Noise is usually nothing more than a disturbance, but sometimes it can be useful. Researchers have discovered that noise could bring order to chaotic systems, protect and maintain entire marine ecosystems, and even make the chemical industry greener. This research is reported today in a special Einstein Year issue of the New Journal of Physics (www.njp.org) published jointly by the Institute of Physics and the German Physical Society (Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft).

Changso

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory set to launch million-dollar mobile atmospheric-measuring station on worldwide tour to fill data gaps in global climate models

Balloon-borne sounding system. Check. Micropulse lidar. Check. Infrared thermometer. Check. Eddy correlation flux measurement system. Eddy correlation flux measurement system?! Check already.

These and a dozen other instruments and computer- and maintenance-shop-jammed cargo containers make up the ARM M

Ocean sanctuaries are unlikely to fully protect whales, say three independent scientists charged by the International Whaling Commission (IWC) with reviewing their sanctuary program to manage whale populations.

In a Policy Forum article forthcoming in the January 28 issue of the journal Science, Arizona State University marine biologist Leah Gerber, Duke University marine biologist K. David Hyrenbach, and University of Victoria geographer Mark Zacharias argue that the current san

Organically and conventionally grown potatoes may be told apart by flavour, say researchers in the Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture this month – but only if the potato skins are left on.

A panel of fifteen taste testers was asked to evaluate boiled samples of potatoes that had been grown organically with compost, organically without compost or conventionally.

Dark Red Norland potatoes – the most popular redskin potato in the US – were evaluated.

Th

European Geosciences Union, General Assembly
Vienna, Austria, 24 – 29 April 2005

For the first time, the EGU will hold its General Assembly in Vienna, Austria. A considerable attendance from the eastern European countries is expected and EGU 2005 promises to become a bigger event even than last year’s in Nice. So far, 10,000 paper and poster abstracts have been submitted, against 8,000 last year.

This will be the largest and most prominent event in the earth and pl

EU agricultural policy has its roots in the post-war food shortages and is completely outmoded today. The problems of colossal surpluses of meat and butter and dramatically rising costs indicate that something must be done. But this requires planning models and methods to make it possible to carry out the necessary reforms in a sensible way.

What would happen, for example, in various European countries if the EU were to eliminate its subsidies for sugar or grain? How would vari

A special unit to assess the recent earthquakes and tsunami disasters in Asia and to harvest the lessons learned from the international relief effort has been launched by Cranfield University’s Resilience Centre.

The Resilience Centre, a partnership between Cranfield University at Shrivenham and the Defence Academy of the UK, was founded in July 2004 to maximise the extensive defence and security management and technology expertise available at both Cranfield and the Defence Acade

Critics who dismiss the importance of greenhouse gases as a cause of climate change lost one piece of ammunition this week. In a new study, scientists found further evidence of the role that greenhouse gases have played in Earth’s climate.

In Thursday’s issue of the journal Geology, Ohio State University scientists report that a long-ago ice age occurred 10 million years earlier than once thought. The new date clears up an inconsistency that has dogged climate change research fo

Greenhouse gases could cause global temperatures to rise by more than double the maximum warming so far considered likely by the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), according to results from the world’s largest climate prediction experiment, published in the journal Nature this week.

The first results from climateprediction.net, a global experiment using computing time donated by the general public, show that average temperatures could eventually rise by up to 11°

Heroic efforts by park guards have helped safeguard isolated population

An isolated population of rare Grauer’s gorillas, living among rebel armies and bands of poachers, has managed to survive in one of the most dangerous regions in Africa, and may even be increasing in numbers, according to a recent census by the Bronx Zoo-based Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS). WCS conservationists say that a band of park guards who have heroically defended the gorillas and their rainfore

The European Commission asked for the development of an integrated computer toolkit for an ex ante assessment for effective and efficient agricultural and environmental policies for the EU-25 in a changing Europe and world. Thirty research institutes from thirteen European countries are involved in this project ‘Seamless’. The project is coordinated by Wageningen University. The project, with a total budget of 15 million Euro, plans to deliver a first prototype within 18 months and in four year

Landscape burning by ancient hunters and gatherers may have triggered the failure of the annual Australian Monsoon some 12,000 years ago, resulting in the desertification of the country’s interior that is evident today, according to a new study.

University of Colorado at Boulder Professor Gifford Miller said the study builds on his research group’s previous findings that dozens of giant animal species went extinct in Australia roughly 50,000 years ago due to ecosystem changes ca

Researchers from Purdue University, government and the nuclear power industry are improving three computer programs that are critical to preventing disasters such as the Three Mile Island accident in 1979. The complex programs, or “reactor safety codes,” are used to simulate severe accidents and, in the process, provide data needed to ensure that power plants are designed properly.

Without such simulations of hypothetical accidents, the only available information is from the actu

Iron-sulfur nanosystem isolated from bacterium is more reactive than catalysts in use

Those seeking to design more efficient catalysts for the production of hydrogen and the control of air pollutants might do well to take a closer look at how chemistry works in nature, scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory say. Their theoretical investigations of a bacterial enzyme reveal a catalytic complex with higher predicted chemical reactivity than that o

Within the framework of the “CRAFT” programme for the development of technological programmes for small and medium-sized companies, the European Union have recently approved a new proposal from CIDEMCO in the field of protection treatment for wood: “Innovative green wood treatment to achieve Risk 4 protection (SURFASAM)”. The main aim of this project is the development of a new, non-toxic protection treatment.

In this project those involved in R+D are commissioned by business

Mission controllers cross their fingers whenever the Sun is stormy and their spacecraft have to fly over the South Atlantic. There, even satellites in low orbits suffer many hits by atomic bullets from the Sun. Troublesome faults occur in electronic systems and astronauts see flashes in their eyes. The Earth’s magnetic field, which shields our planet against charged atomic particles coming from outer space, is curiously weak in that region.

The South Atlantic Anomaly, as the ex