/ en-us Â鶹ÒùÔº internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Â鶹ÒùÔºics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. The Bronze Age Xiaohe culture (ca. 1950–1400 BCE) is renowned for its distinctive funerary practices and exceptional organic preservation, largely due to its location in a hyperarid environment. Burials feature boat-shaped coffins, cattle remains, and paddle and mooring post-like grave markers. /news/2025-06-mysterious-boat-burial-edge-ancient.html Archaeology Fri, 13 Jun 2025 08:50:03 EDT news669023066 A research team led by the Department of Energy's (DOE) Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) designed and fabricated catalysts that can increase the speed of carbon monoxide oxidation by nine times. Carbon monoxide oxidation is an important reaction used in numerous chemical industry and environmental cleaning applications. The cutting-edge fabrication approach involved making precise, atomic-level changes in catalysts to create new, performance-boosting chemical properties. /news/2025-06-platinum-atoms-precision-catalyst-efficiency.html Materials Science Thu, 05 Jun 2025 13:09:20 EDT news668347754 An international research collaboration featuring scientists from the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering and the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory has discovered a fundamental universal principle that governs how microscopic whirlpools interact, collide and transform within quantum fluids, which also has implications for understanding fluids that behave according to classical physics. /news/2025-06-universal-law-quantum-vortex-dynamics.html Soft Matter Quantum Â鶹ÒùÔºics Wed, 04 Jun 2025 14:47:04 EDT news668267221 A group of astronomers from across the globe, including a team from the University of Washington and led by Queen's University Belfast, have revealed new research showing that millions of new solar system objects will be detected by a brand-new facility, which is expected to come online later in 2025. /news/2025-06-rubin-observatory-millions-solar-vivid.html Astronomy Planetary Sciences Wed, 04 Jun 2025 10:29:18 EDT news668251752 Star TOI-6894 is just like many in our galaxy, a small red dwarf, and only ~20% of the mass of our sun. Like many small stars, it is not expected to provide suitable conditions for the formation and hosting of a large planet. /news/2025-06-discovery-giant-planet-orbiting-tiny.html Astronomy Planetary Sciences Wed, 04 Jun 2025 05:00:15 EDT news668158230 Trees get most of the love, but diatoms, a group of photosynthetic microalgae, produce 20% of Earth's oxygen and are the foundation of aquatic food webs. The prevalence and diversity of diatoms have made them highly successful, suggesting the evolutionary history of diatoms is worth understanding as an important piece of the larger puzzle of life on Earth. /news/2025-06-diatom-tree-life-revealing-rapid.html Evolution Cell & Microbiology Tue, 03 Jun 2025 14:30:04 EDT news668179801 Observations with the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) have provided new clues about how the exoplanet WASP-121b has formed and where it might have originated in the disk of gas and dust around its star. These insights stem from the detection of multiple key molecules: water vapor, carbon monoxide, silicon monoxide, and methane. /news/2025-05-space-pebbles-play-pivotal-role.html Planetary Sciences Tue, 03 Jun 2025 10:49:23 EDT news667754881 The job of a catalyst is to ultimately speed up reactions, which could reduce an hour-long process into several minutes. It has recently been shown that using external magnetic fields to modulate spin states of single-atom catalysts (SACs) is highly effective—enhancing oxygen evolution reaction magnetocurrent by a staggering 2,880%. /news/2025-05-atom-catalysts-state-boosted-magnetic.html Nanomaterials Fri, 30 May 2025 09:05:03 EDT news667814701 Strontium titanate was once used as a diamond substitute in jewelry before less fragile alternatives emerged in the 1970s. Now, researchers have explored some of its more unusual properties, which might someday be useful in quantum materials and microelectronics applications. /news/2025-05-strained-strontium-titanate-membrane-ferroelectric.html Condensed Matter Quantum Â鶹ÒùÔºics Thu, 29 May 2025 15:55:04 EDT news667752901 New research brings together 7,000 years of history in South Arabia to show how ancient pastoralists changed placement and