Earth and Science News- Earth and Science Videos and News // Current

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Rare Vegetarian Spider Discovered

"In a possible affront to its fierce meat-eating relatives, one jumping spider prefers to dine vegetarian, munching on... more

DeliaTheArtist
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Evolution May Lead To Shorter, Stouter Women

"Yale University researchers have detected the effects of natural selection among two generations of contemporary women and... more

DeliaTheArtist
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Action alert: Save the bees!

A new documentary seeks to unravel the mystery of why billions of honey bees have been disappearing from hives across the United... more

JanforGore
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Find DARPA's Balloons, Win $40K

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency today offered up a rather interesting challenge: find and plot 10 red weather... more

Tyrannous
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Judge OKs Challenge to Human-Gene Patents

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/11/genes/ The patents at issue give Myriad Genetics a virtual monopoly on such predictive... more

Tyrannous
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"Government climate change ad investigated after 350 complaints." Watch the ad.

What do you think of this UK ad about climate change? People complained to be scaremongering and misleading. I think... more

lookatmypix
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Back to traditional farming to beat climate change

When organisers of an international conference on climate change and the food crisis first scheduled the event here for late... more

JanforGore
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32 New Planets Found

European astronomers find 32 new plantets outside of our solar system bringing the total number of planets found to 400. Follow... more

Mikeysfake1
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Toxic legacy seeps from melting Alpine glaciers

Swiss researchers have found that Alpine glaciers melting under the impact of climate change are releasing highly toxic pollutants... more

JanforGore
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Volcano Erupts Below the International Space Station

An amazing new picture from space reveals a volcanic eruption in its earliest stage, with a huge plume of ash and steam billowing... more

EmperorThan
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Food Inc. available on DVD tomorrow

http://www.foodincmovie.com/

JanforGore
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Alaska's Mt. Redoubt volcano erupts; ash cloud ascends 50,000 feet

Alaska's Mt. Redoubt Volcano, which had been in a tempestuous mood for two months, erupted Sunday night at 10:38 p.m.,... more

leahl
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Aerosols Responsible For Arctic Warming?

Since the 1890s, surface temperatures on Earth have risen faster in the Arctic than in other regions of the world. Usually,... more

julesrs007
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Codex Alimentarius Report 2009: mandating global illness

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxTZyiHFqLI How do you keep the pharmaceutical and medical industries rolling in profits? Well,... more

JanforGore
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Multiplying universes: How many is the multiverse?

HOW many universes are there? Cosmologists Andrei Linde and Vitaly Vanchurin at Stanford University in California calculate that... more

retro_Syl
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What the hill?

Cerro Masatrigo, or Masatrigo Hill, is a cone-shaped hill located in western Spain. Showing a perfect volcano shape Cerro... more

sergefreeman
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Solar lantern lights up rural India's dark nights

This is great news. "For more than 100 Indian villages cut off from grid electricity, life no longer comes to an end... more

lookatmypix
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54-million-year-old skull reveals early evolution of primate brains

Researchers at the University of Florida (UF) and the University of Winnipeg have developed the first detailed images of a... more

Bigdog_mike
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Water flow through a garden hose or a nanochannel (10-9 m) has incredibly different fluid flow transport mechanisms. In one case the theory of fluid dynamics holds and in the other nanoscale phenomena dominant. In a hose single water molecule transport is not a dominate feature however the unique properties of, in particular, carbon nanotubes make single water molecule transport a reality. Interestingly, it is the entry and exit of water molecules that is believed to be the factor limiting transport . So how does this come about?

For this we need molecular dynamic (MD) simulations which show that hydrogen atoms are attracted to the nanotube while oxygen is repelled such that water is orientated with the hydrogen atom entering the tube first.1 If the nanotube diameter is small enough (approximately 0.8 nm) water forms a 1-dimensional chain travelling at an average of 17 molecules per nanosecond (or 99 cm s-1).2 However, other MD simulations report dramatically decreased mobility at this nanoscale due to the change in the mechanical properties of water.3 So there are discrepancies in our theoretical understanding of this phenomena.

Experimentally water transport through carbon nanotubes is far from trivial. However, ever since Holt et al.4 measured the flow of water through a silicon nitride/double-walled carbon nanotube nanofiltration membrane and discovered flow rates 4-5 orders of magnitude higher than estimated by classic models for Poiseuille permeation4 the search has been on to create extended membrane films for use in emerging novel water treatment technologies. The promise of higher transport fluxes, specificity and selectivity through a water treatment membrane is always in our minds, particularly in arid environments such as Australia.

Dr Ellis and her colleagues at Flinders University believe they can make a valuable contribution to the problems facing water challenged environments. Their work is currently funded by an Australian Research Council Discovery grant. Their recent review on "Carbon nanotubes anchored to silicon for device fabrication"5 emphasizes the need for control of nanotube orientation in order to reap the diverse range of potential applications they may afford. In particular, their uses in water transport systems.

The efficiency of a membrane may be dictated by structure, composition, and design. Many synthetic chemistry techniques exist which enable the design of a nanohybrid filtration membrane to vastly improve its function. To this end Dr Ellis and her colleagues are using a variety of synthetic chemistries to construct nanohybrid water filtration membranes based on wet chemical (self-assembled) vertically aligned carbon nanotubes (VA-CNTs) and ultrathin nanocrystalline porous silicon.Water flow through a garden hose or a nanochannel (10-9 m) has incredibly different fluid flow transport mechanisms. In one case... more