Biology: Evolutionary Geoscience: Environmental Issues Offbeat: Earth and Climate Offbeat: Paleontology and Archeology Offbeat: Plants and Animals Paleontology: Climate Paleontology: General
Published

What crocodile DNA reveals about the Ice Age      (via sciencedaily.com) 

What drives crocodile evolution? Is climate a major factor or changes in sea levels? Determined to find answers to these questions, researchers discovered that while changing temperatures and rainfall had little impact on the crocodiles' gene flow over the past three million years, changes to sea levels during the Ice Age had a different effect.

Chemistry: Thermodynamics Computer Science: Quantum Computers Physics: Quantum Computing
Published

No 'second law of entanglement' after all      (via sciencedaily.com) 

When two microscopic systems are entangled, their properties are linked to each other irrespective of the physical distance between the two. Manipulating this uniquely quantum phenomenon is what allows for quantum cryptography, communication, and computation. While parallels have been drawn between quantum entanglement and the classical physics of heat, new research demonstrates the limits of this comparison. Entanglement is even richer than we have given it credit for.

Computer Science: General Computer Science: Quantum Computers Physics: Quantum Computing
Published

Shedding light on quantum photonics      (via sciencedaily.com) 

As buzz grows ever louder over the future of quantum, researchers everywhere are working overtime to discover how best to unlock the promise of super-positioned, entangled, tunneling or otherwise ready-for-primetime quantum particles, the ability of which to occur in two states at once could vastly expand power and efficiency in many applications.

Computer Science: General Computer Science: Quantum Computers Physics: Quantum Computing
Published

Can you trust your quantum simulator?      (via sciencedaily.com) 

Physicists have developed a protocol to verify the accuracy of quantum experiments.

Computer Science: Quantum Computers Physics: Quantum Computing
Published

Blast chiller for the quantum world      (via sciencedaily.com) 

The quantum nature of objects visible to the naked eye is currently a much-discussed research question. A team has now demonstrated a new method in the laboratory that could make the quantum properties of macroscopic objects more accessible than before. With the method, the researchers were able to increase the efficiency of an established cooling method by an order of a magnitude.

Geoscience: Environmental Issues Offbeat: Earth and Climate Space: The Solar System
Published

17-pound meteorite discovered in Antarctica      (via sciencedaily.com) 

Antarctica is a tough place to work, for obvious reasons -- it's bitterly cold, remote, and wild. However, it's one of the best places in the world to hunt for meteorites. That's partly because Antarctica is a desert, and its dry climate limits the degree of weathering the meteorites experience. On top of the dry conditions, the landscape is ideal for meteorite hunting: the black space rocks stand out clearly against snowy fields.

Offbeat: Earth and Climate Offbeat: Plants and Animals
Published

Blowing bubbles among echidna's tricks to beat the heat      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Research into how echidnas might respond to a warming climate has found clever techniques used by the animal to cope with heat, including blowing bubbles to wet its nose tip, with the moisture then evaporating and cooling its blood.

Geoscience: Geomagnetic Storms Geoscience: Severe Weather Offbeat: Earth and Climate
Published

When migrating birds go astray, disturbances in magnetic field may be partly to blame      (via sciencedaily.com) 

Disturbances to Earth's magnetic field can lead birds astray -- a phenomenon scientists call 'vagrancy' -- even in perfect weather, and especially during fall migration. While other factors such as weather likely play bigger roles in causing vagrancy, researchers found a strong correlation between birds that were captured far outside of their expected range and the geomagnetic disturbances that occurred during both fall and spring migrations.

Ecology: Invasive Species Offbeat: Earth and Climate
Published

Noise from urban environments affects the color of songbirds' beaks      (via sciencedaily.com) 

A study examined the effects of anthropogenic noise on cognition, beak color, and growth in the zebra finch. Researchers first tested adult zebra finches on a battery of cognition assays while they were exposed to playbacks of urban noise versus birds tested without noise. Urban noises caused the birds to take longer to learn a novel foraging task and to learn an association-learning task. Urban noise exposure also resulted in treated males to develop less bright beak coloration, and females developed beaks with brighter orange coloration, respectively, than untreated birds. Findings suggest that urban noise exposure may affect morphological traits, such as beak color, which influence social interactions and mate choice.

Computer Science: Quantum Computers Physics: Quantum Computing
Published

The optical fiber that keeps data safe even after being twisted or bent      (via sciencedaily.com) 

An optical fiber that uses the mathematical concept of topology to remain robust, thereby guaranteeing the high-speed transfer of information, has been created by physicists.

