The Hiroshima blast on Aug. 6, 1945, was one of the most devastating events in human history. Like all nuclear detonations, it created fleeting moments of extreme heat, pressure, mixing and cooling. These conditions can briefly produce materials that could never form under normal circumstances.
Drylands soils are being degraded by human activities and climate change, threatening the thin living layers covering their surface, called biocrusts, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Composed of cyanobacteria, lichens, mosses, algae, fungi and bacteria, biocrusts play major roles in storing carbon, cycling nitrogen, preventing erosion and supporting ecosystems. To better understand the status of these complex biological communities, a team led by researchers at Penn State developed a novel approach for assessing the health and function of biocrusts.
For years, social media companies have faced pressure from users and government watchdogs to stop misinformation from distorting elections, deepening political divisions and undermining Americans' trust in institutions. But what if dramatically reducing people's exposure to unreliable sources that frequently spread misinformation doesn't actually change what they believe?
Full-color displays normally require separate red, green and blue light emitters. A team from the University of Osaka and Ritsumeikan University has demonstrated another approach: a single light-emitting layer that produces several colors when electrically powered at room temperature. The study was published in Applied Physics Letters.
Our DNA is under constant threat. Chemicals, radiation and the everyday errors of cell division all damage it, and if left unrepaired, this can lead to diseases such as cancer. Cells invest heavily in finding and fixing these errors. A new study from EMBL Heidelberg's Pepperkok Group finds that part of the control over this repair process lies in an unexpected place—outside the nucleus, at the Golgi complex.
In 1989, the Voyager 2 mission discovered six new moons orbiting Neptune, including five tiny ones that orbit just outside the planet's main rings. Because of their small sizes and locations, these satellites have been difficult to study from Earth. Now, using NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), a team of Caltech researchers has observed Neptune's rings and three of those moons—Larissa, Galatea and Proteus—and found that their composition is unique among outer solar system bodies.
A collaborative research group led by Hiroshi Daimon, a specially appointed research fellow at the Institute for Molecular Science, National Institutes of Natural Sciences, has developed an "atom-holography microscope" capable of directly observing three-dimensional atomic arrangements in nanoscale regions by combining the electron beam of a scanning electron microscope (SEM) with CoDELMA, a newly developed two-dimensional display-type analyzer.
Everyday shower habits, such as applying shampoo or pausing the water while washing, are driving up water waste, argues a new study from the University of Surrey.
Record-breaking heat waves in May and June led to an estimated 2,877 excess deaths in England, the UK Health Security Agency said Wednesday.
As biodiversity declines and many of the UK's most important habitats become smaller and more fragmented, conservation organizations need accurate, up-to-date maps to protect wildlife and restore nature. However, creating these maps by surveying every site on foot is time-consuming, expensive and often impractical across large areas.
