/ 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. In a new study, scientists have shown that chemical receptors that plants use to recognize nitrogen-fixing bacteria have developed the same function independently on at least three separate occasions through a process called convergent evolution. /news/2025-09-receptors-nitrogen-bacteria-evolved-independently.html Plants & Animals Evolution Tue, 30 Sep 2025 16:01:08 EDT news678466861 You probably learned in high school chemistry class that core electrons don't participate in chemical bonding. /news/2025-09-core-electron-bonding-require-extreme.html Analytical Chemistry Materials Science Tue, 30 Sep 2025 14:52:36 EDT news678462753 Human-caused biodiversity loss has accelerated over the past 50 years. An opinion article published in the open-access journal PLOS Biology by a team of international authors, including Anne Larigauderie, former Executive Secretary of the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), concludes that stopping biodiversity loss is contingent on transformative social and cultural changes across multiple scales. /news/2025-09-global-biodiversity-decline-demands-urgent.html Plants & Animals Ecology Tue, 30 Sep 2025 14:00:01 EDT news678441422 On the edge of California's Monterey Bay, ecologist Matthew Savoca and a team of volunteers sift through sand and seawater for microplastics, one of the planet's most pervasive forms of pollution. /news/2025-09-tracking-microplastics-sea-body.html Earth Sciences Environment Tue, 30 Sep 2025 13:20:01 EDT news678455559 Meeting global energy demands while mitigating environmental harm remains a major challenge, as many current solutions rely on expensive and toxic noble metals. In a recent study, researchers from Japan successfully developed a novel copper–cobalt oxide composite anchored on nitrogen-doped carbon nanostructures. Synthesized via a simple method, this material excels in energy storage, environmental remediation, and water splitting—offering a low-cost and sustainable alternative to conventional catalysts across multiple applications. /news/2025-09-inexpensive-multifunctional-composite-pave-circular.html Materials Science Tue, 30 Sep 2025 13:19:26 EDT news678457163 Researchers from The University of New Mexico and Los Alamos National Laboratory have developed a novel computational framework that addresses a longstanding challenge in statistical physics. /news/2025-09-ai-tensor-network-based-framework.html General Â鶹ÒùÔºics Condensed Matter Tue, 30 Sep 2025 13:12:04 EDT news678456722 Quantum metals are metals where quantum effects—behaviors that normally only matter at atomic scales—become powerful enough to control the metal's macroscopic electrical properties. /news/2025-09-physicists-mystery-loop-current-kagome.html Condensed Matter Quantum Â鶹ÒùÔºics Tue, 30 Sep 2025 13:00:02 EDT news678455531 Many properties of the world's most advanced materials are beyond the reach of quantitative modeling. Understanding them also requires a human expert's reasoning and intuition, which can't be replicated by even the most powerful artificial intelligence, mixed with fortuitous accident, according to Eun-Ah Kim, the Hans A. Bethe Professor of physics in the College of Arts and Sciences. /news/2025-09-human-intuition-fuels-ai-driven.html Condensed Matter Quantum Â鶹ÒùÔºics Tue, 30 Sep 2025 12:41:04 EDT news678454862 In July 2024, a 7.4-magnitude earthquake struck Calama, Chile, damaging buildings and causing power outages. The country has endured violent earthquakes, including the most powerful recorded in history: a 9.5-magnitude "megathrust" event that struck central Chile in 1960, causing a tsunami and killing between 1,000 to 6,000 people. However, the Calama quake was different from the megathrust quakes that are usually associated with the most destructive events in Chile and around the world. /news/2025-09-thermal-runaway-mechanism-ramp-magnitude.html Earth Sciences Tue, 30 Sep 2025 12:12:04 EDT news678453121 A team of researchers including Rice University's James Tour and Shichen Xu has developed an ultrafast, one-step method to recover rare earth elements (REEs) from discarded magnets using an innovative approach that offers significant environmental and economic benefits over traditional recycling