construction of monuments over time in the face of environmental and cultural forces. /news/2025-05-years-monuments-south-arabia-pastoralists.html Archaeology Wed, 28 May 2025 14:00:11 EDT news667482061 A research team has discovered ferroelectric phenomena occurring at a subatomic scale in the natural mineral brownmillerite. /news/2025-05-phonon-decoupling-naturally-mineral-enables.html Nanophysics Nanomaterials Tue, 27 May 2025 15:48:00 EDT news667579678 Lipid membranes, which form the outer layer of cells, can be engineered to influence cellular functions. For example, adjusting the permeability of the membrane can improve drug delivery. Adding signaling molecules to the membrane surface can also help direct drugs to specific tissues, increasing treatment precision. /news/2025-05-tool-reveals-dna-nanostructures-interact.html Bio & Medicine Nanomaterials Tue, 27 May 2025 11:07:59 EDT news667562876 A research team has discovered how to make a promising energy-harvesting material much more efficient—without relying on rare or expensive elements. The material, called β-Zn4Sb3, is a tellurium-free thermoelectric compound that can convert waste heat into electricity. /news/2025-05-smart-phonon-boosts-efficiency-eco.html Condensed Matter Mon, 26 May 2025 10:17:03 EDT news667473421 A recent study by Dr. Georges Mouamar and his colleagues investigated the largest assemblage of securely identified rattles in the Near East. The findings are published in the journal Childhood in the Past. /news/2025-05-mysterious-syrian-artifacts-reidentified-ancient.html Archaeology Mon, 26 May 2025 08:49:27 EDT news667468160 University of Illinois Â鶹ÒùÔºics Professor Paul Kwiat and members of his research group have developed a new tool for precision measurement at the nanometer scale in scenarios where background noise and optical loss from the sample are present. /news/2025-05-nanometer-scale-tool-exploits-quantum.html Optics & Photonics Quantum Â鶹ÒùÔºics Thu, 22 May 2025 17:24:05 EDT news667153441 A research team from National Taiwan University has developed a new electron microscopy technique that enables sensitive atomic number (Z) measurements of samples. The technique, named atomic number electron microscopy (ZEM), is now used to observe hydrogen storage behavior and the associated defect formation and healing processes of palladium at the nanoscale. /news/2025-05-electron-microscopy-technique-reveals-hydrogen.html Nanomaterials Thu, 22 May 2025 11:44:03 EDT news667133041 When two-dimensional electron systems are subjected to magnetic fields at low temperatures, they can exhibit interesting states of matter, such as fractional quantum Hall liquids. These are exotic states of matter characterized by fractionalized excitations and the emergence of interesting topological phenomena. /news/2025-05-fermionic-neural-network-ground-state.html Condensed Matter Quantum Â鶹ÒùÔºics Thu, 22 May 2025 09:50:25 EDT news667126215 The clean energy transition requires new means to transport energy that are less reliant on burning fossil fuels. This requires new materials to catalyze reactions to store and extract energy from chemical energy carriers without combustion. /news/2025-05-tool-stable-metal-frameworks-energy.html Analytical Chemistry Materials Science Wed, 21 May 2025 14:54:04 EDT news667058042 As core components for generating coherent tunable radiation sources in all-solid-state lasers, second-order nonlinear optical (NLO) crystals have demonstrated significant technical advantages in many fields. Metal chalcogenides with tetrahedral cluster (Tn) as the structural unit are regarded as candidate systems for NLO materials of the mid- and far-infrared bands due to their potential strong second-harmonic-generation (SHG) response and wide infrared transmission range. /news/2025-05-inorganic-polycations-widening-infrared-transparency.html Analytical Chemistry Materials Science Wed, 21 May 2025 14:37:03 EDT news667057022 With the declared aim of measuring matter under extreme pressure, an international research collaboration headed by the University of Rostock and the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) used the high-performance laser DIPOLE 100-X at the European XFEL for the first time in 2023. With spectacular results: In this initial experiment they managed to study liquid carbon—an unprecedented achievement as the researchers report in the journal Nature. /news/2025-05-liquid-carbon.html Plasma