Faunal organisms such as the humble mussel often play an underappreciated yet important role in protecting and building coastal ecosystems, according to a new study led by the Carbon Containment Lab at the Yale School of the Environment. Sinéad Crotty holds an Atlantic ribbed mussel, one of more than 200,000 mussels that were moved during a large-scale field experiment measuring the effects of animals on marsh accretion. Photo: Christine Angelini “As sea levels rise, coastal ecosystems have to adapt and evolve to changing…
… could switch the role of fishes in the marine carbon cycle. Fish make carbonates from marine salts within their guts and excrete them at high rates. These can sink and become part of sediments or dissolve and increase the water’s ability to neutralise acids. A new study in Nature Communications sheds light on the controls of carbonate excretion by fish. Bony fish are more often recognised as food sources than as carbon regulators. They provide an array of services…
An international team with researchers from the University of Bayreuth presents a potentially groundbreaking discovery for nitrogen chemistry in “Nature Chemistry”. For the first time, a compound containing aromatic rings of nitrogen atoms has been synthesized. The compound of nitrogen and potassium was produced under extremely high pressures and temperatures. It has a very complex structure, but its major building block is the planar ring of six nitrogen atoms, which is called hexazine anion, as it has a negative charge….
Speeding up a camera shutter a million million times enables researchers to understand how materials move heat around and is a major step in advancing sustainable energy applications. Researchers are coming to understand that the best performing materials in sustainable energy applications, such as converting sunlight or waste heat to electricity, often use collective fluctuations of clusters of atoms within a much larger structure. This process is often referred to as “dynamic disorder.” Dynamic disorder Understanding dynamic disorder in materials…
Tubular nanomaterial of carbon makes ideal home for spinning quantum bits. Scientists find that a tubular nanomaterial of carbon makes for ideal host to keep quantum bits spinning in place for use in quantum information technologies. Scientists are vigorously competing to transform the counterintuitive discoveries about the quantum realm from a century past into technologies of the future. The building block in these technologies is the quantum bit, or qubit. Several different kinds are under development, including ones that use…
Experiment demonstrates solar system’s fragility. A terrestrial planet hovering between Mars and Jupiter would be able to push Earth out of the solar system and wipe out life on this planet, according to a UC Riverside experiment. UCR astrophysicist Stephen Kane explained that his experiment was meant to address two notable gaps in planetary science. The first is the gap in our solar system between the size of terrestrial and giant gas planets. The largest terrestrial planet is Earth, and…
… developed for humidity-resistance hydrogen sulfide sensor. A research team led by Prof. MENG Gang, from Hefei Institutes of Physical Science (HFIPS), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) used polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) in the research of high-performance humidity-resistance hydrogen sulfide (H2S) sensors, offering an avenue for the practical applications of H2S chemiresistors in an ambient humid air atmosphere. The results were published in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces and Chemical Communication, respectively. H2S is a colorless, flammable, explosive, highly corrosive, and highly toxic gas, which widely…
Researchers have been using drones to map large areas of Antarctica this summer in efforts to monitor the effects on vegetation due to climate change with the support of the Federal Government’s Australian Antarctic Division. The drone-derived imagery is being used by researchers from QUT and Auckland University of Technology – with assistance from University of Wollongong – to evaluate the fragile ecosystem, particularly moss beds, and changes in the extreme environment. For almost two months, the field team was…
Internally funded project modifies commercially available tester for electric vehicle applications. A Southwest Research Institute team has developed a mechanical testing device to analyze fluids and lubricants formulated for electric vehicles. The team modified a commercial tribology testing device to give it the capability to evaluate the impact of electric currents in fluids, measuring the wear and friction on the automobile parts in the presence of an applied voltage. “The electrification of the automotive industry has accelerated over recent years,…
Researchers from North Carolina State University and Iowa State University have demonstrated an automated technology capable of accurately measuring the angle of leaves on corn plants in the field. This technology makes data collection on leaf angles significantly more efficient than conventional techniques, providing plant breeders with useful data more quickly. “The angle of a plant’s leaves, relative to its stem, is important because the leaf angle affects how efficient the plant is at performing photosynthesis,” says Lirong Xiang, first…
Despite considerable advances in research, there is still no cure for many age-related diseases, such as Alzheimer’s. One hypothesis for the development of Alzheimer’s is the aggregation of peptides, i.e. their “clumping”, in the brains of people with the disease. But stress has also been suspected as a possible trigger. Scientists from Leipzig University, Monash University in Australia, the Leibniz Institute of Surface Engineering (IOM) and the University of Göttingen have investigated the links between oxidised cell membranes and peptide…
With the aim of being able to ensure comprehensive preclinical care in even the most remote areas of Africa, researchers from the Fraunhofer institutes for Surface Engineering and Thin Films IST and for Solar Energy Systems ISE, in collaboration with Stellenbosch University and South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC) in South Africa, have developed a mobile care platform which, on 3rd March 2023, was handed over to the NGO Rhiza Babuyile during a ceremonial event. The non-profit organization has a…
Data security is one of the most important issues in today’s digital age. Increasing system attacks and cybercrime make it necessary to secure data in new ways. For this purpose, the Fraunhofer Institute for Photonic Microsystems IPMS developed the MACsec Controller IP-Core, which implements the latest Ethernet security standards. It provides authentication, integrity and encryption of data between different nodes of a Local Area Network (LAN). Fraunhofer IPMS has been developing and licensing IP cores to companies from a wide…
The 18-foot-long structures, including fascinating honeycomb-shaped tubes, are part of an effort by University of Miami researchers and scientists to help restore damaged coral reefs and protect coastal environments. The first piece of a series of concrete structures was lowered into the water off the coast of Miami Beach on Wednesday morning, a massive crane on the deck of a floating barge hoisting the unit into the air and sinking it to the seabed. During the next six hours, crewmembers…
This ultrafast infrared spectroscopy method would fulfill many unmet needs in experimental molecular science, revealing various high-speed phenomena in detail. Infrared spectroscopy is a non-invasive tool to identify unknown samples and known chemical substances. It is based on how different molecules interact with infrared light. You may have seen this tool at airports, where they screen for illicit drugs. The technique has many applications: liquid biopsy, environmental gas monitoring, contaminant detection, forensic analyses, exoplanet search, etc. But the traditional infrared spectroscopy…
Recently, a team led by Prof. ZHANG Shiwu from the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) and their collaborators from UK and Australia developed a new electro-mechano responsive elastomer that autonomously adjust stiffness, conductivity and strain sensitivity in response to changes in external mechanical loads and electrical signals. Their research was published in Science Advances. Nowadays, more and more application scenarios like soft robotics and medical surgical equipment call for self-tunable intelligent materials. A widely adopted solution is…
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