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Life & Chemistry
1 mins read

Lobster Brawls Uncovered: Underwater Video Reveals Behavior

Underwater video reveals lobsters behaving badly.

A lobster-pot is more like a Wild West saloon than a cunningly laid snare. Lobsters show up for food and a fight, and only the unlucky few get reeled in, underwater video footage is revealing.

Camera recordings show that lobster traps catch a mere 6% of the animals that enter them. The result suggests that lobsters’ rowdy behaviour could be confusing attempts to count and size them, and so to manage the fishery 1

1 mins read
This map, which shows glaciers and tributaries in patterned flows, was created using the same data that Stanford researchers used to train an AI model that revealed some of the fundamental physics governing the large-scale movements of the Antarctic ice sheet. (Image credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio). Image Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio
Information Technology

AI Uncovers New Insights Into Antarctic Ice Flow

As the planet warms, Antarctica’s ice sheet is melting and contributing to sea-level rise around the globe. Antarctica holds enough frozen water to raise global sea levels by 190 feet, so precisely predicting how it will move and melt now and in the future is vital for protecting coastal areas. But most climate models struggle to accurately simulate the movement of Antarctic ice due to sparse data and the complexity of interactions between the ocean, atmosphere, and frozen surface. In…

5 mins
Confocal microscopy images: Taken by Samarpita Sen, The Gurdon Institute, University of Cambridge. Rendered in this form by Rituparno Chowdhury. Image Credit: Samarpita Sen/Rituparno Chowdhury
Materials Sciences

Twisted Light: A New Power Source for Next-Gen Electronics

Researchers have advanced a decades-old challenge in the field of organic semiconductors, opening new possibilities for the future of electronics. The researchers, led by the University of Cambridge and the Eindhoven University of Technology, have created an organic semiconductor that forces electrons to move in a spiral pattern, which could improve the efficiency of OLED displays in television and smartphone screens, or power next-generation computing technologies such as spintronics and quantum computing. The semiconductor they developed emits circularly polarised light—meaning…

3 mins
Proportion of current geological resource production exceeding production capacity determined by the regional water availability for the top ten geological resources with the largest volume of water overconsumption. Image Credit: National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST)
Earth Sciences

Geological Resources and Regional Water Availability Limits

The study shows that the regional water availability constrains the current and future production of 32 geological resources Geological resources such as critical metals and minerals, essential for the diffusion of technologies such as renewable energy and energy storage towards a decarbonized society, are indispensable for supporting modern life in the form of various products and services. Their demand is expected to increase in the coming years owing to global population as well as economic growth. Thus far, scientists and…

3 mins

Weekly Highlights

Examples of how E and B modes deform imeges of distant galaxies. Image Credit: SISSA Medialab
Physics & Astronomy

Exploring Gravitational Lenses: Are Cosmic Laws Universal?

A JCAP study proposes a test for the Cosmological Principle using weak gravitational lensing  “The cosmological principle is like an ultimate kind of statement of humility,” explains James Adam, astrophysicist at the University of the Western Cape, Cape Town, South Africa, and lead author of the new paper. According to the Cosmological Principle, not only are we not at the center of the Universe, but a true center does not exist. A further assumption, similar to but distinct and independent…

Studies and Analyses

High-Tech Video Optimization: Enhancing Brain Functionality

ISTA scientists uncover how the brain unblurs vision during movement  Why do our mental images stay sharp even when we are moving fast? A team of neuroscientists led by Professor Maximilian Jösch at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA) has identified a mechanism that corrects visual distortions caused by movement in animals. The study, conducted in mice, identifies a core function that can be generalized across the vertebrate visual system, including primates such as humans. The findings are…

Assorted pills and tablets top border over colored background. Many different pills and space text by snegok1967
Business and Finance

High BTMPS Levels Found in Fentanyl: What It Means for Safety

A UCLA research team has found that drugs being sold as fentanyl contain high amounts of the industrial chemical bis(2,2,6,6-tetramethyl-4-piperidyl) sebacate, or BTMPS. This new substance of concern emerged in the illicit drug supply nearly simultaneously in multiple U.S. locations from coast-to-coast. From June through October 2024, the team quantitatively tested samples of drugs sold as fentanyl that had high levels of the chemical, which belongs to a class of compounds called hindered amine light stabilizers and has a variety…

The BioSCape team is poctured with NASA and South African aircraft. Image Credit: Jeremey Shelton/Fishwater Films
Physics & Astronomy