Â鶹ÒùÔºics Wed, 21 May 2025 14:17:04 EDT news667055822 Polyethylene and polypropylene account for two-thirds of the world's plastics. But the polymers' popularity has an equally large downside. Because they have similar densities and physical properties, the polymers are difficult—and expensive—to separate when mechanically recycled together. What results is a weak, degraded material that really isn't good for anything. /news/2025-05-happy-peroxide-incompatible-polymers-recycling.html Polymers Analytical Chemistry Tue, 20 May 2025 12:52:28 EDT news666964343 Conventional MRI scans, familiar to us from hospitals, have a resolution of about one-tenth of a millimeter, which allows them to image incredibly thin slices of our bodies from head to toe, helping physicians diagnose a variety of medical conditions. Even this ultra-high resolution, however, is insufficient for researchers who want to study the structure of individual molecules. /news/2025-05-mri-nano-sized.html Nanophysics Nanomaterials Mon, 19 May 2025 11:17:04 EDT news666872221 Scientists at Northwestern University have developed a new approach that directly combats the progression of neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's disease and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). /news/2025-05-sugar-coated-nanotherapy-neuron-survival.html Bio & Medicine Nanomaterials Wed, 14 May 2025 08:00:04 EDT news666347288 As industries seek innovative solutions for carbon capture, scientists have turned to advanced materials that efficiently trap and store carbon dioxide (COâ‚‚) from industrial emissions. /news/2025-05-carbon-physical-probing-material.html Analytical Chemistry Materials Science Tue, 13 May 2025 11:20:04 EDT news666353430 Researchers led by the University of Glasgow in Scotland have identified a Late Upper Paleolithic site in the far north of the Isle of Skye, marking the most northerly evidence of Ahrensburgian culture in Britain. /news/2025-05-discovery-ancient-culture-remote-scottish.html Archaeology Mon, 12 May 2025 09:10:02 EDT news666259594 X-ray imaging is indispensable in medical diagnostics and material characterization. To generate an image, a detector converts X-rays that pass through the object into electrical signals. Higher detector sensitivity enables lower radiation doses, which is particularly important in medical applications. /news/2025-05-bismuth-based-hybrid-materials-enable.html Analytical Chemistry Materials Science Fri, 09 May 2025 13:31:03 EDT news666016261 Chirality—the property of an object that is distinct from its mirror image—has long captivated scientists across biology, chemistry, and physics. The phenomenon is sometimes called "handedness," because it refers to an object possessing a distinct left- or right-handed form. It is a universal quality that is found across various scales of nature, from molecules and amino acids to the famed double-helix of DNA and the spiraling patterns of snail shells. /news/2025-05-physicists-unusual-chiral-quantum-state.html Condensed Matter Quantum Â鶹ÒùÔºics Wed, 07 May 2025 16:46:04 EDT news665855161 What do chickens and people with a common reproductive disorder have in common? More than one might think—and a widely-used diabetes medication might just be the surprising link. /news/2025-05-common-diabetes-drug-aging-hens.html Veterinary medicine Agriculture Wed, 07 May 2025 15:57:04 EDT news665852221 Researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory and DOE's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) have uncovered an unexpected interface layer that may be hindering the performance of superconducting qubits, the building blocks of quantum computers. /news/2025-05-scientists-reveal-hidden-interface-superconducting.html Superconductivity Quantum Â鶹ÒùÔºics Tue, 06 May 2025 10:00:04 EDT news665743815 Origami—the Japanese art of folding paper—could be the next frontier in innovative materials. Practiced in Japan since the early 1600s, origami involves combining simple folding techniques to create intricate designs. Now, Georgia Tech researchers are leveraging the technique as the foundation for next-generation materials that can both act as a solid and predictably deform, "folding" under the right forces. The research could lead to innovations in everything from heart stents to airplane wings and running shoes. /news/2025-05-class-materials-origami.html General Â鶹ÒùÔºics Mon, 05 May 2025 11:15:59 EDT news665662549