- PhysOrg
- 20/9/28 22:54
Maybe you've seen a beautiful, color-changing tea on social media. Chances are, it's butterfly pea flower tea.
Maybe you've seen a beautiful, color-changing tea on social media. Chances are, it's butterfly pea flower tea.
A network of salty ponds may be gurgling beneath Mars' South Pole alongside a large underground lake, raising the prospect of tiny, swimming Martian life.
"Zombie fires" and burning of fire-resistant vegetation are new features driving Arctic fires—with strong consequences for the global climate—warn international fire scientists in a commentary published in Nature Geoscience.
The afterlife of plant matter plays a significant role in ecosystems, as a key processor and provider of key nutrients. The rate of decomposition for leaf litter, among other plant matter, heavily influences the health of animals and plants, and this rate is expected to significantly increase as Earth continues to warm. There is another factor that could hold impact these ecosystems even more than...
A study published in the journal Energy and Environmental Science has combined experimental and theoretical approaches to study the passivation layers formed on calcium metal electrodes and their influence on the reversible operation of calcium-based batteries. The work is led by researchers from the ICMAB-CSIC, who have collaborated with the ALBA Synchrotron (MIRAS beamline) as well as with other...
NASA analyzed the cloud top temperatures in Tropical Storm Kujira using infrared light to determine the strength of the storm. Infrared imagery revealed that the strongest storms were around Kujira's center and in a band of thunderstorms on the western side of the storm.
The international collaborative team of Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology (TUAT) in Japan, Indian Institute of Technology Ropar (IIT Ropar) in India, and Osaka University in Japan has discovered for the first time a topological change of viscous fingering (one of classical interfacial hydrodynamics), which is driven by "a partially miscibility," where the two liquids do not mix...
Many orchid species are threatened by land conversion and illegal harvesting. However, only a fraction of those species is included in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, because assessments require a lot of time, resources and expertise. A new approach, an automated assessment developed under the lead of biodiversity researchers from Central Germany, now shows that almost 30% of all orchid...
Were you aware that earthquakes are sometimes associated with luminescence, called earthquake lightning? This phenomenon had been documented throughout history, such as between 1965 and 1967, the Matsushiro earthquake swarm caused the surrounding mountain to flicker with light multiple times. In 1993 when an earthquake caused a tsunami off the coast in Southwest Hokkaido which caused 5 boats...
When the Apollo astronauts landed on the Moon, they brought devices with them called retroreflectors, which are essentially small arrays of mirrors. The plan was for scientists on Earth to aim lasers at them and calculate the time it took for the beams to return. This provided exceptionally precise measurements of the Moon's orbit and shape, including how it changed slightly based on Earth's...
Results of recent studies involving valproic acid, used for decades as an anti-convulsant drug, show that it can interact with the conformation of DNA and regulate gene expression.
Researcher Steven Emslie encountered a puzzle at Cape Irizar, a rocky cape located just south of the Drygalski Ice Tongue on the Scott Coast, Ross Sea. He found both ancient and what appeared to be fresh remains of Adelie penguins, mostly of chicks, which frequently die and accumulate at these colonies. However, the "fresh" remains were puzzling, he says, because there are no records of an active...
Regrowing forests are absorbing just a small proportion of the carbon dioxide released from widespread deforestation in the Amazon, according to new evidence.
Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas that plays a central role in the global carbon cycle. At the same time, it is an important energy source for us humans. About half of its annual production is made by microorganisms known as methanogens that decompose organic material such as dead plants. This normally takes place in a habitat without oxygen as this gas is lethal to methanogens. But even in...
While debate over COVID-19 guidelines and vaccine development has raised skeptics' eyebrows and undermined confidence, a West Virginia University associate professor says that communication is essential for the science community to gain the American public's trust. According to Geah Pressgrove, scientists and communications professionals need to rethink how they communicate through four distinct...
Organisms, ranging from bacteria to humans, run on an interconnected series of metabolic pathways—with glycolysis being the essential process that generates energy from sugars (glucose) in food. Pyruvate is the final product of glycolysis: It is an important molecule that acts as a node between different pathways. To better understand how these pathways work, a team of scientists, led by Dr....
A new study authored by Southwest Research Institute scientists Rodrigo Leiva and Marc Buie reveals the binary nature of a trans-Neptunian object (TNO). Leiva and Buie utilized data obtained by the Research and Education Collaborative Occultation Network (RECON), a citizen science research net-work dedicated to observing the outer solar system. The study was published this month in The...
Once he saw that temperatures in Death Valley National Park had hit 130 degrees Fahrenheit, Dan Markham, 40, knew he had to go.
The scientists who re-engineered the plastic-eating enzyme PETase have now created an enzyme 'cocktail' which can digest plastic up to six times faster.
Researchers have found a way to engineer more efficient versions of the plant enzyme Rubisco by using a red-algae-like Rubisco from a bacterium.
Scientists say a 'portfolio' of protected areas within marine parks such as the Great Barrier Reef can help secure sustainable fish populations.
Surviving on a warming planet can be a matter of timing—but simply shifting lifecycle stages to match the tempo of climate change has hidden dangers for some animals, according to new research from the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior and Cornell University. The study has uncovered drastic consequences for birds that are breeding earlier in lockstep with earlier starts of spring: chicks...
New research has identified a mechanism by which low levels of insecticides such as, the neonicotinoid Imidacloprid, could harm the nervous, metabolic and immune system of insects, including those that are not pests, such as our leading pollinators, bees.
Research conducted by two groups at the Center for Cooperative Research in Biomaterials CIC biomaGUNE and one at SISSA, Scuola Internazionale Superiore di Studi Avanzati (Italy), have shown that functional materials based on carbon nanotubes facilitate the reconnecting of neuronal networks damaged as a result of spinal cord injuries. The study, published by the scientific journal PNAS (Proceedings...
Modern humans arrived in the westernmost part of Europe 41,000—38,000 years ago, about 5,000 years earlier than previously known, according to Jonathan Haws, Ph.D., professor and chair of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Louisville, and an international team of researchers. The team has revealed the discovery of stone tools used by modern humans dated to the earlier time...