Experts in the News

A study on the magnitude M 7.6 earthquake Noto Hanto, which struck Japan's Noto Peninsula on January 1st, 2024, shows it was preceded by a series of foreshocks including three significant events (M 5.5, M 4.6, and M 5.9). These foreshocks occurred just seconds to minutes before the main shock and underscores a complex behavior change from the long-term swarm-like activities to the burst-like foreshock activities. School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences Professor Zhigang Peng talks about the importance of this study. 

"While other recently published studies focused on one aspect of the Noto sequence, such as the mainshock rupture or relocation of small earthquakes, this study combines results from many different angles, including relocations of all seismic events since 2018," says Peng. "Hence, it is likely one of the most complete analyses so far for this sequence."

New research shows that improving wintertime air quality in Fairbanks, Alaska — particularly in frigid conditions around 40 below zero Fahrenheit — may be less effective than intended. 

Led by a team of University of Alaska Fairbanks and Georgia Tech researchers that includes School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences Professor Rodney Weber, the researchers' latest findings are published in Science Advances. 

In the study, the team leveraged state-of-the-art thermodynamic tools used in global air quality models, with an aim to better understand how reducing the amount of primary sulfate in the atmosphere might affect sub-zero air quality conditions.

The project stems from the 2022 Alaskan Layered Pollution and Chemical Analysis project, or ALPACA, an international project funded by the National Science Foundation, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and European sources. It is part of an international air quality effort called Pollution in the Arctic: Climate Environment and Societies.

Read the full story in the University of Alaska Fairbanks newsroom.

Evolution is the process by which a species' genes or physical appearance changes gradually over time. By the early to mid-20th century, scientists realized that evolution can happen much more quickly than ever realized. Several factors can lead to rapid evolution. School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences Assistant Professor James Stroud explains that "evolution is always occurring." Stroud and other researchers are using nonnative green iguanas as a case study for rapid evolution. The warm-adapted lizards are known to freeze and fall out of trees during Miami's infrequent cold snaps. 

"What we saw is that some die, but some survive — and the ones that survive can actually tolerate colder temperatures than the ones we measured before," Stroud says. "So it suggests that evolution might be happening."

Despite the fact that Antarctica is extraordinarily difficult to get to, astronomers love it and have chosen it as the location for the IceCube Neutrino Observatory. What could possibly make such a remote location so desirable for space science that it’s worth all that trouble? 

In this article, scientists including Georgia Tech's Brandon Pries from the School of Physics explain why the South Pole is such a hotspot for astronomers. The answer? At the South Pole, you can best view neutrons and neutrinos in space. 

Pries compares the benefits of the South Pole to the North Pole. “The North Pole is more difficult because ice coverage there fluctuates,” explains Pries. “There is a foundation of bedrock underneath Antarctica that serves as a solid base for the IceCube instruments.” This bedrock is also why Antarctica is home to the South Pole Telescope, a radio observatory that helped take the first ever photo of a black hole.

Scientists have long argued that familiar, beloved music — which is considered predictable and safe — can help enhance our focus and learning. According to two new studies led by Yiren Ren, a PhD student in the School of Psychology, different types of music can do more than just aid concentration; they can also influence our emotions and even reshape old memories.

Ren's faculty advisor and co-author, Associate Professor Thackery Brown, says the studies approach the impact of music from different angles. “One paper looks at how music changes the quality of your memory when you’re first forming it — it’s about learning,” says Brown. “But the other study focuses on memories we already have and asks if we can change the emotions attached to them using music.”

Brown is also a cognitive neuroscientist who runs the Memory, Affect, and Planning (MAP) Lab at Georgia Tech.

Related coverage: MedicalXpress, MSN,  New Atlas, Microsoft Start, Futurity, CNN Brasil, Huffpost, and The Good Man Project

The North Atlantic Ocean has had surface temperatures at or near record highs for months, but cooling along the equator in both the Atlantic and eastern Pacific may finally start to bring some relief, particularly for vulnerable coral reef ecosystems.

Professor and associate chair in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Annalisa Bracco, and Senior Academic Professional Zachary Handlos, in an article published in the The Conversation, discuss their research in two climate phenomena with similar names: La Niña, which forms in the tropical Pacific, and the less well-known Atlantic Niña, both of which are responsible for the cooling effect. Both can affect this year's hurricane season. 

(This research also appeared in Deccan Herald) 

Georgia Tech researchers from the School of Physics including fifth-year PhD student Mengqi Huang and Assistant Professor Chunhui Rita Du are among the authors of a paper recently published in Nature Physics. Researchers from six universities and Oak Ridge National Laboratory showed that strong quantum fluctuations can stabilize an unconventional magnetic phase after destroying a more conventional one.

Georgia Tech researchers led by Jean Lynch-Stieglitz, a professor in the School of Earth of Atmospheric Sciences have finished investigating how the prehistoric weakening of a major ocean current led to a decline in ocean nutrients and negative impacts on North Atlantic ocean life. The results support predictions about how our oceans might react to a changing climate — and what that means for ocean life.

“The research tests a concept that has previously only been explored in theory and models,” says lead author Lynch-Stieglitz. “The large-scale Atlantic overturning circulation provides the nutrients that underly biological productivity in the North Atlantic.”

(This research also appeared in List23.)

As great minds throughout history have aptly demonstrated, high IQ's aren't always compatible with 'normality.' Several experts, including School of Psychology Professor Eric Schumacher are quoted in an article about seven behaviors that are linked to having a higher IQ. Schumacher's study on daydreaming, completed in 2017 with Christine Godwin, is referenced. "People with efficient brains may have too much brain capacity to stop their minds from wandering," Schumacher says. "Our findings remind me of the absent-minded professor — someone who's brilliant, but off in his or her own world, sometimes oblivious to their own surroundings, or school children who are too intellectually advanced for their classes. While it may take five minutes for their friends to learn something new, they figure it out in a minute, then check out and start daydreaming," he adds. 

In June 2024, several earthquakes shook the northeast corner of Metro Atlanta, including the Buford and Lake Lanier regions of Gwinnett and Hall counties. In a radio interview with 95.5 WSB, School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences Professor Zhigang Peng discusses a theory regarding water levels and earthquakes. "It turns out a reservoir is well known to cause earthquakes," Peng says. "Now, probably not at Lake Lanier, I have not heard anything related to this reservoir -- but looking at the broader regions, we have quite a few reservoirs in Georgia and the southern regions. Some of them are known to trigger or cause earthquakes.” 

https://bit.ly/3yAzasN

An article published in Phys.org reveals a new sustainable reaction for creating unique molecular building blocks. According to the published study, researchers from Georgia Tech’s Gutekunst Lab collaborated with Scripps Research and the University of Pittsburg to test whether newly invented nickel-catalyzed chemical reactions designed to build a diverse array of small molecule monomers could be scaled up to create unique polymers for drug delivery, energy storage, microelectronics, and more.

No one knows yet how much water the Moon has or how deep it goes. But one thing is certain: There’s much more than scientists first thought. In a series created for children of all ages called, "Curious Kids," and published in The Conversation, School of Chemistry and Biochemistry Regents' Professor Thomas Orlando, School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences Assistant Professor Frances Rivera-Hernandez, and School of Aerospace Engineering Professor Glenn Lightsey discuss how scientists confirmed there is water on the moon and the careful steps we must take to access it.