methods. /news/2025-09-rapid-joule-technique-efficient-rare.html Analytical Chemistry Materials Science Tue, 30 Sep 2025 11:20:08 EDT news678449685 What do magnets, smartphones and medical imaging devices have in common? They all depend on rare earth elements called lanthanides, which are vital for modern technology. Yet, separating these chemically similar elements from one another has long been one of chemistry's toughest puzzles. /news/2025-09-scientists-reveal-molecular-choreography-lanthanide.html Analytical Chemistry Materials Science Tue, 30 Sep 2025 11:20:04 EDT news678449706 A quantum computer has demonstrated that it can solve a problem more efficiently than a conventional computer. This achievement comes from being able to unlock a vast memory resource that classical computing cannot match. /news/2025-09-scientists-quantum-unconditionally-outperform-classical.html Quantum Â鶹ÒùÔºics Tue, 30 Sep 2025 11:14:42 EDT news678449676 In a study appearing in Â鶹ÒùÔºical Chemistry Chemical Â鶹ÒùÔºics, researchers used quantum-chemical molecular dynamics simulations to visualize the ultrafast formation of polarons—charge carriers stabilized by lattice distortion—in NaTaO3, a key photocatalyst for solar water splitting. /news/2025-09-positive-carriers-stabilize-instantly-key.html Nanophysics Nanomaterials Tue, 30 Sep 2025 11:10:06 EDT news678449401 Droughts have withered crops in Peru, fires have scorched the Amazon and hydroelectric dams in Ecuador have struggled to keep the lights on as rivers dry up. Scientists say the cause may lie high above the rainforest, where invisible "flying rivers" carry rain from the Atlantic Ocean across South America. /news/2025-09-amazon-flying-rivers-weaken-tree.html Environment Tue, 30 Sep 2025 10:12:16 EDT news678445930 The metamorphosis of butterflies from larvae to pupae to adulthood is a natural wonder. By investigating the developmental processes that occur within the pupa, transforming it into a butterfly, scientists have discovered a new twist in a process that forms an intricate nanostructure responsible for the vibrant green colors of their wings. /news/2025-09-braided-nanostructures-reveal-3d-tapestry.html Bio & Medicine Nanomaterials Tue, 30 Sep 2025 09:53:03 EDT news678444781 Astronomers from Curtin University in Australia and elsewhere have performed radio observations of a tidal disruption event known as AT2019azh. Results of the new study, published September 22 on the arXiv preprint server, provide crucial information regarding the evolution of this event. /news/2025-09-term-radio-track-evolution-tidal.html Astronomy Tue, 30 Sep 2025 08:00:01 EDT news678424867 Scientists have found a nanoparticle-inspired solution to the age-old strength issue of polymer glasses. Seasoning the polymer glass recipe with single-chain nanoparticles, which are tiny, folded-up polymer strands, can make the glass stronger, tougher, and easier to process by acting as reinforcements. /news/2025-09-tiny-nanoparticles-conquer-big-polymer.html Nanophysics Nanomaterials Tue, 30 Sep 2025 07:20:01 EDT news678368522 In a recent study, Dr. Harel Shochat from the University of Haifa and his colleagues analyzed the biological and geographical origins of ivory artifacts from the southern Levant dating to the Late Bronze Age to the Iron Age II (ca. 1600–600 BC). The work is published in the Journal of Archaeological Science. /news/2025-09-levantine-ivory-ethiopia-egypt.html Archaeology Tue, 30 Sep 2025 06:40:01 EDT news678355713 The interior of the mysterious far side of the moon may be colder than the side constantly facing Earth, suggests a new analysis of rock samples co-led by a UCL (University College London) and Peking University researcher. /news/2025-09-side-moon-colder-lunar.html Space Exploration Planetary Sciences Tue, 30 Sep 2025 05:00:03 EDT news678357039 From breath analysis to explosive detection, many applications require reliable electronic "noses." Unfortunately, current technology often falls short. That is why researchers at KU Leuven have developed a flexible sensor platform that not only detects gases, but also records their speed—like a speed camera. /news/2025-09-sensor-platform-nanopore-cameras-gases.html Nanomaterials Mon, 29 Sep 2025 16:41:03 EDT news678382861 When biomedical researchers need to test their latest