Brazil nut effect BRUH-zil nuht ih-fekt n. The phenomenon in which a mixture’s larger objects, such as Brazil nuts in a can of mixed nuts, rise to the top when the mix is shaken vertically. Some scientists think that smaller nuts slip into the spaces under the larger ones during each shake.
A lightning-fast laser lightshow could help detect explosive powders from a distance, a study in the August 11 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggests.
Waning winds could give the world’s largest oxygen-starved ocean region a breath of fresh air as the planet warms, researchers report in the Aug. 8 Science. Scientists previously thought the North Pacific dead zone would grow, not shrink, under climate change.
Methane, not an alien spacecraft crash, is probably responsible for the 30-meter-wide crater that suddenly appeared in Siberia in mid-July.
Space rocks larger in diameter than Spain bombarded the early Earth, probably repeatedly eradicating emerging life. The last of these death rocks struck around 4.3 billion years ago, scientists estimate in the July 31 Nature, providing an upper limit to when life first took hold on Earth.
Massive supervolcanic eruptions can be triggered much more quickly than previously thought, scientists report July 21 in Geology.
Tens of kilometers above the icy waterfalls surrounding Iceland’s Kirkjufell Mountain, Earth’s magnetic field drags electrons from the sun to their visually stunning demise. The zooming particles collide with nitrogen and oxygen in the upper atmosphere, an interaction that produces a brilliant blue-green light show called an aurora.
Gravity, not glue, allows towering sandstone pillars and arches to withstand howling wind and pouring rain, researchers propose July 20 in Nature Geoscience.
Distorted cell phone signals could help track the rains down in Africa.
Researchers have squeezed diamonds to a record-setting pressure — 14 times as high as that inside Earth’s core. The compressed diamond’s properties could reveal the extreme conditions deep inside supersized distant planets, the team reports in the July 17 Nature.