181 articles from MONDAY 8.11.2021

Earth’s first continents emerged from the ocean 700m years earlier than thought

Ancient rock forms suggest world’s first stable cratons rose above sea level more than 3bn years agoGet our free news app; get our morning email briefingThe Earth’s first continents rose out of the ocean 700m years earlier than previously thought, a new analysis of ancient rocks suggests.Researchers who have studied rock sediments in eastern India believe the discovery could explain an...

New study pinpoints likely path of COVID-related plastic waste in the ocean

Around the world, the COVID-19 pandemic has led to an increased demand for single-use plastics such as face masks, gloves, and face shields. The resulting waste, some of which ends up in rivers and oceans, is intensifying pressure on an already out-of-control global plastic problem. While many researchers suspect there will be a massive influx of COVID-related mismanaged plastic waste, a new study...

Why did glacial cycles intensify a million years ago? Researchers find clues on the bed of the Atlantic Ocean

Something big happened to the planet about a million years ago. There was a major shift in the response of Earth's climate system to variations in our orbit around the Sun. The shift is called the Mid-Pleistocene Transition. Before the MPT, cycles between glacial (colder) and interglacial (warmer) periods happened every 41,000 years. After the MPT, glacial periods became more intense—intense...

Warming temperatures increasingly alter structure of atmosphere

Climate change is having an increasing impact on the structure of Earth's atmosphere, a new international study shows. The research draws on decades of observations to quantify that warming temperatures are playing a greater role in pushing up the top of the lowest level of the atmosphere by about 50-60 meters per decade.

Stem cells do not (only) play dice

In just a few weeks a completely new organism develops from a fertilized egg cell. The real miracle is that a bunch of identical stem cells turns into completely different, specialized cell types. A team has now been able to show that the specialization of individual cells during embryonic development is not, as previously assumed, exclusively left to chance but is rather determined by cell...

Air pollution disproportionally affects people of color, lower-income residents in DC

The rates of death and health burdens associated with air pollution are borne unequally and inequitably by people of color and those with lower household income and educational attainment in Washington, D.C., according to a new study. The study found that while deaths and health burdens associated with PM2.5 halved between 2000 and 2018 in the D.C. area, disparities and geographical segregations...

How win-win narratives stand in the way of effective progress

The success of a global circular economy is critically dependent on effective cooperation between influential countries. A joint Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on circular economy, signed by China and the EU in 2018, attracted high hopes—and corresponding optimistic narratives. A research team led by Anran Luo from the Chair of Social Transformation and Circular Economy at the Institute of...

Peter Pharoah obituary

My father, Peter Pharoah, who has died aged 87 from dementia, was a professor of public health whose work eradicated iodine deficiency in Papua New Guinea and furthered understanding of the causes of cerebral palsy and perinatal death.Peter was son of two teachers, Phyllis (nee Gahan) and Oswald Pharoah. Born in Ranchi, India, he attended schools in Lovedale and Sanawar. After the death of his...

Air-scrubbing machines gain momentum, but long way to go

On a field ringed by rolling green hills in Iceland, fans attached to metal structures that look like an industrial-sized Lego project are spinning. Their mission is to scrub the atmosphere by sucking carbon dioxide from the air and storing it safely underground.

New insights into the structure of the neutron

All known atomic nuclei and therefore almost all visible matter consists of protons and neutrons, yet many of the properties of these omnipresent natural building blocks remain unknown. As an uncharged particle, the neutron in particular resists many types of measurement and 90 years after its discovery there are still many unanswered questions regarding its size and lifetime, among other things....

Bracewell Nulling Interferometry Enables Astronomers to See the Glow of Alien Stardust

PROJECT Large Binocular Telescope Interferometer (LBTI) SNAPSHOT The search for and characterization of extra-solar planets (‘exoplanets’) that might host life is one of NASA’s highest ambitions. But observing exoplanets and distinguishing them from the scattered light coming from the stars that they orbit is a difficult challenge. Nulling interferometry is a method by which...

Key witness helps scientists detect 'spooky' quantum entanglement in solid materials

Quantum entanglement occurs when two particles appear to communicate without a physical connection, a phenomenon Albert Einstein famously called "spooky action at a distance." Nearly 90 years later, a team led by the U.S. Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory demonstrated the viability of a "quantum entanglement witness" capable of proving the presence of entanglement between...

Weak coupling shows flaw in strange metal model

Planckian metals have the potential to power high-temperature superconductors, quantum computers and a host of other next-generation technologies. However, these "strange" metals—in which electrical resistance increases linearly with temperature—are notoriously difficult to study, let alone comprehend.