A series of mirrors and prisms reflect and focus lasers to perform the reaction. Credit: The University of Texas at Austin A global research team led by Texas Engineers has developed a way to irradiate the molecules in plastic and other materials with a laser, breaking them down into tiny particles for future reuse. The … Read more
Credit: Stellarium Web Online Star Map Every night a “new star” or nova will appear in the night sky. While it won’t set the sky ablaze, it is a special chance to see a rare event that is normally difficult to predict in advance. The star in question is T Coronae Borealis (T CrB, pronounced … Read more
3D printed skull of Fona herzogae. Credit: Lindsay Zanno The age of the dinosaurs was not only explored above ground. A recently discovered ancestor of Thescelosaurus shows that these animals spent at least part of their time in underground burrows. The new species contributes to a more complete understanding of life during the mid-Cretaceous, both … Read more
Experimental protocol and mean-field phase diagram. Credit: Physics (2024). DOI file: 10.1038/s41567-024-02542-9 A crystal is a system of atoms that repeats itself in space at regular intervals: at every point, the crystal looks exactly the same. In 2012, Nobel Prize winner Frank Wilczek asked the question: Could there also be a time crystal, an object … Read more
Artist’s impression of Smertrios. Credit: NASA. Using the CARMENES spectrograph, astronomers have found evidence of water vapor in the atmosphere of a hot Saturnian exoplanet called HD 149026 b, dubbed Smertrios. The finding, reported in a research paper published on the preprint server arXivcould hold the key to a better understanding of the structure and … Read more
Schematic illustration of photon scattering from a two-level emitter in a photonic crystal waveguide (PhC WG). A weak coherent state is coupled to the PhC WG via a shallowly etched grating (SEG). In the photon scattering image, a single-photon wave packet is mainly reflected by elastic scattering on a two-level emitter, while the two-photon wave … Read more
Heatmaps of historical (1970–1999) and predicted (2070–2098) changes in Shannon’s diversity index over the nine elevation ranges studied. Credit: Geophysical research letters (2024). DOI: 10.1029/2024GL109483 As climate change progresses, its effects are not universally uniform, with temperatures increasing at different latitudes and altitudes. Climate heterogeneity is the study of this diversity in Earth’s climate patterns, … Read more
A restored oyster reef in a sanctuary in the James River, Maryland. Credit: Fisheries Conservation Lab, Smithsonian Environmental Research Center In the campaign to restore the Chesapeake Bay, oyster sanctuaries are among the most controversial strategies. But new research suggests these no-harvest zones are working, and not just for the oysters. In a new study … Read more
An image of the cyanobacterium Tolypothrix. Source: Wikipedia / CC BY-SA 3.0 The human body’s inability to break down sucralose, an artificial sweetener found in many low-calorie food and beverage products, has been well established by scientific research. The compound is so stable that it escapes wastewater treatment and finds its way into drinking water … Read more
Microbial dynamics during fermentation influence the performance of industrial bioethanol production. Credit: Nature communication (2024). DOI file: 10.1038/s41467-024-49683-2 A new technique to monitor pollution in bioethanol production could increase revenues by more than $1.6 billion and reduce carbon emissions.2 -emissions by 2 million tons. For the first time ever, researchers from the Novo Nordisk Foundation … Read more