Latest Earth's magnetic field Stories
April Flowers for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online A new analysis of over 56 years of data has revealed that sockeye salmon use a magnetic map to return to their spawning grounds after years at sea. The findings of this study were published online in the journal Current Biology. "To find their way back home across thousands of kilometers of ocean, salmon imprint on the magnetic field that exists where they first enter the sea as juveniles," said Nathan Putman of Oregon State...
Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online Scientists writing in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) said the magnetic gravity fields of Earth are going through some changes. Earth's magnetic field is generated by flows of liquid iron in the outer core. The Earth's magnetic field protects us from cosmic radiation particles. By understanding these processes in the outer core, scientists are able to have a better grasp of the terrestrial shield....
41,000 years ago, a complete and rapid reversal of the geomagnetic field occured. Magnetic studies of the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences on sediment cores from the Black Sea show that during this period, during the last ice age, a compass at the Black Sea would have pointed to the south instead of north. Moreover, data obtained by the research team formed around GFZ researchers Dr. Norbert Nowaczyk and Prof. Helge Arz, together with additional data from other studies in the North...
On a time scale of tens to hundreds of millions of years, the geomagnetic field may be influenced by currents in the mantle. The frequent polarity reversals of Earth's magnetic field can also be connected with processes in the mantle. These are the research results presented by a group of geoscientists in the new advance edition of "Nature Geoscience" on Sunday, July 29th. The results show how the rapid processes in the outer core, which flows at rates of up to about one millimeter per...
Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online A study of "lunar swirls" on the moon may eventually lead to new developments in engineering to help protect astronauts in space. During the Apollo missions, scientists realized that lunar swirls were associated with localized magnetic fields in the lunar crust. NASA's Lunar Prospector focused on the regions and identified magnetic anomalies that had created fully formed miniature "magnetospheres" similar to what the Earth's...
Migratory birds and fish use the Earth’s magnetic field to find their way. LMU researchers have now identified cells with internal compass needles for the perception of the field – and can explain why high-tension cables perturb the magnetic orientation. Although many animal species can sense the geomagnetic field and exploit it for spatial orientation, efforts to pinpoint the cells that detect the field and convert the information into nerve impulses have so far failed. “The field...
A University of Iowa researcher wants you to visualize a plate of spaghetti when you think of the northern lights. That’s because Jack Scudder, UI professor of physics and astronomy, and his colleagues have reached a milestone in describing how the northern lights work by way of a process called “magnetic reconnection.” The details are contained in a paper published in the June 5 issue of the journal Physical Review Letters; however, the process is best imagined as untangling...
Certain neurons in the brains of pigeons encode the direction and intensity of the Earth’s magnetic field, giving the birds an inborn internal global positioning system, according to a new study published Thursday in the journal Science. Scientists have long known internal magnetic field receptors exist in many animals, perhaps including humans. However, the current study is the first to actually describe the brain wiring that uses these receptors to provide a sense of direction....
An international team of scientists has demonstrated a revolutionary new way of magnetic recording which will allow information to be processed hundreds of times faster than by current hard drive technology. The researchers found they could record information using only heat - a previously unimaginable scenario. They believe this discovery will not only make future magnetic recording devices faster, but more energy-efficient too. The results of the research, which was led by the...
The Materials Chemistry and Physics Sciences are two of the key sections in the Chemistry Sciences category of the Sciences Social Network Sciencia.org. The users of the website monitor 386 scientific journals publishing in these two disciplines which currently contain nearly 126,000 articles. (PRWEB) December 17, 2011 The Chemistry Sciences Social Network Sciencia.org was established to provide the very latest news headlines, references and resources from scientific journals, books and...
