Reünie studievereniging GeoVUsie 20 november 2010
Archive for the ‘Science: Atmospheric’ Category
Reunion GeoVUsie (post in Dutch)
Wednesday, August 4th, 2010Weather link between Australia and Antarctica
Thursday, February 11th, 2010ScienceNOW (by Science) reports an intriguing climate link between the southwestern corner of Australia and a region of eastern Antarctica.
Heavy snowfall in that location in Antarctica? Then that southwestern Aussie corner is often suffering a drought.
Water on the moon
Thursday, September 24th, 2009See Science. Just a little bit, but still…
Bacteria in stratosphere
Tuesday, March 17th, 2009I just saw this intriguing bit of news on CNN, about three new UV-resistant species of bacteria in the stratosphere.
For some background on this discovery, see this undated abstract by the University of Sheffield (The high cold biosphere-microscope studies on the microbiology of the stratosphere) or this related article published in FEMS in 2002, entitled “Microorganisms cultured from stratospheric air samples obtained at 41 km”.
I was unable to find more information on the topic on the site of the American Society for Microbiology. Below, I have responded to Laurie H.’s comment regarding potential risks associated with this discovery.
Nanogeoscience in Geochemical Society’s Elements
Wednesday, January 28th, 2009An interesting issue of the Geochemical Society’s magazine Elements should soon be on your doorstep (if you’re a member of the Society, that is).
As the site says, its theme is Nanogeoscience and there will be six features:
* From Origins to Cutting-Edge Applications
* Structure, Chemistry, and Properties of Mineral Nanoparticles
* Nanoparticles in the Atmosphere
* Nanoparticles in the Soil Environment
* Metal Transport by Iron Oxide Nanovectors
* Biogenic Uraninite Nanoparticles
Michael Hochella of the Virginia Polytechnic Institute is the guest editor.
Polar Science: new journal
Wednesday, July 16th, 2008As the web site says, the new journal called Polar Science basically focuses on the following twelve disciplines (within the polar realm):
* space and upper atmosphere physics
* atmospheric science/climatology
* glaciology
* oceanography/sea ice studies
* geology/petrology
* solid earth geophysics/seismology
* marine earth science
* geomorphology/Cenozoic-Quaternary geology
* meteoritics
* terrestrial biology
* marine biology
* animal ecology
Computing planet Earth
Thursday, July 10th, 2008Yesterday, I attended a seminar on the future of design. Sounds pretty generic, but it turned out to be about engineering design (modeling, optimization). The focus of the talks was on aerodynamics and fluid dynamics (foils, airplane engines and the like). One of the white papers, however, contained a nugget to do with earth system science.
Directory of Open Access Journals
Friday, April 25th, 2008It is housed at Lund University. I have selected the main subjects that are likely to be of interest to you, which may save you a few mouse clicks:
- Biochemistry
- Biology
- Biotechnology
- Chemistry
- Inorganic Chemistry (accidentally not included in the above, perhaps because the number is so small)
- Earth and Environmental Sciences (which includes Oceanography although Earth Sciences (55 journals) does not appear to be included when you follow the link to Earth and Environmental Sciences
- Microbiology
- Physics and Astronomy
- Technology and Engineering
Hurricane dynamics
Monday, October 23rd, 2006The August 2006 issue of Physics Today contained a so-called Quick Study of the thermodynamics of hurricanes (free online access).
“The mature hurricane is an almost perfect example of a Carnot heat engine,” says the author, Kerry Emmanuel (MIT).