University of Wisconsin-Madison Assistant Professor Huifang Xu, who led the study, said his team grew nanocrystals of two common crystals — zinc oxide and barium titanate — and placed them into water. When pulsed with ultrasonic vibrations, the nanofibers flexed and catalyzed a chemical reaction to split the water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen.

The researchers explained that when the fibers bend, asymmetries in their crystal structures generate positive and negative charges and create an electrical potential. That phenomenon, called the piezoelectric effect, is well known in certain crystals and is the driving force behind quartz clocks.

Xu and his colleagues applied the same idea to nanocrystal fibers and, so far, have achieved 18 percent efficiency — higher than most experimental energy sources.

Rather than harvest the energy directly, the scientists used it to break the chemical bonds in water and produce oxygen and hydrogen gas.

Xu said the process might eventually be used to generate power from a multitude of small sources — walking could charge a cell and breezes could power streetlights.

The study that included Kuang-Sheng Hong, Hiromi Konishi and Professor Xiaochun Li is reported in the March 2 issue of the Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters.

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“This asteroid is a time capsule from before the birth of our solar system,” said Bill Cutlip of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

If selected, Goddard will provide overall mission management for OSIRIS-REx, working with the Principal Investigator, Michael Drake, director of the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory at the University of Arizona. Lockheed Martin Space Systems would build the spacecraft.

“You can’t underestimate the value of a pristine sample,” Cutlip added. Meteorites, pieces of asteroids that break away and plunge to Earth, are “toasted on their way through Earth’s atmosphere,” Cutlip said. “Once they land, they then soak up the microbes and chemicals from the environment around them.”

OSIRIS-Rex project science Joseph Nuth added, “With a pristine sample … scientists will learn more about the time before the birth of our solar system, the initial stages of planet formation and the source of organic compounds available for the origin of life.”

OSIRIS-REx was one of three proposals selected by NASA in December for more study under its New Frontiers program. Whichever mission is selected, it must be ready for launch no later than December 30, 2018.

More information about OSIRIS-REx is available at http://gsfctechnology.gsfc.nasa.gov/ORIRIS.htm.

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“The Right Reaction Control System … fuel helium tank pressure unexpectedly decreased in unison with the … fuel propellant tank when the fuel tank was vented,” NASA said in a statement. “This indicates that at least one of the two parallel helium isolation valves is leaking or is remaining in the open position when it is expected to be closed.”

The two helium system regulators, a primary and a secondary, will be tested to verify they are functioning correctly. Scientists said both regulators are “downstream” of the isolation valves, and help to maintain helium pressure to the fuel tank. Knowing whether the regulators are operating correctly is a key factor for managers who must decide whether to proceed with launch preparations. The test is expected to occur late this week.

NASA said managers now expect to move Discovery’s STS-131’s payload to Launch Pad 39A starting at 12:01 a.m. EDT Friday.

Officials said the launch — the 33rd shuttle mission to the International Space Station — is still set for April 5 at 6:21 a.m. EDT, with a few days of contingency left in the schedule to make that liftoff date.

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Forty-six percent of those asked rated the environmental quality as “good” or “excellent,” up from 39 percent in March 2009, Gallup’s annual Social Series Environmental survey, released Monday, found.

The results of the poll, conducted March-7, are the most positive since 2002, Gallup says.

The public’s rating of the environment in the last two surveys — dating to March 2009, just after President Barack Obama’s inauguration — is far more optimistic than in the 10 years prior to his taking office, Gallup found.

“Public optimism about the environmental outlook surged among independents and Democrats in surveys bracketing the shift in presidential administrations from George W. Bush’s to Obama’s,” the survey said.

But perception of environmental quality also rose slightly among Republicans in the latest poll.

The telephone survey of a random sample of 1,014 adults has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

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China National Offshore Oil Corporation said it would pay $3.1 billion for a 50 percent stake in Bridas, which is controlled by Argentine businessman Carlos Bulgheroni and has oil assets in Argentina, Chile and Bolivia.

The CNOOC acquisition in Argentina comes after many months of Chinese exploratory visits and negotiations in Latin America. Analysts said the purchase was in line with the Chinese government strategy to secure energy assets abroad as a cushion against China’s rising demand and as a future source of revenue.

With crude oil at more than $80 a barrel, the purchase signals the start of formal Chinese entry into the Latin American energy market, after similar approaches made to acquire metals and raw materials to feed the Chinese industry’s growing demand.

CNOOC President Yang Hua said Bridas represents “a very good beachhead for us to enter Latin America” and a culmination of efforts begun last year to secure that position.