Computer Science: Quantum Computers
Published

The thermodynamics of quantum computing      (via sciencedaily.com) 

In research on quantum computers, one aspect that has been mostly neglected until now is the generation of heat. Physicists now focus their attention on heat as an interference factor -- and have developed a method to experimentally measure the heat generated by a superconducting quantum system.

Computer Science: Quantum Computers Physics: Quantum Computing
Published

New quantum computing architecture could be used to connect large-scale devices      (via sciencedaily.com) 

Researchers have demonstrated an architecture that can enable high fidelity and scalable communication between superconducting quantum processors. Their technique can generate and route photons, which carry quantum information, in a user-specified direction. This method could be used to develop a large-scale network of quantum processors that could efficiently communicate with one another.

Offbeat: Earth and Climate
Published

When our vertical perception gets distorted: Body pitch and translational body motion      (via sciencedaily.com) 

Taking Hong Kong's famous Peak Tram up to Victoria Peak offers stunning views of its central business district, Victoria Harbor, and the surrounding islands. But a team of international scientists has recently discovered that the trams winding journey provides a previously unrecognized situation where our vertical perception gets distorted.

Computer Science: Quantum Computers Physics: Quantum Computing
Published

Researchers show a new way to induce useful defects using invisible material properties      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Much of modern electronic and computing technology is based on one idea: add chemical impurities, or defects, to semiconductors to change their ability to conduct electricity. These altered materials are then combined in different ways to produce the devices that form the basis for digital computing, transistors, and diodes. Indeed, some quantum information technologies are based on a similar principle: adding defects and specific atoms within materials can produce qubits, the fundamental information storage units of quantum computing.

Offbeat: Earth and Climate
Published

Glassfrogs achieve transparency by packing red blood cells into mirror-coated liver      (via sciencedaily.com) 

New research shows that glassfrogs -- known for their highly transparent undersides and muscles -- perform their 'disappearing acts' by stowing away nearly all of their red blood cells into their uniquely reflective livers. The work could lead to new avenues of research tied to blood clots, which the frogs somehow avoid while packing and unpacking about 90 percent of their red blood cells into their livers on a daily basis.

Offbeat: Earth and Climate
Published

Which animals perceive time the fastest?      (via sciencedaily.com) 

New research reveals that the animals that perceive time the fastest are those that are small, can fly, or are marine predators.

Offbeat: Earth and Climate Offbeat: Paleontology and Archeology Paleontology: Fossils Paleontology: General
Published

Fossil CSI: Giant extinct marine reptile graveyard was likely ancient birthing grounds      (via sciencedaily.com) 

An international research team examines a rich fossil bed in the renowned Berlin-Ichthyosaur State Park in Nevada's Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest, where many 50-foot-long ichthyosaurs (Shonisaurus popularis) lay petrified in stone. The study offers a plausible explanation as to how at least 37 of these marine reptiles came to meet their ends in the same locality -- a question that has vexed paleontologists for more than half a century. The research presents evidence that these ichthyosaurs died at the site in large numbers because they were migrating to this area to give birth for many generations across hundreds of thousands of years.

Ecology: Trees Offbeat: Earth and Climate
Published

Wood-eating clams use their feces to dominate their habitat      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Researchers didn't know what to make of sunken pieces of wood that were so thoroughly chewed-up by clams that the wood crumbled in their hands. It turns out, the super-chewer wood-eating clams had a secret weapon for forcing out other species. The clams, who have special adaptations that let them survive in dirty, low-oxygen water, built chimneys out of their own feces, making the wood a 'crappy' home for any animal except them.

Chemistry: Thermodynamics Computer Science: Quantum Computers Physics: Quantum Computing
Published

Chaos gives the quantum world a temperature      (via sciencedaily.com) 

Two seemingly different areas of physics are related in subtle ways: Quantum theory and thermodynamics. How can the laws of thermodynamics arise from the laws of quantum physics? This question has now been pursued with computer simulations, which showed that chaos plays a crucial role: Only where chaos prevails do the well-known rules of thermodynamics follow from quantum physics.

Computer Science: Quantum Computers Physics: Quantum Computing
Published

Quantum dots at room temp, using lab-designed protein      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Quantum dots are normally made in industrial settings with high temperatures and toxic, expensive solvents -- a process that is neither economical nor environmentally friendly. But researchers have now pulled off the process at the bench using water as a solvent, making a stable end-product at room temperature. Their work opens the door to making nanomaterials in a more sustainable way by demonstrating that protein sequences not derived from nature can be used to synthesize functional materials.