could one day move through the body to administer insulin for diabetics when needed, or target and treat cancer cells without harming good cells. (more…)

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New Study Finds Extreme Longevity in White Sharks

Great white sharks—top predators throughout the world’s ocean—grow much slower and live significantly longer than previously thought, according to a new study led by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI).

In the first successful radiocarbon age validation study for adult white sharks, researchers analyzed vertebrae from four females and four males from the northwestern Atlantic Ocean. Age estimates were up to 73 years old for the largest male and 40 years old for the largest female. (more…)

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Scientists “Burst” Supercomputing Record with Bubble Collapse Simulation; Could Lead to Advances in Healthcare and Industrial Technology

– 15,000 bubbles are simulated using IBM BlueGene/Q “Sequoia” at 14.4 Petaflop of sustained performance, a 150-fold improvement over current state-of-the-art
– Destructive capabilities of collapsing bubbles are increasingly being studied in areas ranging from treating kidney stones and cancer to high pressure fuel injectors
– Research team named as a Finalist for the 2013 Gordon Bell Prize (more…)

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