'Atomic Armor' for accelerators enables discoveries

Protective coatings are common for many things in daily life that see a lot of use. We coat wood floors with finish; apply Teflon to the paint on cars; even use diamond coatings on medical devices. Protective coatings are ...

Is Vesuvius taking an extended siesta?

Located near Naples, Italy, Vesuvius last had a violent eruption in 1944, towards the end of the Second World War. It could be a few hundred years before another dangerous, explosive eruption occurs, finds a new study by ...

Researchers find that iodine in desert dust destroys ozone

When winds loft fine desert dust high into the atmosphere, iodine in that dust can trigger chemical reactions that destroy some air pollution, but also let greenhouse gases stick around longer. The finding, published today ...

Opening a 50-year-old Christmas present from the moon

A pretty special gift unwrapping will soon take place—a piercing tool built by ESA will open a moon soil container from Apollo 17 that has gone untouched for nearly 50 years. The opening will allow the extraction of precious ...

Climate cycles create California precipitation uncertainty

Over the past 40 years, winters in California have become drier. This is a problem for the region's agricultural operations, as farmers rely on winter precipitation to irrigate their crops. Determining if California will ...

Growing carbon footprint for plastics

Plastics are useful, cheap and extremely popular. Global demand has quadrupled in the last forty years and is expected to continue to rise, with correspondingly negative consequences for the environment and human health. ...

'Mantle wind' blows through slab window beneath Panama

Volcanic gasses are helping researchers track large-scale movements in Earth's deep interior. Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) scientists, together with a group of international collaborators, have discovered anomalous ...

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