Measuring Life on Earth from Space: A Global Research Project

Measurements and data collected from space can be used to better understand life on Earth. An ambitious, multinational research project funded by NASA and co-led by UC Merced civil and environmental engineering Professor Erin Hestir demonstrated that Earth’s biodiversity can be monitored and measured from space, leading to a better understanding of terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. Hestir led the team alongside University of Buffalo geography Professor Adam Wilson and Professor Jasper Slingsby from the University of Cape Town on BioSCape, which collected data over six…

Life & Chemistry

UC Davis Researchers Complete Total Synthesis of Ibogaine

Discovery creates opportunities to study therapeutic properties of ibogaine and related compounds  Ibogaine — a psychoactive plant derivative — has attracted attention for its anti-addictive and anti-depressant properties. But ibogaine is a finite resource, extracted from plants native to Africa like the iboga shrub (Tabernanthe iboga) and the small-fruited voacanga tree (Voacanga africana). Further, its use can lead to irregular heartbeats, introducing safety risks and an overall need to better understand how its molecular structure leads to its biological effects….

A scuba diver encounters a school of sardines off the coast of Mexico.
Environmental Conservation

Marine Prosperity Areas: A New Hope for Conservation

Improved approach to marine conservation aligns ecological restoration with human well-being  Could 2025 be the year marine protection efforts get a “glow up”? According to a team of conservation-minded researchers, including Octavio Aburto of UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography, the moment has arrived. In a new study published Feb. 6 in the journal Frontiers in Marine Science, Aburto and a multinational team of marine scientists and economists unveil a comprehensive framework for Marine Prosperity Areas, or MPpAs. With…

Studying_Sikkim_Floods Insights for Disaster Preparedness
Earth Sciences

Studying Sikkim Floods: Insights for Disaster Preparedness

UCalgary scientist says it’s important to determine what happened and what can be learned  Experts from the global Earth science community – including a scientist from the University of Calgary – have pieced together what happened during the massive Sikkim flood to try to help others prepare for similar disasters. On Oct. 3, 2023, a multi-hazard cascade in the Sikkim Himalaya, India, was triggered by a permanently frozen (permafrost) lateral moraine – debris from erosion along a glacier – collapsing…

New Study Sheds Light on Pelvic Tissue Tears in Childbirth
Awards Funding

New Study Sheds Light on Pelvic Tissue Tears in Childbirth

Grant enables study into mechanical properties of episiotomy cuts  Millions of women undergo episiotomies during childbirth every year, yet the mechanics behind these surgical cuts remain largely unstudied. A new research project is poised to change that, addressing this significant gap in women’s health. An episiotomy involves cutting the pelvic-floor muscles to aid delivery, a technique currently guided largely by a surgeon’s personal judgment and experience. While intended to prevent severe vaginal tears or other complications during delivery, the procedure…

Innovations in
Material Sciences

Materials Sciences
2 mins read

Enhancing Display Manufacturing with Sustainable Simulations

How simulations help manufacturing of modern displays. Modern materials must be recyclable and sustainable. Consumer electronics is no exception, with organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) taking over modern televisions and portable device displays. However, the development of suitable materials – from the synthesis of molecules to the production of display components – is very time-consuming. Scientists led by Denis Andrienko of the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research and Falk May from Display Solutions at Merck have now developed a simulation…

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This map, which shows glaciers and tributaries in patterned flows, was created using the same data that Stanford researchers used to train an AI model that revealed some of the fundamental physics governing the large-scale movements of the Antarctic ice sheet. (Image credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio). Image Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio
Information Technology

AI Uncovers New Insights Into Antarctic Ice Flow

As the planet warms, Antarctica’s ice sheet is melting and contributing to sea-level rise around the globe. Antarctica holds enough frozen water to raise global sea levels by 190 feet, so precisely predicting how it will move and melt now and in the future is vital for protecting coastal areas. But most climate models struggle to accurately simulate the movement of Antarctic ice due to sparse data and the complexity of interactions between the ocean, atmosphere, and frozen surface. In…

Visualizations of the semantic structure information in backbone stages. Pixels of the same class as the marked pixel are brightly colored. The brighter the color, the higher the similarity. Our motivation comes from this phenomenon. Image Credit: Yanpeng SUN, Zechao LI
Information Technology

Semantic Structure Aware Inference for Pixel-Wise Predictions

CAM is proposed to highlight the class-related activation regions for an image classification network, where feature positions related to the specific object class are activated and have higher scores while other regions are suppressed and have lower scores. For specific visual tasks, CAM can be used to infer the object bounding boxes in weakly-supervised object location(WSOL) and generate pseudo-masks of training images in weakly-supervised semantic segmentation (WSSS). Therefore, obtaining the high-quality CAM is very important to improve the recognition performance…

