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Warmer water is flowing toward the East Antarctic ice sheet, according to our alarming new research that reveals new potential drivers of global sea level rise. Author Laura Herraiz Borreguero Physical oceanographer, CSIRO Alberto Naveira Garabato Professor, National Center for Oceanography, University of Southampton Jess Melbourne-Thomas Transdisciplinary Researcher & Knowledge Broker, CSIRO The research, published today in Nature Climate Change, suggests changes in water circulation in the Southern Ocean could jeopardize the stability of the East Antarctic ice sheet. The ice sheet, the size of the United States, is the largest in the world. Changes in water circulation are caused by shifting wind patterns, and are linked to factors including climate change. Warmer waters and rising sea levels can damage marine life and threaten human coastal settlements. Our findings underscore the urgency of limiting global warming to below 1.5℃, to prevent the most catastrophic

Credit: Curtin University A new study from Curtin University has found that water was transported much deeper in the early Earth than previously thought, explaining how the continents originally formed. Studies published in Earth and Planetary Science Letter answers a long-standing question about Earth’s early water cycle. Principal investigator Dr. Michael Hartnady, of the Curtin School of Earth and Planetary Sciences, says how water is stored and transported through the Earth’s crust affects everything from where volcanoes and mineral deposits form to where earthquakes occur. “Although we understand the modern deep water cycle, we know very little about how it worked when Earth was a very young planet,” said Dr. Hartnady. “Some geological evidence suggests that water was transported to great depths on Earth all the way back to 3.5 billion years ago, although it is not well understood how exactly it got there.” The researchers used ad

Attosecond laboratory view: A vacuum chamber, inside of which is a cluster of water ionized by laser pulses, seen on the left. Credit: ETH Zurich / HJ Wörner Almost all important chemical processes occur in aqueous solutions. In such processes, a decisive role is played by electrons that are exchanged between different atoms and molecules and thereby, for example, creating or breaking chemical bonds. However, the details of how that happens are difficult to investigate because the electrons are moving so fast. Researchers at ETH Zurich led by Hans Jakob Wörner, professor of physical chemistry, in collaboration with colleagues at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (USA) have now succeeded in studying electron dynamics in clusters made of water molecules with a time resolution of just a few attoseconds. Their results recently appeared as follow-up publications in scientific journals Natural . Delay in ionization In their experim

MIT engineers designed a new surface treatment that makes boiling water more efficient. New surface treatments can save energy for systems used in many industries. At the heart of many industrial processes, including most power plants, many chemical production systems, and even cooling systems for electronics, is the energy-intensive step of boiling water or other liquids. They can significantly reduce their energy use by increasing the efficiency of the systems that heat and evaporate the water. MIT MIT stands for Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It is a prestigious private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts that was founded in 1861. It is organized into five Schools: architecture and planning; manipulation; humanities, arts, and social sciences; management; and science. MIT’s impact includes many scientific breakthroughs and technological advances. Their stated goal is to make a better world through education, research, and innovation. ” data-gt-translate-at

Water boils a lot – whether it’s a cup of tea brewed in the kitchen or a power station that generates electricity. Any increase in the efficiency of this process will have a major impact on the overall amount of energy used for it each day. One such improvement could come with newly developed treatments for surfaces involved in heating and evaporating water. The treatment improves the two main parameters that determine the boiling process: heat transfer coefficient (HTC) and critical heat flux (CHF). Most of the time, there is a trade-off between the two – when one improves, the other worsens. After years of investigation, the research term behind this technique has found a way to improve both. “Both parameters are important, but raising the two parameters together is a bit tricky because they have an intrinsic trade-off,” said bioinformatics scientist Youngsup Song of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California. “If we have a lot of bubbles on the boiling surface, that

Tiny blobs of jelly spin perfect circles in the water – their movement produces a force that attracts their neighbors. When enough of them come together, this synchronized dance aligns them into a precise six-sided, regular, repeating pattern, much like the carbon atoms in graphene’s crystal structure. But these are not atoms or any kind of inanimate object governed solely by the forces of physics – they are living, self-propelled, embryonic starfish ( patiria miniata ). The spinning starfish embryos gather into living crystals. (Tan et al., Natural 2022) “We know we have crystals of many materials, but we have never really linked crystal formation to actually living components,” said MIT physicist Nikta Fakhri. Natural . “This is a truly extraordinary phenomenon that has never been reported before.” Fakhri, MIT physicist Tzer Han Tan and colleagues studied active matter — a system in which each individual component (such as a bird in a flock, or a cell in a drop of water) uses energ

