Breaching a “carbon threshold” could lead to mass extinction
Study finds that carbon dioxide emissions may trigger a reflex in the carbon cycle, with devastating consequences.
In the brain, when neurons fire off electrical signals to their neighbors, this happens through an "all-or-none" response. The signal only happens once conditions in the cell breach a certain threshold.
An escape route for carbon
Study shows minerals sequester carbon for thousands of years, which may explain oxygen's abundance in the atmosphere.
As many of us may recall from grade school science class, the Earth's carbon cycle goes something like this: As plants take up carbon dioxide and convert it into organic carbon, they release oxygen back into the air.
Study of quark speeds finds a solution for a 35-year physics mystery
Number of proton-neutron pairs determine how fast the particles move, results suggest.
Jennifer Chu | MIT News Office
February 20, 2019
MIT physicists now have an answer to a question in nuclear physics that has puzzled scientists for three decades: Why do quarks move more slowly inside larger atoms?
Study: Much of the surface ocean will shift in color by end of 21st century
Climate-driven changes in phytoplankton communities will intensify the blue and green regions of the world’s oceans.
Jennifer Chu | MIT News Office
February 4, 2019
Climate change is causing significant changes to phytoplankton in the world's oceans, and a new MIT study finds that over the coming decades these changes will affect the ocean's color, intensifying its blue regions and its green ones. Satellites should detect these changes in hue, providing early warning of wide-scale changes to marine ecosystems.