Post-LLM roadmap. Image Credit: Fei Wu et al.
Information Technology

New Horizons for AI in the Post-LLM Era: Knowledge & Collaboration

A recent paper published in the journal Engineering delves into the future of artificial intelligence (AI) beyond large language models (LLMs). LLMs have made remarkable progress in multimodal tasks, yet they face limitations such as outdated information, hallucinations, inefficiency, and a lack of interpretability. To address these issues, researchers explore three key directions: knowledge empowerment, model collaboration, and model co-evolution. Knowledge empowerment aims to integrate external knowledge into LLMs. This can be achieved through various methods, including integrating knowledge into training objectives,…

Through a hyperspectral camera and AI, differences in the palm can provide highly personalized security. Image Credit: Osaka Metropolitan University
Information Technology

Advanced Biometric Authentication Using AI and Infrared

Hyperspectral imaging and AI can identify individuals using blood vessels in palms Hyperspectral imaging is a technology that detects slight differences in color to pinpoint the characteristics and conditions of an object. While a normal camera creates images using red, green, and blue, a hyperspectral camera can obtain over 100 images in the visible to near-infrared light range in a single shot. As a result, hyperspectral imaging can obtain information that the human eye cannot see. Specially Appointed Associate Professor…

New Discoveries
in Social Sciences

Social Sciences
4 mins read

Optimize Performance with Dynamic Left-Hand Squeeze Technique

A dynamic left-hand squeeze helps to optimize performance. The images are legendary: Tennis stars who hit the deciding match ball just outside the line, golfers who putt the ball past the cup from only inches away, and speakers who suddenly can’t say a word. These individuals all have one thing in common: They are unable to access their performance abilities in a crucial situation. A research team at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) investigated the phenomenon and has come…

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From within the Mare Crisium impact basin, the SwRI-led Lunar Magnetotelluric Sounder (LMS) is making the first geophysical measurements representative of the bulk of the Moon. Most of the Apollo missions landed in the region of linked maria to the west (left image), whose crust was later shown to be compositionally distinct (right image) as exemplified by the concentration of the element thorium. Mare Crisium provides a smooth landing site on the near side of the Moon outside of this anomalous region. Image Credit: NASA
Physics & Astronomy

SwRI Deploys Innovative Sounder Instrument on Lunar Surface

Lunar Magnetotelluric Sounder to characterize Moon’s mantle Just hours after touching down on the surface of the Moon on March 2 aboard Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost 1 lander, the Southwest Research Institute-led Lunar Magnetotelluric Sounder (LMS) was activated and deployed its five sensors to study the Moon’s interior by measuring electric and magnetic fields. The LMS instrument is the first extraterrestrial application of magnetotellurics. “For more than 50 years, scientists have used magnetotellurics on Earth for a wide variety of…

Artist's illustration of a potential Hycean world, where methyl halide gases would be detectable in the atmosphere. Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, Joseph Olmsted/STScI
Physics & Astronomy

Signs of Alien Life: Discover Hidden Gases in Space

Advancing the search for weird life on weird planets Scientists have identified a promising new way to detect life on faraway planets, hinging on worlds that look nothing like Earth and gases rarely considered in the search for extraterrestrials. In a new Astrophysical Journal Letters paper, researchers from the University of California, Riverside, describe these gases, which could be detected in the atmospheres of exoplanets — planets outside our solar system — with the James Webb Space Telescope, or JWST….

For a century, astronomers have been studyingBarnard’s Starin the hope of finding planets around it. First discovered by E. E. Barnard atYerkes Observatoryin 1916, it is the nearest single star system to Earth. Now, using in part theGemini North telescope, one half of theInternational Gemini Observatory, partly funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation and operated by NSF NOIRLab, astronomers have discovered four sub-Earth exoplanets orbiting the star. One of the planets is the least massive exoplanet ever discovered using the radial velocity technique, indicating a new benchmark for discovering smaller planets around nearby stars. Image Credit: International Gemini Observatory/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/P. Marenfeld
Physics & Astronomy

New Planetary System Discovered Around Nearest Star

Gemini North’s MAROON-X instrument finds evidence for four mini-Earth exoplanets around our famous cosmic neighbor Barnard’s Star For a century, astronomers have been studying Barnard’s Star in the hope of finding planets around it. First discovered by E. E. Barnard at Yerkes Observatory in 1916, it is the nearest single star system to Earth [1]. