Cutting CO2 emissions from existing coal plants
MIT Energy Initiative report details findings of symposium, identifies next steps
Professor Ernest Moniz, director of the MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI) and former undersecretary of the U.S. Department of Energy, today unveiled a report on reducing carbon dioxide emissions from existing coal plants. The report is based on the findings of a major MIT symposium on retrofitting coal-fired power plants, and identifies a range of possible next steps for the consideration of policy makers, industry and others engaged in CO2 emissions mitigation.
Climate change odds much worse than thought
New analysis shows warming could be double previous estimates
David Chandler, MIT News Office
The most comprehensive modeling yet carried out on the likelihood of how much hotter the Earth's climate will get in this century shows that without rapid and massive action, the problem will be about twice as severe as previously estimated six years ago - and could be even worse than that.
Back to (basics for) the future?
Ochsendorf to discuss intertwining of engineering's past, future
Patrick Gillooly, News Office
Regulation of carbon emissions could pose a significant challenge to the way engineers design products, cities and more, but a solution may be as simple as using archaic building materials such as soil, says MIT Associate Professor John Ochsendorf.
How you feel the world impacts how you see it
Motion illusions reveal new insights into perception
Cathryn M. Delude, McGovern Institute
In the classic waterfall illusion, if you stare at the downward motion of a waterfall for some period of time, stationary objects -- such as rocks -- appear to drift upward. MIT neuroscientists have found that this phenomenon, called motion aftereffect, occurs not only in our visual perception but also in our tactile perception, and that these senses actually influence one another. Put another way, how you feel the world can actually change how you see it -- and vice versa.
Signs point to sponges as earliest animal life 'Chemical fossils' provide evidence for first multicelled creatures
David Chandler, MIT News Office
Even Charles Darwin was puzzled by the apparently sudden appearance in the fossil record of a great variety of multicellular creatures -- a rapid blossoming known as the Cambrian explosion. Since then, the origin of animals was found to extend back earlier, through a period known as the Ediacarian. Now, evidence found by researchers at MIT, UC Riverside and other institutions shows that the first complex life forms may in fact have appeared much earlier still.
Research carried out at MIT's Alcator C-Mod fusion reactor may have brought the promise of fusion as a future power source a bit closer to reality, though scientists caution that a practical fusion powerplant is still decades away.
Levels of the greenhouse gas methane begin to increase again New surge ends a decade of stability; cause still unknown
David Chandler, MIT News Office
The amount of methane in Earth's atmosphere shot up in 2007, bringing to an end a period of about a decade in which atmospheric levels of the potent greenhouse gas were essentially stable, according to a team led by MIT researchers.
Global warming affects warm-weather species too, study finds
By Phil Hampton
Even tropical plant and animal species living in some of the warmest places on Earth may face threats from a warming planet, according to new research co-authored by a UCLA scientist.
New knowledge about thermoelectric materials could improve energy efficiency
Researchers at the University of Arhus, Ris∅-DTU and the University of Copenhagen stand jointly behind new data, just published in Nature Materials, that describes properties of thermoelectric materials, which is of great importance for their practical application. In the long term the new knowledge can be used to develop motors that are more fuel-efficient and for more environmentally friendly cooling methods.
Saving the Reefs: Diversity of Plant-Eating Fishes May be Key to Recovery of Coral, Caribbean Experiment Shows
For endangered coral reefs, not all plant-eating fish are created equal.
A diver swims toward the underwater laboratory Aquarius
at the National Undersea Research Center in Florida. The laboratory
was used for a Georgia Tech study of the role herbivorous fishes play
in coral reefs.
Courtesy National Undersea Research Center, University of North Carolina at Wilmington
A lo largo de las tres últimas décadas muchos cafeteros latinoamericanos han abandonado las técnicas tradicionales de cultivo a la sombra, con la cual las plantas crecen bajo una bóveda diversa de árboles. En un esfuerzo por aumentar la producción gran parte de los cultivos se han convertido en "café al sol", lo cual requiere la disminución o eliminación de la cubierta forestal.
New process derives 'green gasoline' from plant sugars
Alternative energy doesn't always mean solar or wind power. In fact, the alternative fuels developed by University of Wisconsin-Madison chemical and biological engineering professor James Dumesic look a lot like the gasoline and diesel fuel used in vehicles today.
Warming World in Range
of Dangerous Consequences
Even if greenhouse gas emissions are fixed at 2005 levels, new analysis shows that irreversible warming will lead to biodiversity loss and substantial glacial melt
By Robert Monroe Scripps Institution of Oceanography/UC San Diego
Penn Chemist Discovers the Elusive Chemical Middleman That Removes Acid Rain
PHILADELPHIA –- Researchers have discovered the middleman in the complex chemical reaction that is essential to the atmosphere's ability to break down pollutants, especially the compounds that cause acid rain. The study improves the basic understanding of the chemical removal of acid rain and will allow scientists to better model how pollutants are removed from the atmosphere and to predict potential environmental conditions.
UW researcher contributes to study linking warmer seas, stronger hurricanes
by Jill Sakai
The theory that global warming may be contributing to stronger hurricanes in the Atlantic over the past 30 years is bolstered by a new study led by a Florida State University researcher. The study is published in today's edition of the journal Nature.
Bad sign for global warming: Thawing permafrost holds vast carbon pool
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Permafrost blanketing the northern hemisphere contains more than twice the amount of carbon in the atmosphere, making it a potentially mammoth contributor to global climate change depending on how quickly it thaws.
Smoke Smudges Mexico City’s
Air, Chemists Identify Sources
Fires and burning industrial waste contribute a surprising amount of pollution.
By Susan Brown
Mexico City once topped lists of places with the worst air pollution in the world. Although efforts to curb emissions have improved the situation, tiny particles called aerosols still clog the air. Now, atmospheric scientists from UC San Diego and six other institutions have sorted through the pall that hangs over the city to precisely identify aerosols that make up the haze and chart daily patterns of changes to the mix.
Ice Age lesson predicts a faster rise in sea level
by Terry Devitt
If the lessons being learned by scientists about the demise of the last great North American ice sheet are correct, estimates of global sea level rise from a melting Greenland ice sheet may be seriously underestimated.
