The decomposition of plant, animal and microbial material in soil and water produces a variety of complex organic molecules, collectively called natural organic matter. These compounds play many important roles in the environment.
Small insects that inhabit some of the most remote parts of the United States are sending a strong message about climate change. New research suggests that changes in midge communities in some of these areas provide additional evidence that the globe is indeed getting warmer. Researchers created a history of changing midge communities for six remote mountain lakes in the western United States.
Are you one of those people who never forgets a face? New research from Vanderbilt University suggests that we can remember more faces than other objects and that faces “stick” the best in our short-term memory. The reason may be that our expertise in remembering faces allows us to package them better for memory.
Scientists at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have again broken their own speed record for the world’s fastest transistor. With a frequency of 845 gigahertz, their latest device is approximately 300 gigahertz faster than transistors built by other research groups, and approaches the goal of a terahertz device.
New instrumentation and observing techniques, being developed by researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, are helping scientists better understand and predict space weather.
Ohio State University researchers have demonstrated that a satellite radar system can be used to gauge water levels in vegetated wetlands. C.K. Shum, professor of earth sciences at Ohio State, and his colleagues hope to develop the technique to aid studies of wetland hydrology — including the role that wetlands play in quelling storm surges caused by large hurricanes.
Despite growing public alarm over the shrinking Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, it is small glaciers and ice caps that have been contributing the most to rising sea levels in recent years, according to a new University of Colorado at Boulder study.
In the first test of a new radar instrument, scientists have seen through more than a mile of Greenland ice to reveal an image of land that has been hidden for millions of years. Ohio State University scientists and their colleagues will use what they learn from the instrument, dubbed GISMO (for Global Ice Sheet Mapping Orbiter), to determine how global climate change will affect the ice.
Researchers at the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center reported today that MK-0457 (VX-680), a novel multi-kinase inhibitor, is clinically active against multiple target mutations in two types of leukemia and myeloproliferative disorders, and produces few side effects for patients.
A new study suggests that a program focusing on increasing step length and speed is more effective at improving mobility and balance than tai chi. While tai chi — a Chinese martial art form consisting of slow, rotational movements and weight-shifting — offers many benefits, the researchers say, they’re not as great as those produced by a balance-training program.