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Friday, September 2, 2011

ScienceDaily: Strange Science News

ScienceDaily: Strange Science News


From a flat mirror, designer light: Bizarre optical phenomena defies laws of reflection and refraction

Posted: 01 Sep 2011 11:21 AM PDT

Exploiting a novel technique called phase discontinuity, researchers have induced light rays to behave in a way that defies the centuries-old laws of reflection and refraction. The discovery has led to a reformulation of the mathematical laws that predict the path of a ray of light bouncing off a surface or traveling from one medium into another -- for example, from air into glass.

Woolly rhino fossil discovery in Tibet provides important clues to evolution of Ice Age giants

Posted: 01 Sep 2011 11:21 AM PDT

Fossil discoveries from Tibet offer new insights into the origin of the cold-adapted Pleistocene megafauna. A new research paper posits that the harsh winters of the rising Tibetan Plateau may have provided the initial step towards cold-adaptation for several subsequently successful members of the late Pleistocene mammoth fauna in Europe, Asia, and to a lesser extent, North America. The Tibetan Plateau, therefore, may have been another cradle of the Ice Age giants.

Up from the depths: How bacteria capture carbon in the 'twilight zone'

Posted: 01 Sep 2011 11:20 AM PDT

Located between 200 and 1,000 meters below the ocean surface is a "twilight zone" where insufficient sunlight penetrates for microorganisms to perform photosynthesis. Details are now emerging about a microbial metabolic pathway that helps solve the mystery of how certain bacteria capture carbon in the dark ocean, enabling a better understanding of what happens to the carbon that is fixed in the oceans every year.

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