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On 13 October 1908, Fritz Haber filed his patent on the “synthesis of ammonia from its elements” for which he was later awarded the 1918 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. A hundred years on we live in a world transformed by and highly dependent upon Haber–Bosch nitrogen.
Research opportunities can present themselves at the most unexpected times. When Ingrid Ukstins Peate and Scott Bryan went on a conference field trip in China, they didn't expect to steer previous geological interpretations in a new direction.
Chien-Lu Ping and his colleagues got their plane stuck in a runway of melting seasonal frost during their survey of North American soil organic carbon pools.
The world of published science has become crowded and confusing. Impact factors provide rough and ready guidance, as long as they are understood in context.
A trip to the British Antarctic Survey herbarium in Cambridge marked the beginning of a journey into the Earth's ultraviolet-B history for Barry Lomax and colleagues.
In January 2008, 33 years after Mariner 10 flew past the solar system's innermost planet, MESSENGER crossed Mercury's magnetosphere. Ancient volcanoes, contractional faults, and a rich soup of exospheric ions give clues to Mercury's structure and dynamical evolution.
Balancing their instruments on precarious cliff faces and braving intense media and public attention, Thierry Oppikofer and colleagues monitored the evolution of a rockslide along the eastern flank of the Eiger peak in the Swiss Alps.
Twice in the month of May 2008 did natural catastrophe strike Asia. Public attention in the wake of destruction offers a chance for better protection in China, Myanmar and elsewhere.
Dan Santamaria Tovar, along with advisor Jamie Shulmeister and colleagues, hiked, kayaked and mountain-biked their way through dense New Zealand rainforest in search of the origins of the Waiho Loop moraine.
Tropical cyclone Nargis wrought havoc in southern Myanmar, with an estimated death toll well above 100,000. Potential future disasters could be alleviated with currently available forecasting skill and effective disaster mitigation plans.
The devastating earthquake in the Chinese province of Sichuan struck an area that was not expected to suffer seismic activity of such magnitude. Yet topographic analyses of the region indicate active deformation, suggesting a way of refining maps of earthquake risk elsewhere.
Modern farms produce particulate matter and gases that affect the environment and human health and add to rising atmospheric greenhouse-gas levels. European policymakers have made progress in controlling these emissions, but US regulations remain inadequate.
