• FY 2012 sees first constant-dollar decline in higher education R&D since FY 1974

    The National Science Foundation (NSF) says that university spending on R&D in all fields totaled $65.8 billion in FY 2012. After adjusting for inflation, higher education R&D declined by 1 percent in FY 2012. This represents the first constant-dollar decline since FY 1974 and ends a period of modest growth in higher education R&D during FYs 2009-11, when R&D expenditures increased an average of 5 percent each year.

  • Deflecting asteroids to avoid Armageddon

    It sounds like the script for a Hollywood film: a giant meteorite from outer space heading straight for the Earth and threatening the destruction of mankind. Yet such a scenario does represent a real threat to our planet, as researchers reckon that we can expect an asteroid to collide with Earth every few hundred years. In real life, though, nobody wants to rely on a rescue plan hastily improvised at the last minute. Scientists with the European-funded research project NEOShield are working to develop concepts designed to help avert these impacts and to alter asteroids’ orbits as they race toward Earth.

  • Testing explosives capability helping armor research

    In modern warfare, military vehicles use enormous armored panels to defend against weapons. Boosting protection by adding more steel, however, eventually makes equipment too heavy to use. There are other ways to defend against a weapon besides trying to stop it with just mass — smarter, more economic ways that are waiting to be discovered.

  • Physics can lead the U.K. economic recovery: IOP president

    Physics research in the United Kingdom has had a great year and physics can lead the U.K. economic recovery, but ongoing success depends on a healthy “educational pipeline,” Institute of Physics (IOP) president Frances Saunders told. For the success of physics research and application to continue, however, there had to be enough young people choosing to study physics post-16 and at university, she said. Numbers studying physics A-level had increased from a low point of 27,000 in 2006 to almost 36,000 this year, and applications to undergraduate physics courses had increased by 8 percent in 2013, she said.

  • Solar-powered, fabric-woven battery for “wearable electronics”

    Though some people already seem inseparable from their smartphones, even more convenient, wearable, solar-powered electronics could be on the way soon, woven into clothing fibers or incorporated into watchbands. This novel battery development could usher in a new era of “wearable electronics.”

  • Helping farmers cope with climate change is big business

    Monsanto estimates there is a $20 billion market for employing massive data analysis to provide weather forecasting and crop-growing advice tailored to individual plots of land. With a $300 billion agriculture industry in the United States exposed to climate change, predicting the effects of warming temperature is critical to the industry. Monsanto has recently acquired – for $1 billion — the Climate Corporation, a Silicon Valley company which uses data analysis and algorithms to redefine how farmers grow and harvest crops. The company provides farmers with insights which predict weather pattern and the changing effects on crops.

  • Purdue selects students for the 2014 future science leaders class

    Emerging Leaders in Science and Society (ELISS) is a program of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). “ELISS prepares graduate and professional students to collaborate within a diverse team to understand the key drivers of complex problems and to plan and implement a team project,” said ELISS director Melanie Roberts. “ELISS graduates will be better able to integrate expertise across disciplines and coordinate action across boundaries to tackle our most complex issues.”

  • Navy “mine-hunter” AUV sets mission-endurance record

    The U.S. Naval Research Laboratory’s (NRL) Acoustics Division, with Bluefin Robotics, executed a record setting 507 kilometer (315 mile), long-endurance autonomy research mission using its heavyweight-class mine countermeasures autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV), Reliant. NRL’s Reliant AUV, when equipped with a low frequency broadband (LFBB) sonar system, is perhaps best known as the prototype for the new U.S. Navy Knifefish mine-hunter.

  • Methane emissions in the U.S. exceed government estimates

    Along with carbon dioxide, methane is one of the most important greenhouse gases in terms of its potential to raise global temperatures. It also encourages the formation of surface ozone in cities and affects other aspects of atmospheric chemistry. A new study finds that emissions of methane from fossil fuel extraction and refining activities in the South Central United States are nearly five times higher than previous estimates. The collaborative study indicates that in addition to fossil fuel extraction, animal husbandry is also a major contributor to the higher-than-expected methane emissions.

  • NIST: Joplin tornado highlights need for building design, construction standards

    Nationally accepted standards for building design and construction, public shelters, and emergency communications can significantly reduce deaths and the steep economic costs of property damage caused by tornadoes. That is the key conclusion of a two-year technical NIST investigation into the impacts of the 22 May 2011 tornado that struck Joplin, Missouri. Report and recommendations released for public comment.

  • List of most-at-risk L.A. buildings to be released

    Scientists have compiled a list of concrete buildings in Los Angeles which could be at risk of collapsing in a major earthquake. The list identifies about 1,500 concrete structures built before 1980 which need further study to determine their risk level. Structural engineers insist that hundreds could die if any of the buildings collapsed.

  • Sea-level rise could exceed one meter in this century: experts

    Sea-level rise in this century is likely to be 70-120 centimeters by 2100 if greenhouse-gas emissions are not mitigated, a broad assessment of the most active scientists who research in the area, and who are the most prolific publishers on that topic, has revealed. In contrast, for a scenario with strong emissions reductions, experts expect a sea-level rise of 40-60 centimeters by 2100. Ninety international experts, all of whom published at least six peer-reviewed papers on the topic of sea-level during the past five years, provided their probabilistic assessment.

  • Understanding Greenland Ice Sheet melting helps sea-level forecasts

    New insight into how glacier movement is affected by melting ice in summer could help predictions of sea level rise. In 2012, an exceptionally warm summer caused the Greenland Ice Sheet to undergo unprecedented rates of melting. Researchers have found, however, that fast summer ice flow caused by significant melting is cancelled out by slower motion the following winter.

  • Research funding and reward structure contributes to formation “science bubbles”

    Fashions in research funding, reward structures in universities, and streamlining of scientific agendas undermine traditional academic norms and may result in science bubbles. New research shows how the mechanisms that set off the financial crisis might be replicating in the field of science. The prevailing scientific reward structure thus amplifies social phenomena like “pluralistic ignorance” and “lemming effects,” which have been shown to have significant impact on information processing and assessment in populations of interacting persons — including in one of the most rational enterprises of modern social life.

  • Winners announced in NY, NJ coastal protection ideas competition

    Ten of the ideas submitted to the Rebuild by Designcompetition, launched by the Hurricane Sandy Rebuilding Task Force, were selected as the most promising concepts for sustainable ways to protect Sandy-affected regions from future catastrophes.