Latest Nonmetals Stories

Stratified marine basin sheds new light on early animal evolution, UC Riverside scientists sayA research team led by biogeochemists at the University of California, Riverside has developed a detailed and dynamic three-dimensional model of Earth's early ocean chemistry that can significantly advance our understanding of how early animal life evolved on the planet.Working on rock samples from the Doushantuo Formation of South China, one of the oldest fossil beds and long viewed by...

Brussel, November 19th 2009 - Bacteria possess an ingenious mechanism for preventing oxygen from harming the building blocks of the cell. This is the new finding of a team of biologists that includes Joris Messens of VIB, a life sciences research institute in Flanders, Belgium, connected to the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. The scientists made this discovery by modifying the DNA of the intestinal bacterium Escherichia coli. By means of this model organism, they have uncovered the existence of a...

NEW YORK, Nov. 18 /PRNewswire/ -- Reportlinker.com announces that a new market research report is available in its catalogue. Bone Densitometers - Global Trends http://www.reportlinker.com/p0164310/Bone-Densitometers---Global-Trends.html#utm_source=prnewswire&utm_medium=pr&utm_campaign=prnewswire The alarming rise of osteoporosis has propelled the need for early detection of the disease. Apart from this, introduction of new drug therapies and the need for frequent tests for...

The scalding-hot sea that supposedly covered the early Earth may in fact never have existed, according to a new study by Stanford University researchers who analyzed isotope ratios in 3.4 billion-year-old ocean floor rocks. Their findings suggest that the early ocean was much more temperate and that, as a result, life likely diversified and spread across the globe much sooner in Earth's history than has been generally theorized.It also means that the chemical composition of the ancient ocean...

HOUSTON, Oct. 5 /PRNewswire/ -- PAC, a leading global provider of advanced analytical instruments for laboratories and online process applications, announces the introduction of the ANTEK MultiTek(TM) testing system for the fast, accurate detection of sulfur, nitrogen, and halides. Industries include BioFuels, Chemicals, Food & Beverage, Manufacturing and Assembly, Medical, Pharmaceutical, Environmental, and many more. "MultiTek(TM) is the only instrument on the market that combines...

Physicists get a grip on slippery molecules, and learn how the shape of nanoscopic magnetic islands affect data storageMolecules of hydrogen are difficult to steer with electric fields because of the symmetrical way that charges are distributed within them. But now researchers at ETH Zurich have found a clever technique to get a grip on the molecules. Their findings are reported in Physical Review Letters and highlighted in the September 14 issue of Physics.Electric fields can easily...

HOUSTON, Sept. 1 /PRNewswire/ -- The International Fuel Quality Center (IFQC) has updated its ranking of the top 100 countries based on sulfur limits in on-road diesel -- Sweden, Germany and Japan, remained first, second and third, respectively. "This year's ranking shows the tremendous movement being made globally toward zero sulfur fuels, as the top 44 countries all have sulfur limits of 50 ppm or less," said Liisa Kiuru, executive director, IFQC. "We can expect to see sulfur reduction...

A U.S. study shows banning or restricting the use of lawn fertilizers containing phosphorus can help reduce such pollution in lakes and streams. Until now there has been no evidence local ordinances banning or restricting the use of lawn fertilizers helped reduce phosphorus pollution, University of Michigan Professor John Lehman said. It's one of those things where political organizations take the action because they believe it's the environmentally conscious thing to do, but there's been no...

Hydrogen, the most common element in the universe, is normally an insulating gas, but at high pressures it may turn into a superconductor. Now, scientists at the Carnegie Institution in Washington D.C., US, have discovered a hydrogen-based compound that could be helpful in the search for metallic and superconducting forms of hydrogen. The results are reported in Physical Review Letters and highlighted in the August 3rd issue of APS's on-line journal Physics (physics.aps.org).Hydrogen is the...

A U.S. biologist says the accumulation of metals in plants may be a strategy to protect the plants from predators such as prairie dogs. Postdoctoral researcher John Freeman of Colorado State University and colleagues said certain plant species growing on soils with high metal content, such as arsenic, copper, selenium or lead, accumulate large quantities of metals in their leaves and stems. The purpose of that hyperaccumulation isn't fully known, but Freeman said it might increase a plant's...