The storage of plutonium has long plagued scientists. “It is a dangerous metal and its long term storage must be done with special care so as not to harm the environment, ”said physicist Serguei Savrasov, Ph.D.
Finding a solution to this problem led Savrasov, an associate professor at New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT), and a team of researchers at Rutgers University and Los Alamos National Laboratories, to study how this metal reacts to heat, a natural condition of storage over time
Prions—their existence is intriguing and their links to disease are unsettling. These unconventional infectious agents are involved in mad cow disease and other fatal brain illnesses in humans and animals, rattling prior assumptions about the spread of infections.
Dartmouth Medical School biochemists studying the mysteries of these prion particles have discovered a novel step in their formation. Their results, reported in a recent issue of Biochemistry could help provide a new approach for
Weizmann Institute study suggests that rising carbon dioxide levels might cause forests to spread into dry environments
Missing: around 7 billion tons of carbon dioxide (CO2), the main greenhouse gas charged with global warming. Every year, industry releases about 22 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. And every year, when scientists measure the rise of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, it doesn’t add up – about half goes missing. Figuring in the amount that could be s
In a Perspective in the May 9 issue of Science, geochemist Don DePaolo and geodynamicist Michael Manga defend a fundamental assumption of Earth science, the mantle plume model of hotspots, against an outbreak of seismic skepticism.
DePaolo and Manga are members of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratorys Earth Sciences Division and the University of California at Berkeleys Department of Earth and Planetary Science. DePaolo studies the chemical signatures of geological structures l
Regulating cells under stress
An article published this week in the journal Nature provides the first experimental evidence for an unusual molecular bonding mechanism that could explain how certain cells adhere to surfaces such as blood vessel walls under conditions of mechanical stress.
Known as “catch bonds,” the adhesion mechanism displays surprising behavior, prolonging rather than shortening the lifetimes of bonds between specific molecules as increasing force is applied. Pr
Farmers can prioritize areas within fields to reduce nitrate contamination
Fine-tuning fertilizer and irrigation management requires farmers to carefully balance optimizing yield and protecting groundwater quality. Some states even require farmers to use crop production practices to minimize nitrate leaching to groundwater in environmentally sensitive areas.
One such practice is using a nitrification inhibitor when applying nitrogen fertilizer, which helps protect nitrogen f
Although Mars is currently a cold, dry planet, geological evidence suggests that liquid water existed there around 3 to 4 billion years ago. Where there is water, there is usually…
A new paper unravels the mysteries of a bizarre physical state known as the pseudogap, which has close ties to the sought-after state called high-temperature superconductivity, in which electrical resistance…
Researchers from Delft University of Technology in The Netherlands have been able to initiate a controlled movement in the very heart of an atom. They caused the atomic nucleus to…
Nanoparticle potential found for assessing kidneys. In a study published July 29 in Advanced Materials, University of Texas at Dallas researchers found that X-rays of the kidneys using gold nanoparticles as…
Future treatment of high cholesterol gene defect. CRISPR-Cas systems, which consist of protein and RNA components, originally developed as a natural defense mechanism of bacteria to fend off intruding viruses….
Lasso peptides are natural products made by bacteria. Their unusual lasso shape endows them with remarkable stability, protecting them from extreme conditions. In a new study, published in Nature Chemical Biology,…
… that can harvest energy at room temperature. Researchers have succeeded in developing a framework for organic thermoelectric power generation from ambient temperature and without a temperature gradient. Researchers have…
The global use of lithium-ion batteries has doubled in just the past four years, generating alarming amounts of battery waste containing many hazardous substances. The need for effective recycling methods…
A new study led by researchers at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities is providing new insights into how next-generation electronics, including memory components in computers, breakdown or degrade over…
… shape-shift into versatile robots. Scientists at MPI-IS have developed electrically driven robotic components, called HEXEL modules, which can snap together into high-speed reconfigurable robots. Magnets embedded along the outside…
The AQT quantum computer, featuring 20 qubits based on trapped-ion technology, is now operational at LRZ’s Quantum Integration Centre (QIC), making it the first of its kind in a computing…
The CHAI joint project aims to optimize corrosion management in ports and waterways. The federal state of Schleswig-Holstein is funding the CHAI research project with a total of 900,000 euros….