New research from the University of Rochester provides evidence that the magnetic field that first formed around Earth was even stronger than scientists previously believed. The research, published in the journal PNAS, will help scientists draw conclusions about the sustainability of Earth’s magnetic shield and whether or not there are other planets in the solar system with the conditions necessary to…
Tag: PNAS
Ocean Plastic Waste Probably Comes From Ships, Report Says
Most of the plastic bottles washing up on the rocky shores of Inaccessible Island, aptly named for its sheer cliffs rising from the middle of the South Atlantic, probably come from Chinese merchant ships, a study published this week said. From a report: The study offers fresh evidence that the vast garbage patches floating in the middle of oceans, which have…
Observations of Rydberg exciton polaritons and their condensate in a perovskite cavity
In quantum physics, Rydberg excitons with high principal value can exhibit strong dipole-dipole interactions. However, polaritons (quasiparticles) with an excitonic constituent in an excited state, known as Rydberg exciton polaritons (REPs) remain to be experimentally observed. In a recent study now published on the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS). Wei Bao and…
Scientists Discover New Chemistry That May Help Explain Origins of Cellular Life
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Phys.Org: Before life began on Earth, the environment likely contained a massive number of chemicals that reacted with each other more or less randomly, and it is unclear how the complexity of cells could have emerged from such chemical chaos. Now, a team led by Tony Z. Jia at the Tokyo Institute of Technology…
Evolutionary Gene Loss May Help Explain Why Only Humans Are Prone To Heart Attack
An anonymous reader quotes a report from ScienceDaily: A decade ago, Nissi Varki, MD, professor of pathology at UC San Diego School of Medicine, with co-author Ajit Varki, MD, Distinguished Professor Of Medicine and Cellular And Molecular Medicine, and colleagues noted that naturally occurring coronary heart attacks due to atherosclerosis are virtually non-existent in other mammals, including closely related chimpanzees in…
Boaty McBoatface Makes Significant Climate Change Discovery on First Mission
The British research submarine Boaty McBoatface has made an impressive debut in the scientific arena, discovering a significant link between Antarctic winds and rising sea temperatures on its maiden outing. From a report: The unmanned submarine, whose moniker won a landslide victory in a public poll to name a $300 million British polar research ship, undertook its inaugural mission in April…
Researchers Propose Solar Methanol Island Using Ocean CO2
A PNAS paper published this week outlines a plan to establish 70 islands of solar panels, each 328 feet in diameter, that sends electricity to a hard-hulled ship that acts as an oceanic factory. “This factory uses desalinization and electrolysis equipment to extract hydrogen gas (H2) and carbon dioxide (CO2) from the surrounding ocean water,” reports Ars Technica. “It then uses…
Unfathomably deep oceans on alien water worlds?
Distant water exoplanets might have oceans thousands of miles deep. That’s in contrast to Earth’s ocean, which is about 6.8 miles (about 11 km) deep at its deepest point. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/exoplanet-water-worlds-deep-oceans-2019-study…