The key to the new surface treatment is to add texture at several different size scales. The electron microscope image shows millimeter-scale pillars and dents (first two images), whose surface is covered with tiny nanometer-scale protrusions (bottom two images) to increase the efficiency of the boiling reaction. Credit: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Boiling water or other liquids is an energy-intensive step at the heart of many industrial processes, including most power plants, many chemical production systems, and even cooling systems for electronics. Increasing the efficiency of a system that heats and evaporates water can significantly reduce its energy use. Now, researchers at MIT have found a way to do just that, with surface treatments specifically designed for the materials used in the system. The increase in efficiency comes from the combination of three different types of surface modification, at different size scale

View bigger. | Artist’s concept showing what some of the habitable water worlds in our Milky Way galaxy might look like. A new study shows they don’t need to all look the same. Notice the Earth on the far right. Image via NASA/Wikimedia Commons. Earthly life requires water. So scientists contemplating life outside our solar system have traditionally thought of watery exoplanets, similar to our own aquatic world. An exoplanet that is similar to Earth – in terms of atmosphere, distance to stars, mass, etc. – suggests a possible habitable world. But scientists said in late June 2022 that long-term liquid water would not have occurs under conditions similar to Earth. Exoplanets can be a little bigger and may not even be located near a star! The new study comes from researchers at the University of Bern, the University of Zürich and PlanetS’s National Center for Competence in Research (NCCR). This suggests that several different exoplanets from Earth may be able to retain liquid

Graphical representation of phase transitions. Credit: Koen Pieterse In Science TU/e researchers have published their study of new phase transitions of solutions and gels in water, which seem to contradict the basic principles of chemistry, and which they discovered by accident. In chemistry, hydrogels turn into liquids by diluting them with water. For the reverse transition, you increase the hydrogel concentration. However, TU/e ​​researchers led by Bert Meijer accidentally discovered that their liquid solution turned into a hydrogel when diluted. This phenomenon has never been studied or described before and can have consequences in many fields in chemistry and biology. This study focuses on the formation of certain hydrogels. This means that it starts with an aqueous solution of, in this case, two substances (a surfactant and a monomer). Research shows that gels form at a certain ratio of these two substances in water. This gel

The strange creatures that raged in Earth’s oceans more than half a billion years ago appear to be the earliest vertebrate relatives we’ve found to date. They are called yunnanozoans, dating from the Early Cambrian about 518 million years ago. The cartilaginous features found in their fossil remains are comparable to those of modern vertebrates, paleontologists have found. This suggests that these animals were stem vertebrates, an extinct sister group to the original group of modern vertebrates. “The pharyngeal curvature is a key innovation that likely contributed to the evolution of the vertebrate jaw and braincase,” wrote the team led by Qingyi Tian of Nanjing University and the Chinese Academy of Sciences in China. “The pharyngeal skeletons of controversial Cambrian animals called yunnanozoans may contain the oldest fossil evidence limiting the early evolution of arches, but their correlation to vertebrates is debated. “By examining additional specimens in previously unexplored tec

Rising costs of living mean more and more Australians are struggling to pay to keep the lights on and their homes warm. Each state and territory offers some level of financial assistance, however, most payments have certain eligibility criteria. Click the links below to see what’s available in your area and find out which schemes are eligible for you. Ways to cut living costs ACT Retirees and veterans who need help with their electricity, gas, water or sewer bills may qualify for: Utility Concession : $750 ACT residents who require heating or cooling due to a medical condition, use a dialysis machine at home or rely on life support equipment at home may be eligible to: Medical Heating and Cooling Rebates Hemodialysis Home ACT Life Support Rebates New South Wales People in financial crisis who live in a stand-alone house or unit and need help paying for them electricity or gas bills may be eligible for: Energy Account Payment Assistance Scheme : vouchers $50 Digital vouchers are for