Category Environment/Geology

This is a wood composite as an energy efficient building material: Guided sunlight transmission and effective thermal insulation. Credit: University of Maryland and Advanced Energy Materials

Natural microstructures in transparent wood are key to lighting & insulation advantages. Engineers at A. James Clark School of Engineering at the University of Maryland (UMD) demonstrate in a new study that windows made of transparent wood could provide more even and consistent natural lighting and better energy efficiency than glass, while eliminating glare. The findings advance earlier published work on their development of transparent wood.

The transparent wood lets through just a little bit less light than glass, but a lot less heat, said Tian Li...

This nanostructured device, about half the size of a postage stamp, uses sunlight to quickly disinfect water. It consists of thin flakes of molybdenum disulfide arranged like walls on a glass surface and topped with a thin layer of copper. Light falling on the walls triggers formation of hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) and other “reactive oxygen species” that kill bacteria. Credit: C. Liu et al., Nature Nanotechnology

In many parts of the world, the only way to make germy water safe is by boiling, which consumes precious fuel, or by putting it out in the sun in a plastic bottle so ultraviolet rays will kill the microbes. But because UV rays carry only 4% of the sun’s total energy, the UV method takes 6 to 48 hours, limiting the amount of water people can disinfect this way.

Now researchers at the...

This is a condensation trail, or contrail, left behind an aircraft. Credit: Courtesy of Mick West

Well-understood physical and chemical processes can easily explain the alleged evidence of a secret, large-scale atmospheric spraying program, commonly referred to as “chemtrails” or “covert geoengineering,” concludes a new study from Carnegie Science, University of California Irvine, and the nonprofit organization Near Zero.

Some groups and individuals erroneously believe that the long-lasting condensation trails, or contrails, left behind aircraft are evidence of a secret large-scale spraying program. They call these imagined features “chemtrails.” Adherents of this conspiracy theory sometimes attribute this alleged spraying to the government and sometimes to industry.

Carnegie’s Ken Caldeir...

NASA/JPL-Caltech/STScI/CXC/SAO Oceanic sediment contains an iron isotope that ancient bacteria accumulated 2.2 million years ago when debris rained on Earth from a supernova explosion. Shown are the remnants of a much younger supernova remnant, Cassiopeia A, shown in a composite image from three NASA observatories.

A team from Germany and Austria has found possible evidence of iron from a supernova in sediment cores taken from the floor of the Pacific Ocean. The study began when team members came across information regarding magnetotactic bacteria during internet searches. It is a type of bacteria that lives in ocean sediments and absorbs tiny amounts of iron. As sediment builds, the bacteria die leaving behind bits of iron in the layers of sediment...