Volcanic aerosols from the 1991 Mount Pinatubo eruption greatly increased diffuse radiation worldwide for the following 2 years. We estimated that this increase in diffuse radiation alone enhanced noontime photosynthesis of a deciduous forest by 23% in 1992 and 8% in 1993 under cloudless conditions. This finding indicates that the aerosol-induced increase in diffuse radiation by the volcano enh...

This paper describes the ongoing development of a radiation-tolerant version of ITT Industries’ Low-Power Transceiver (LPT). The LPT is a compact, flexible device that can be configured to perform custom communications and navigation functions in terrestrial, airborne, and space applications. The radiation-tolerant version of the LPT maintains most of the LPT’s existing functionality and reprog...

The evolution of ecological trade-offs is an important component of ecological specialization and adaptive radiation. However, the pattern that would show that evolutionary trade-offs have occurred between traits among species has not been clearly defined. In this paper, we propose a phylogeny-based definition of an evolutionary trade-off, and apply it to an analysis of the evolution of trade-o...

High-quality wireless devices require an omnidirectional and uniform antenna radiation pattern. This pattern can be verified by measuring the over-the-air (OTA) performance. These measurements, which are an essential part of the certification test, need to be extended to include MIMO operating modes. The Rohde&Schwarz two-channel test method makes these measurements both cost-effective and repr...

Aerosols affect downward solar radiation, impacting the terrestrial ecosystem carbon dynamics and energy budget. Here we apply a coupled modeling framework of a terrestrial ecosystem model and an atmospheric radiative transfer model to evaluate aerosol direct radiative effects on the surface heat fluxes of global terrestrial ecosystems during 2003–2010. We find that aerosol loadings decrease th...

BACKGROUND Exposure to medium or high doses of ionizing radiation is a known risk factor for cancer in children. The extent to which low-dose radiation from natural sources contributes to the risk of childhood cancer remains unclear. OBJECTIVES In a nationwide census-based cohort study, we investigated whether the incidence of childhood cancer was associated with background radiation from ter...

Tardigrades inhabiting terrestrial environments exhibit extraordinary resistance to ionizing radiation and UV radiation although little is known about the mechanisms underlying the resistance. We found that the terrestrial tardigrade Ramazzottius varieornatus is able to tolerate massive doses of UVC irradiation by both being protected from forming UVC-induced thymine dimers in DNA in a desiccat...

One of the most documented effects of human activity on our environment is the reduction of stratospheric ozone resulting in an increase of biologically harmful ultraviolet (UV) radiation. In a less predictable manner, UV radiation incident at the surface of the earth is expected to be further modified in the future as a result of altered cloud condition, atmospheric aerosol concentration, and ...

Terrestrial ecosystems have continued to provide the critical service of slowing the atmospheric CO2 growth rate. Terrestrial net primary productivity (NPP) is thought to be a major contributing factor to this trend. Yet our ability to estimate NPP at the regional scale remains limited due to large uncertainties in the response of NPP to multiple interacting climate factors and uncertainties in...