With galloping industrial growth and rising consumption among the country’s newly rich, China has become the world’s second largest energy consumer, after the United States.

The Argentine deal is the largest single CNOOC transaction since the company paid $2.7 billion for a stake in a Nigerian oil field nearly five years ago.

In between China has been buying energy assets in Asia and Africa. Industry estimates suggest China spent about $13 billion on energy asset buying worldwide in the past two years. However, most of the buying involved canny scrutiny of the assets, with an eye on securing not only the best possible deal but also assurance of energy supplies for the coming generations.

The Bridas buyout will add 318 million barrels, an increase of about 12 percent, in CNOOC reserves and boost its average daily production by 46,000 barrels.

Bridas owns a 40 percent stake in Pan American Energy LLC, Argentina’s largest crude oil exporter and has oil and gas reserves in Chile and Bolivia. BP Plc, Europe’s largest oil company, owns the remainder of Pan American shares.

Demand for oil in China rose 28 percent in January compared with the same month a year earlier, the International Energy Agency in Paris said. The agency called the rise “astonishing,” indicating information from China’s energy industry was still threadbare in some areas.

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A 6.7-magnitude quake struck Monday before midnight and a 5.5-magnitude tremor rumbled just after midnight, CNN reported Tuesday.

USGS indicated both quakes were about 35 to 45 miles north of Concepcion, which was heavily damaged by a huge 8.8-magnitude earthquake Feb. 27.

Vicente Nunez, Chile’s National Emergencies Office director, called for calm, saying there was no threat from a tsunami. He said he had no initial reports of injuries or major damage.

Since Sunday, aftershocks have rocked Chile, with at least seven of 5-magnitude or above recorded.

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The Boston University study, using NASA satellite data, concluded Amazon rain forests were remarkably unaffected by a once-in-a-century drought in 2005, neither dying nor thriving, contrary to a report by the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

“We found no big differences in the greenness level of these forests between drought and non-drought years, which suggests that these forests may be more tolerant of droughts than we previously thought,” said Arindam Samanta, the study’s lead author.

The U.N. panel’s report, published in 2007 by the journal Science, claimed the rain forests actually thrive from drought because of more sunshine under cloudless skies, the scientists said. The latest report said that study was flawed and not reproducible.

“This new study brings some clarity to our muddled understanding of how these forests, with their rich source of biodiversity, would fare in the future in the face of twin pressures from logging and changing climate,” said Boston University Professor Ranga Myneni.

The research that included Sangram Ganguly of the Bay Area Environmental Research Institute in Sonoma, Calif., appears in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

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People in Hawthorne, Whittier and West Covina reported the quake awakened them about 4:04 a.m., KTLA-TV, Los Angles, reported. The epicenter was about 11 miles east-southeast from Los Angeles.

The earthquake was about 11 miles deep, the USGS said.

Officials said they had no immediate reports of damage or injuries.

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The Southern Methodist University and the University of Texas at Austin research showed operation of a saltwater injection disposal well in the area was a “plausible cause” for the series of small earthquakes that occurred between Oct. 30, 2008, and May 16, 2009.

The quakes occurred in an area of North Texas where the vast Barnett Shale geological formation traps natural gas deposits in subsurface rock. The research led by SMU seismologists Brian Stump and Chris Hayward determined the shale production relies on the injection of pressurized water into the ground to crack open the gas-bearing rock — a process known as “hydraulic fracturing” — with some of the injected water being recovered in the form of waste fluids that require disposal.

Although the scientists said the quakes do not appear directly connected to the drilling, hydraulic fracturing or gas production, the study concludes re-injection of waste fluids into the shale might have caused the earthquakes.

“It is plausible that the fluid injection in the southwest saltwater disposal well could have affected the in-situ tectonic stress regime on the fault, reactivating it and generating the DFW earthquakes,” the scientists said.

The study appears in the journal The Leading Edge.

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The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel said Monday that despite working with nets and fish-shocking tools for a month crews have been unable to catch even one of the large fish that are seen as a possible threat to the Great Lakes.

It is critical the carp to not reach Lake Michigan, where the size and hunger of the fish could pose problems for native fish populations, officials said.

Tom Marks, the New York director of the Great Lakes Sport Fishing Council, suggested the crews’ inability to catch a carp could be seen as proof the species has been unable to pass the canal system’s electric fish barrier.

“I think they believe that a ‘good show’ with no results (of Asian carp) will prove what they have been saying; there are no carp above the barrier,” Marks told the Journal-Sentinel.

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