ideas, they often turn to engineered human tissue that mimics the responses in our own bodies. It's become an important intermediary step before human clinical trials. /news/2025-09-nanotubes-blood-bioengineered-tissues.html Bio & Medicine Mon, 29 Sep 2025 16:10:10 EDT news678379516 A research team at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities has investigated a new method to produce iron, the main component of steel. For the first time, the researchers were able to observe chemical reactions and iron formation in real-time at the nanometer scale. /news/2025-09-steel-production-makeover-captures-real.html Nanomaterials Mon, 29 Sep 2025 15:50:06 EDT news678379432 A new study in fruit flies describes how an animal's gut reacts differently to beneficial microbes versus harmful pathogens. /news/2025-09-dna-pathway-gut-cells-triggers.html Molecular & Computational biology Mon, 29 Sep 2025 15:40:09 EDT news678378955 High-density lipoproteins (HDL), also known as "good cholesterol," remove excess cholesterol from the body's tissues and transport it to the liver. This process is known to prevent atherosclerosis, the build-up of plaque in the walls of arteries. Atherosclerosis is associated with deadly symptoms, including heart attacks, strokes, aneurysms, and blood clots. Despite the importance of HDLs, scientists still have a limited understanding of how they are made. /news/2025-09-good-cholesterol-imaging-method-production.html Bio & Medicine Mon, 29 Sep 2025 15:20:06 EDT news678377638 Young asteroids—which formed much later than those that were created during the formation of our solar system—are typically created when larger asteroids, planetesimals, or comets collide and break up into smaller pieces. These smaller pieces form "asteroid families" that share certain properties, like their semimajor axis, eccentricity, and inclination—all of which describe their orbital paths. /news/2025-09-scientists-young-asteroid-families-previous.html Astronomy Planetary Sciences Mon, 29 Sep 2025 14:00:01 EDT news678368490 The NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope has provided the first direct measurements of the chemical and physical properties of a potential moon-forming disk encircling a large exoplanet. The carbon-rich disk surrounding the world called CT Cha B, which is located 625 light years away from Earth, is a possible construction yard for moons, although no moons are detected in the Webb data. /news/2025-09-moon-disk-massive-planet-insight.html Planetary Sciences Mon, 29 Sep 2025 13:43:04 EDT news678372181 Researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) are experts in nuclear forensics: the art and science of extracting information about the provenance and history of nuclear materials. Now, they have a new technique to add to their toolkit. /news/2025-09-ray-technique-tool-nuclear-forensics.html Materials Science Mon, 29 Sep 2025 13:16:03 EDT news678370562 The SOAR Telescope, located on Cerro Pachón in Chile, has received a major upgrade with the installation of the SOAR Telescope Echelle Spectrograph (STELES). The long-awaited instrument achieved first light in August with observations of the binary star system Eta Carinae, along with 13 other targets. SOAR is part of U.S. National Science Foundation Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO), a Program of NSF NOIRLab. /news/2025-09-instrument-soar-remarkable-binary-star.html Astronomy Mon, 29 Sep 2025 12:50:04 EDT news678368907 The terahertz (THz) band of the electromagnetic spectrum holds immense promise for next-generation technologies, including high-speed wireless communication, advanced encryption, and medical imaging. However, manipulating THz waves has long been a technical challenge, since these frequencies interact weakly with most natural materials. /news/2025-09-electrically-tunable-metasurface-real-thz.html Optics & Photonics Mon, 29 Sep 2025 12:21:04 EDT news678367261 A collaborative research team led by University of Tasmania scientists has returned from a major 54-day voyage on CSIRO research vessel (RV) Investigator to explore the impacts of the devastating 2022 eruption of Tonga's underwater Hunga Volcano. /news/2025-09-scientists-tonga-clues-uncover-eruption.html Earth Sciences Mon, 29 Sep 2025 11:21:04 EDT news678363661