Court says dinosaur fossils worth millions aren't minerals
Dinosaur fossils aren't minerals under state law, a divided Montana Supreme Court said in a ruling Wednesday that has implications in an ongoing legal battle over the ownership of millions of dollars of fossils unearthed on an eastern Montana ranch.
Capturing the coordinated dance between electrons and nuclei in a light-excited molecule
Using a high-speed "electron camera" at the Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, scientists have simultaneously captured the movements of electrons and nuclei in a molecule after it was excited with light. This marks the first time this has been done with ultrafast electron diffraction, which scatters a powerful beam of electrons off materials to pick up tiny molecular...
NASA Snow campaign wraps 2020 survey
As spring and summer temperatures return to the Northern Hemisphere, winter's snow is melting, releasing precious fresh water into Earth's streams, rivers and oceans. This annual change provides liquid water for drinking, agriculture and hydropower for more than one billion people around the world. In the future, NASA plans to use a satellite mission to measure how much water the world's winter...
Low-severity fires enhance long-term carbon retention of peatlands
High-intensity fires can destroy peat bogs and cause them to emit huge amounts of their stored carbon into the atmosphere as greenhouse gases, but a new Duke University study finds low-severity fires spark the opposite outcome.
Biophysicists find a way to take a peek at how membrane receptors work
In a study published in Current Opinion in Structural Biology, MIPT biophysicists explained ways to visualize membrane receptors in their different states. Detailed information on the structure and dynamics of these proteins will enable developing effective and safe drugs to treat many sorts of conditions.