/ 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 Scientists analyzing data from NASA's CODEX (Coronal Diagnostic Experiment) investigation have successfully evaluated the instrument's first images, revealing the speed and temperature of material flowing out from the sun. These images, shared at a press event Tuesday at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Anchorage, Alaska, illustrate the sun's outer atmosphere, or corona, is not a homogenous, steady flow of material, but an area with sputtering gusts of hot plasma. These images will help scientists improve their understanding of how the sun impacts Earth and our technology in space. /news/2025-06-nasa-codex-captures-unique-views.html Astronomy Planetary Sciences Wed, 11 Jun 2025 11:00:03 EDT news668858402 As the population grows and urbanization and agro-industrial activity increase, the demand for freshwater is expected to rise by 55% by 2050. Experts project that this increase in demand will strongly impact a scenario already characterized by scarce and unequally distributed water resources, the privatization of an essential public asset, and deteriorating water quality, especially in developing countries. /news/2025-06-emerging-pollutants-aggravating-crisis-countries.html Environment Mon, 09 Jun 2025 16:02:04 EDT news668703721 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 The astronomical records of imperial China are some of the most comprehensive archives in the history of science, spanning over two millennia, from 221 BC to 1911 AD, and providing detailed insight into phenomena ranging from comets to the rate of rotation of Earth. /news/2025-06-consciousness-collaboration-fundamental-knowledge-astronomy.html Astronomy Tue, 03 Jun 2025 16:01:03 EDT news668185262 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 As the focus on energy resiliency and competitiveness increases, the development of advanced materials for next-generation, commercial fusion reactors is gaining attention. A recent paper published in the journal Current Opinion in Solid State & Materials Science examines a promising candidate for these reactors: ultra-high-temperature ceramics, or UHTCs. /news/2025-06-qa-exploring-ultra-high-temperature.html Plasma Â鶹ÒùÔºics Mon, 02 Jun 2025 16:35:05 EDT news668100902 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 The goal of carbon dioxide (CO2) hydrogenation is to turn pollution into fuel. This process transforms CO2, one of the main greenhouse gases, into chemical products and renewable fuels. One important product is methanol, a versatile compound used in everything from plastics to fuels. /news/2025-05-rethinking-relationship-greenhouse-gas-sustainable.html Analytical Chemistry Materials Science Thu, 29 May 2025 15:02:20 EDT news667749735 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 The electrochemical CO2 reduction reaction (eCO2RR) to produce value-added multi-carbon (C2+) products, especially ethanol, represents an effective strategy for sustainable energy conversion and achieving carbon neutrality. Although copper (Cu) is the standard electrocatalyst for C2+ product formation, it has inherent limitations related to its density, mechanical strength, susceptibility to corrosive environments, and the ongoing challenge of attaining high C2+ selectivity and operational stability. This situation calls for the exploration of innovative catalytic architectures. /news/2025-05-scientists-copper-deposited-basalt-fiber.html Analytical Chemistry Materials Science Tue, 27 May 2025 16:38:03 EDT news667582681 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