200 articles from FRIDAY 30.4.2021
Tropical lakes may emit more methane
Methane is not the most abundant greenhouse gas in our atmosphere, but it is among the most potent. Roughly a quarter of global methane emissions come from natural sources, and freshwater ecosystems are the largest source of atmospheric methane. Most of the data on methane dynamics in aquatic ecosystems come from boreal and temperate environments. Less is known about the fate of methane in...
Researchers discover the mechanism that likely generates huge white dwarf magnetic fields
A dynamo mechanism could explain the incredibly strong magnetic fields in white dwarf stars according to an international team of scientists, including a University of Warwick astronomer.
Electron beam melting gets brittle metal into shape
Tungsten has the highest melting point of all metals, 3,422 degrees Celsius. This makes the material ideal for use at high temperatures in e.g. space rocket nozzles, heating elements of high-temperature furnaces, or the fusion reactor. However, the metal is highly brittle and, hence, difficult to process. Researchers of Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) have developed an innovative approach...
Researchers analyze circulating currents inside gold nanoparticles
According to classical electromagnetism, a charged particle moving in an external magnetic field experiences a force that makes the particle's path circular. This basic law of physics are exploited in designing cyclotrons that work as particle accelerators. When nanometer-size metal particles are placed in a magnetic field, the field induces a circulating electron current inside the particle. The...
World's first fiber-optic ultrasonic imaging probe for future nanoscale disease diagnostics
Scientists at the University of Nottingham have developed an ultrasonic imaging system, which can be deployed on the tip of a hair-thin optical fiber, and will be insertable into the human body to visualize cell abnormalities in 3D.
Community and officer buy-in might be key to police reform
The guilty verdicts delivered against Derek Chauvin on April 20, 2021, represented a landmark moment—but courtroom justice cannot deliver the sweeping changes most Americans feel are needed to improve policing in the U.S.
New structural details about the specific arrangement of atoms in conjugated polymers
Advanced X-ray techniques have revealed new structural details about the specific arrangement of atoms in conjugated polymers, an important class of materials that are used in LEDs, organic solar cells, transistors, sensors and thermoelectric power devices.
Geoscientists call for action on tackling racial inequality in field
An article published in the journal Nature Geoscience has highlighted the shocking under-representation of students from ethnic minority backgrounds in the Geosciences.
Glacier avalanches more common than thought
One tends to think of mountain glaciers as slow moving, their gradual passage down a mountainside visible only through a long series of satellite imagery or years of time-lapse photography. However, new research shows that glacier flow can be much more dramatic, ranging from about 10 meters a day to speeds that are more like that of avalanches, with obvious potential dire consequences for those...
Research spotlights Minnesota's successes in eradicating Palmer amaranth
Palmer amaranth is a hard-to-control noxious weed that can significantly reduce crop yields. It was first introduced in Minnesota in 2016 through contaminated seed mixes used for conservation plantings.
Studying top quarks at high and not-so-high energies
CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is famous for colliding protons at world-record energies—but sometimes it pays to dial down the energy and see what happens under less extreme conditions. The LHC started operation in 2010 with a collision energy of 7 TeV, and ran at 13 TeV from 2015 to 2018. But for one week in 2017, the LHC produced moderate-intensity collisions at only 5 TeV—allowing...
'Awake' concept brings proton bunches into sync
The future of particle acceleration has begun. Awake is a promising concept for a completely new method with which particles can be accelerated even over short distances. The basis for this is a plasma wave that accelerates electrons and thus brings them to high energies. A team led by the Max Planck Institute for Physics now reports a breakthrough in this context. For the first time, they were...
Move over CRISPR, the retrons are coming
While the CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing system has become the poster child for innovation in synthetic biology, it has some major limitations. CRISPR-Cas9 can be programmed to find and cut specific pieces of DNA, but editing the DNA to create desired mutations requires tricking the cell into using a new piece of DNA to repair the break. This bait-and-switch can be complicated to orchestrate, and can...
Pollen study shows forest regrowth began hundreds of years before arrival of Europeans in Amazonia
An international team of researchers has found evidence showing that forest regrowth in Amazonia began prior to the arrival of Europeans in South America. In their paper published in the journal Science, the group describes their analysis of fossilized pollen retrieved from lake beds in the region.
Three new studies suggest Z-genome is much more widespread in bacteria-invading viruses than thought
Three teams working independently have found evidence that suggests the Z-genome in bacteria-invading viruses is much more widespread than thought. All three of the groups have used a variety of genomic techniques to identify parts of the pathways that lead development of the Z-genome in bacteria-invading viruses known as bacteriophages. The first team was made up of researchers from several...
Nano flashlight could allow future cell phones to detect viruses, more
In work that could turn cell phones into sensors capable of detecting viruses and other minuscule objects, MIT researchers have built a powerful nanoscale flashlight on a chip.
ESA to build second deep space dish in Australia
On 29 April, ESA and the Australian Space Agency announced the construction of a second 35-meter, deep space antenna at ESA's New Norcia station, located 140 kilometers north of Perth in Western Australia.
New view of species interactions offers clues to preserve threatened ecosystems
As the health of ecosystems in regions around the globe declines due to a variety of rising threats, scientists continue to seek clues to help prevent future collapses.
Model could create hurricane forecasts up to 18 months in advance
Every spring, researchers publish their projected forecasts of the upcoming hurricane season—how many storms may form, and how severe they may be. But what if you could create these forecasts up to a year and a half in advance? A new model from North Carolina State University incorporates machine learning to create long-range hurricane forecasts with similar accuracy to those currently in use.
Latest observations by MUSER help clarify solar eruptions
Prof. Yan Yihua and his research team from the National Astronomical Observatories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (NAOC) recently released detailed results of observations by the new generation solar radio telescope—Mingantu Spectral Radio Heliograph (MUSER)—from 2014 to 2019.
Researchers develop compact on-chip device for detecting electric-field waveforms with attosecond time resolution
Understanding how light waves oscillate in time as they interact with materials is essential to understanding light-driven energy transfer in materials, such as solar cells or plants. Due to the fantastically high speeds at which light waves oscillate, however, scientists have yet to develop a compact device with enough time resolution to directly capture them.
'Become human again' to address social, environmental challenges
"Hyposubjects: On Becoming Human," a new book from Rice professors Timothy Morton and Dominic Boyer, takes an experimental approach to thinking about the social and environmental challenges of our times.
Get to know your plants through ionomics
Living beings need elements to develop properly. The study of ionomics measures and analyzes the element accumulations in living organisms to determine which mineral nutrients are required and not required for growth. Associate Professor Toshihiro Watanabe from Hokkaido University's Research Faculty of Agriculture applies this approach to learn about mineral accumulation in both plants and soil,...
The First Australians grew to a population of millions, much more than previous estimates
We know it is more than 60,000 years since the first people entered the continent of Sahul—the giant landmass that connected New Guinea, Australia and Tasmania when sea levels were lower than today.