Новости за 12.03.2021

Water is perhaps Earth's most critical natural resource. Given increasing demand and increasingly stretched water resources, scientists are pursuing more innovative ways to use and reuse existing water, as well as to design new materials to improve water purification methods. Synthetically created semi-permeable polymer membranes used for contaminant solute removal can provide a level of advanced treatment and improve the energy efficiency of treating water; however, existing knowledge gaps are limiting... Читать дальше...

New research led by the University of Cambridge has found rare evidence—preserved in the chemistry of ancient rocks from Greenland—which tells of a time when Earth was almost entirely molten.

If you were given "ultrasound" in a word association game, "sound wave" might easily come to mind. But in recent years, a new term has surfaced: bubbles. Those ephemeral, globular shapes are proving useful in improving medical imaging, disease detection and targeted drug delivery. There's just one glitch: bubbles fizzle out soon after injection into the bloodstream.

Scientists have long theorized that supermassive black holes can wander through space—but catching them in the act has proven difficult.

Proteins are the key component in all modern forms of life. Hemoglobin, for example, transports the oxygen in our blood; photosynthesis proteins in the leaves of plants convert sunlight into energy; and fungal enzymes help us to brew beer and bake bread. Researchers have long been examining the question of how proteins mutate or come into existence in the course of millennia. That completely new proteins—and, with them, new properties—can emerge practically out of nothing, was inconceivable for decades... Читать дальше...

Colloidal suspensions of microscopic particles show complex and interesting collective behaviors. In particular, the collective dynamics of colloids is fundamental and ubiquitous for materials assembly, robotic motion, microfluidic control, and in several biological scenarios. The collective dynamics of confined colloids can be completely different from that of free colloids: for instance, confined colloids can self-organize into vortex structures, coherent motion, or different phase behaviors. On one hand... Читать дальше...

Humans rely on nature extensively for everything from food production to coastal protection, but those contributions might be more threatened than previously thought, according to new findings from the University of Colorado Boulder.

From 1995-2015, fullerene derivatives had been the dominating electron acceptors in organic solar cells (OSCs) owing to their performance superiority to other acceptors. However, the drawbacks of fullerenes, such as weak visible absorption, limited tunability of electronic properties and morphological instability, restrict further development of OSCs toward higher efficiencies and practical applications. Therefore, the development of new acceptors beyond fullerenes is urgent in the field of OSCs.

France on Friday prepared to simulate an attack by a hostile power on one of its satellites in a war game scenario the government said is less outlandishly futuristic than it may seem.

A team of researchers from University Erlangen-Nürnberg, Nanjing Tech University and Philipps-Universität Marburg has found that it is possible to use calcium(I) with β-diketiminate as a ligand and potassium as a terminal reductant for dinitrogen reduction. In their paper published in the journal Science, the group describes how they tried to make a calcium(I) complex in their lab using bulky ligands as a means to stabilize the ion and how that led them to a new discovery about calcium.

Ultraluminous infrared galaxies (ULIRGs), powered by starburst activity and often with supermassive black holes accreting material at their nuclei, contain large reservoirs of molecular gas. This is to be expected: Molecular gas is the raw material for new stars and moreover the presence of the infrared luminous warm dust implies an abundance of molecular gas. Galaxy collisions often trigger star formation activity and simulations reveal that as the two galaxies merge their gas tends to fall towards... Читать дальше...

Despite ESA's GOCE mission ending over seven years ago, scientists continue to use this remarkable satellite's gravity data to delve deep and unearth secrets about our planet. Recent research shows how scientists have combined GOCE data with measurements taken at the surface to generate a new model of Earth's crust and upper mantle. This is the first time such a model has been created this way—and it is shedding new light on processes of plate tectonics, which, in turn, are related to phenomena such as earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.

As the world continues to grapple with the COVID-19 pandemic, an international team of researchers have published a review of the best techniques to collect airborne aerosols containing viruses.

Multistable mechanical metamaterials are artificial materials whose microarchitecture offers more than two different stable configurations. Existing mechanical metamaterials rely on origami or kirigami-based designs with snap-through instability and microstructured soft mechanisms. Scalable structures that can be built from mechanical metamaterials with an extremely large number of programmable stable configurations remain elusive. In a new report now published on Science Advances, Hang Zhang and a research team in engineering... Читать дальше...

After 12 years, woody vegetation now covers the upper part of the rehabilitated area, offering a green visual landscape to the inhabitants of the village. However, in the lower part of the pile the vegetation shows excessive levels of cadmium, leading the researchers to propose an alternative technique to rehabilitate waste piles by classifying and selectively managing the mine waste.

New Imperial research shows a fire suppressant, when combined with water, cuts the amount of time and water needed to extinguish peat fires by 40%.

By using laser spectroscopy in a photophysics experiment, Clemson University researchers have broken new ground that could result in faster and cheaper energy to power electronics.

Shaping radio signals using photonics technologies seems like a detour. But the versatility of current programmable silicon photonic circuits can open new possibilities according to researchers of the University of Twente. They have presented their microwave photonic spectral shaper inAPL Photonics .

In recent years, there have been significant advancements in the development of digital quantum computers and simulators. These emerging physical systems are opening up unprecedented possibilities for controlling and measuring a variety of quantum dynamics. As a result, some fundamental questions in many-body physics that would have previously been considered speculative and outside the realm of experimental exploration can now be examined in laboratory settings.

A study published in Nature Communications involving researchers from the Madrid Institute for Advanced Studies in Nanoscience (IMDEA) and the University of Sevilla has measured for the first time the electrical conductivity of a single carbon nanotube with spin-crosslinked molecules inside it.

With more rain on the horizon in NSW and Queensland, a UNSW climate scientist answers our questions about whether we can expect more wet and cold from La Niña, and what's in store for next summer.

The next time you're walking or biking in a city, take a look around—you may be able to get a sense of air quality by how the buildings are laid out.

Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies Maywa Montenegro de Wit joined the UC Santa Cruz faculty this past July, amidst the global coronavirus pandemic, and that experience has guided her work in some important new directions.

A new trial by the University of Liverpool's Small Animal Veterinary Surveillance Network (SAVSNET) has demonstrated effective strategies for reducing the prescription of critically important antimicrobials in veterinary practice.

It's one year since COVID-19 was declared a global pandemic. While the human and economic toll have been enormous, new findings show the fallout from the virus also seriously damaged nature.