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Ancient Alteration of Seawater Chemistry Linked With Past Climate Change

Dissolution or creation of huge gypsum deposits changed sulfate content of the oceans

Scientists have discovered a potential cause of Earth’s “icehouse climate” cooling trend of the past 45 million years. It has everything to do with the chemistry of the world’s oceans.

“Seawater chemistry is characterized by long phases of stability, which are interrupted by short intervals of rapid change,” says geoscientist Ulrich Wortmann of the University of Toronto, lead author of a paper reporting the results and published this week in the journal Science.

“We’ve established a new framework that helps us better interpret evolutionary trends and climate change over long periods of time. The study focuses on the past 130 million years, but similar interactions have likely occurred through the past 500 million years.” (more…)

Science Xplained: How Physics Serves Tennis

A little physics goes a long way on the tennis court. In this edition of Science Xplained, Dr. Ainissa Ramirez discusses tennis racket technology–from wood and cow intestines to carbon fiber and nylon — and the principles behind topspin. (more…)

Meet a Face Behind the MIRI

This summer welcomed the delivery of the James Webb Space Telescope’s first flight instrument, the Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI). The instrument will peer out into the farthest depths of the cosmos and capture light showcasing star and galaxy formation.

MIRI’s design, assembly and journey were made possible because of a collaboration between a European consortium of institutes that developed the instrument in a partnership with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., working with the European Space Agency, University of Arizona and NASA. (more…)

Greenland Glacier Loses Ice

Greenland glacier loses ice island twice the size of Manhattan

An ice island twice the size of Manhattan has broken off from Greenland’s Petermann Glacier, according to researchers at the University of Delaware and the Canadian Ice Service. The Petermann Glacier is one of the two largest glaciers left in Greenland connecting the great Greenland ice sheet with the ocean via a floating ice shelf.

Andreas Muenchow, associate professor of physical ocean science and engineering in UD’s College of Earth, Ocean, and Environment, reports the calving on July 16, 2012, in his “Icy Seas” blog. Muenchow credits Trudy Wohleben of the Canadian Ice Service for first noticing the fracture. (more…)

IBM Helps Altyntau Resources Find Gold in Kazakhstan

Kazakh Gold Producer to Improve Gold Yield with IBM Business Analytics

Armonk, N.Y. – 20 Jul 2012: IBM has announced that it is working with JSC Altyntau Resources, a leading gold producer in Kazakhstan, to provide a new business analytics system to help the company to improve gold yields and increase the profitability of its operations.

The new system will enable the gold producer to centralize and quickly analyze data about its mining operations. It includes a dashboard of important information enabling the company’s management team to make informed decisions about which ore to mine and which extraction processes to use to achieve the best return on investment. Once the project is complete, JSC Altyntau Resources will be able to speed up its annual financial planning cycle from two months to two weeks and ensure that investors are kept informed on the company’s operations and forecasts. (more…)

Gold Nanoparticles Could Treat Prostate Cancer With Fewer Side Effects than Chemotherapy, MU Researchers Find

In new study published in PNAS, scientists found that nanoparticles, produced from chemicals in tea, reduced tumors by 80 percent

COLUMBIA, Mo. – Currently, large doses of chemotherapy are required when treating certain forms of cancer, resulting in toxic side effects. The chemicals enter the body and work to destroy or shrink the tumor, but also harm vital organs and drastically affect bodily functions. Now, University of Missouri scientists have found a more efficient way of targeting prostate tumors by using gold nanoparticles and a compound found in tea leaves. This new treatment would require doses that are thousands of times smaller than chemotherapy and do not travel through the body inflicting damage to healthy areas. The study is being published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. (more…)

Astronomers Using the Hubble Space Telescope Report the Earliest Spiral Galaxy Ever Seen

Astronomers have witnessed for the first time a spiral galaxy in the early universe, billions of years before many other spiral galaxies formed. In findings reported July 19 in the journal Nature, the astronomers said they discovered it while using the Hubble Space Telescope to take pictures of about 300 very distant galaxies in the early universe and to study their properties. This distant spiral galaxy is being observed as it existed roughly three billion years after the Big Bang, and light from this part of the universe has been traveling to Earth for about 10.7 billion years.

“As you go back in time to the early universe, galaxies look really strange, clumpy and irregular, not symmetric,” said Alice Shapley, a UCLA associate professor of physics and astronomy, and co-author of the study. “The vast majority of old galaxies look like train wrecks. Our first thought was, why is this one so different, and so beautiful?” (more…)

Asians Reluctant to Seek Help for Domestic Violence

EAST LANSING, Mich. — Asian-American victims of domestic violence rarely seek help from police or health care providers – “an alarming trend” among the fastest-growing racial group in the United States, says a Michigan State University researcher.

While cultural barriers can discourage victims from seeking help, there also is a lack of culturally sensitive services available to them, said Hyunkag Cho, assistant professor of social work.

That can be as simple as a local domestic violence hotline that cannot facilitate calls from Chinese- or Korean-speaking victims due to language barriers. And failing to get help the first time, Cho said, may prevent a victim from trying again. (more…)