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Scientists have detected electromagnetic anomalies before major earthquakes, like the magnitude 9.0 event that struck Japan in 2011, triggering a massive tsunami that wiped out coastal communities like Ōfunato, shown above. Can electric signals in Earth’s atmosphere predict earthquakes? By Julia RosenDec. 21, 2015 , 1:45 PM SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA—Ask seismologists when they’ll be able to predict earthquakes, and the answer is generally: sometime between the distant future and never. Although there have been some promising leads over the years, the history of earthquake forecasting is littered with false starts and pseudoscience. However, some scientists think that Earth’s crust may give hints...

1500 years ago a pungent world plague nearly exterminated the human race! Thomas Short wrote: “from 562 A.D. a plague raged for 52 years the like of which has never been seen before or since!” Conventional wisdom maintains this worldwide plague began in Ethiopia and was carried by ship-born rats to Europe and beyond. With our new knowledge of bacteria and viruses being carried by vectors far above the Earth this theory of deployment has been questioned. Our pertinent scrutiny asks not only what caused this exterminating plague, with its incredible and unmatched virulence, but whether some parallel catastrophic events...

New understanding of electromagnetism could enable 'antennas on a chip' Apr 08, 2015 Enlarge Anechoic chamber. Credit: University of Cambridge A team of researchers from the University of Cambridge have unravelled one of the mysteries of electromagnetism, which could enable the design of antennas small enough to be integrated into an electronic chip. These ultra-small antennas - the so-called 'last frontier' of semiconductor design - would be a massive leap forward for wireless communications. In new results published in the journal Physical Review Letters, the researchers have proposed that electromagnetic waves are generated not only from the acceleration of electrons,...

A cornerstone of physics may require a rethink if findings at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) are confirmed. Recent experiments suggest that the most rigorous predictions based on the fundamental theory of electromagnetism—one of the four fundamental forces in the universe, and harnessed in all electronic devices—may not accurately account for the behavior of atoms in exotic, highly charged states. The theory in question is known as quantum electrodynamics, or QED, which physicists have held in high regard for decades because of its excellent track record describing electromagnetism's effects on matter. In particular, QED has been especially...

Tweet TO MUCH fanfare, Italy celebrated 150 years since its unification two weeks ago. Less exuberantly, America is commemorating the 150th anniversary of the outbreak of the civil war, a failed attempt to undo its union. Amid this flurry of historical fissions and fusions it is easy to overlook another, arguably more significant unification set in motion in spring 1861. In March of that year James Clerk Maxwell, a Scottish physicist (pictured above), published the first piece of a four-part paper entitled "On physical lines of force". Sprinkled amid the prose in the Philosophical Magazine were equations which revealed...

Huge 'launch ring' to fling satellites into orbit 16:00 03 October 2006 NewScientist.com news service David Shiga A ring of superconducting magnets fires a projectile off a ramp at 8 kilometres per second, fast enough to reach orbit (Artist’s conception: J Fiske/LaunchPoint) A cone-shaped shell would protect the payload during its passage through the atmosphere into space, and includes a rocket at the back end to adjust its trajectory (Illustration: J Fiske/LaunchPoint Technologies) An enormous ring of superconducting magnets similar to a particle accelerator could fling satellites into space, or perhaps weapons around the world, suggest the findings of a...

A large circular metal track could accelerate objects to supersonic speed using electromagnets and spit them out into space, says a report from the U.S. air force's Office of Scientific research. Tagged as the Launch Ring by its inventing company, Launch Point Technologies, the track would be several kilometers in diameter. Similar to trains that hover on electromagnetic tracks, a sled would hover over the ring and be propelled forward using powerful magnets. According to the company, a satellite protected by an eggshell-like capsule could sit atop the sled and slowly accelerate over a matter of hours to a supersonic...

Underwater Sub Detection: SBIR Tries to Think Like a Shark Posted 06-Jul-2005 05:10 DID has covered evolving US anti-submarine warfare strategy before, including the growing importance of dealing with super-quiet diesel-electric submarines in shallow-water littorals.In response, one of the early-stage Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) approaches involves thinking entirely outside the sonar box. We talk about "submariner dolphins" - but maybe the creature they really need to emulate is the shark. Unlike dolphins, sharks don't use sonar. Instead, they rely on both an acute sense of smell and on jelly-filled canals that pick up on the tiny electrical charges a...

Mice can predict big earthquakes: Japanese researchers 2 hours, 42 minutes ago Add Science - AFP to My Yahoo! TOKYO (AFP) - Japanese researchers said they have proved mice act strangely after being exposed to electromagnetism similar to that often monitored ahead of a big earthquake (news - web sites). In their experiments, researchers exposed mice to low levels of electromagnetism which people cannot feel, said Takeshi Yagi, professor at Osaka University in western Japan. "The mice then became unstable and ran around inside the cage, scratched their faces and stuck their heads into sawdust in the cage," Yagi said...