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A New Twist on Fiber Optics

By twisting fiber optic strands into helical shapes, researchers have created unique structures that can precisely filter, polarize or scatter light. Compatible with standard fiber optic lines, these hair-like structures may replace bulky components in sensors, gyroscopes and other devices. While researchers are still probing the unusual properties ...

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ANewTwistonFiberOptics
Biology

What Elements Are Required By Animals And Plants For Survival?

An understanding of our fragile environment can begin with a recognition of the importance of certain elements, commonly called 'mineral substances' (such as iron and zinc), in the lives of humans and ... Continue reading

AnimalsPlantsSurvival
Geology

Salty Remnants At Death Valley's Badwater

Beneath the dark shadows of the Black Mountains, a great, extraordinarily flat expanse of shimmering white spreads out before you. You are at Badwater, at -282 feet it is the lowest spot in the ... Continue reading

SaltyRemnantsAtDeathValley
Biology

Vampires

What flying creature can hop, leap, and turn somersaults? Another hint: it can fit in the palm of your hand and weighs about the same as a penny. One more hint: its entire diet is blood. Desmodus ... Continue reading

Vampires
Biology

What Gives Hair Its Color?

Put a single hair under a microscope, and you'll see granules of black, brown, yellow, or red pigment. What you are seeing are tiny particles of melanin, the same pigment that gives skin its color. ... Continue reading

WhatGivesHairItsColor

Distant Mountains Influence River Levels 50 Years Later

RiverLevelsRainfall in the mountains has a major influence on nearby river levels, and its effects can be seen as much as 50 years after the rain has fallen, according to hydrologists funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF). Scientists had believed that the downslope distance from a mountain to a river is significant, such that rain falling on a mountaintop doesn't have an impact on a river below, according to Christopher Duffy, a civil engineer at Pennsylvania State University. But Duffy has found that rainfall and snowfall over the mountains, at least in the basin and range area of New Mexico, play an important part in recharge of the water table and the Rio Grande River. 'This has huge implications for development,' Duffy today told attendees at this week's spring meeting of the American Geophysical Union in Montreal, Canada. 'The role of the water table is important.'

Duffy uses a computer model to investigate groundwater in central New Mexico. The terrain is divided into three areas: mountains; sloping bajada; and riparian or river area. Duffy looks at environmental variables including rainfall, snowpack, evapotranspiration and altitude. Also important, he says, are the geologic porosity and conductance of the rocks. Much of the data comes from the SAHRA - Sustainability of Semi-Arid Hydrology and Riparian Areas - Center, an NSF Science and Technology Center. SAHRA is based at the University of Arizona; Penn State is a partner. 'Much of the country depends on groundwater resources,' says Doug James, program director in NSF's division of earth sciences, which funds SAHRA. 'Duffy has developed a means of quantifying recharge locations and rates to determine impacts of land use and river management. The results will be used to guide planning for sustained aquifer management in the decades ahead.'

In the Llano de Sandia in New Mexico, the Los Pinos Mountains are about 9,000 ft. high while the area below in which the river runs is at an elevation of about 4,800 ft. About a mile separates the mountains from the river. Precipitation in these mountains doesn't all run downslope, nor does it all seep into the mountains. Some of the water goes deep into fractured rocks beneath the mountains. 'The time between rainfall on the mountains and ultimate recharging of the riverine water table is about 50 years,' says Duffy. 'The seven-year, 1950s drought in the area is what is now affecting the Rio Grande and the water table. 'Developers of New Mexico's mountains and bajada regions need to consider a longer time horizon than a decade when planning to alter the natural environment. It may require a forward view of tens of decades to ensure sustainability. Even if no obvious year-round streams run from the mountains, they are still very important for the recharge of the water table and river.'