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74 articles from PhysOrg

Untangling a key step in photosynthetic oxygen production

Photosystem II is a protein complex in plants, algae and cyanobacteria that is responsible for splitting water and producing the oxygen we breathe. Over the past few years, an international collaboration between scientists at the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and several other institutions have been able to observe various steps...

Laser-based technique captures 3-D images of impressionist-style brushstrokes

Researchers have developed a new strategy that uses optical coherence tomography (OCT) to acquire both the surface and underlying details of impressionist style oil paintings. This information can be used to create detailed 3-D reconstructions to enhance the viewing experience and offer a way for the visually impaired to experience paintings.

Breakthrough in research on production of 2-D crystals with excellent optical properties

For the first time, monolayers of transition metal dichalcogenides with excellent optical properties were grown. A team of physicists from the University of Warsaw managed to overcome the technical difficulties faced by industry and scientists from around the world—namely the very limited size, heterogeneity, and broadening of the spectral lines of fabricated materials. Monolayers without these...

A new algorithm predicts the difficulty in fighting fire

Fires are one of the greatest threats to forest heritage. According to data from the Ministry of Agriculture, on average more than 17,000 fires occur per year in Spain, affecting 113,000 hectares and causing enormous financial and scenic losses.

4-D electric circuit network with topology

In recent years, topology has emerged as an important tool to classify and characterize properties of materials. It has been found that many materials exhibit a number of unusual topological properties, which are unaffected by deformations, e.g., stretching, compressing, or twisting. These topological properties include quantized Hall currents, large magnetoresistance, and surface excitations that...

Researchers breaking new ground in 2-D materials

A study by a team of researchers from Canada and Italy recently published in Nature Materials could usher in a revolutionary development in materials science, leading to big changes in the way companies create modern electronics.

Going nuclear on the moon and Mars

It might sound like science fiction, but scientists are preparing to build colonies on the moon and, eventually, Mars. With NASA planning its next human mission to the moon in 2024, researchers are looking for options to power settlements on the lunar surface. According to a new article in Chemical & Engineering News, the weekly newsmagazine of the American Chemical Society, nuclear fission...

Women entrepreneurs are more motivated by social impact than money

Entrepreneurial motivation is important to economic growth because entrepreneurs create companies that produce new products and services, which in turn, boost productivity. But we know little about what motivates innovative entrepreneurs and how their motivations differ by gender, culture and other characteristics. A new study from researchers at Carnegie Mellon University and Columbia Business...

Scientists find out which of the metazoans has the smallest known genome

"Orthonectida is a group of parasitic creatures that was discovered long ago—in 1877. However, their position in the animal system until recently remained a mystery," said George Slyusarev, Professor at St Petersburg University and Doctor of Biology. "Initially, they were considered extremely primitive animals that occupy an intermediate position between Protozoans and Metazoans. Hence, their...

Large shift of the Pacific Walker Circulation across the Cenozoic

Fluctuations in the Pacific Walker circulation (PWC), a zonally-oriented overturning cell across the tropical Pacific, can cause widespread climatic and biogeochemical perturbations. It remains unknown how the PWC developed during the Cenozoic era, with its substantial changes in greenhouse gases and continental positions.

New technique separates industrial noise from natural seismic signals

For the first time, seismologists can characterize signals as a result of some industrial human activity on a continent-wide scale using cloud computing. In two recently published papers in Seismological Research Letters, scientists from Los Alamos National Laboratory demonstrate how previously characterized "noise" can now be viewed as a specific signal in a large geographical area thanks to an...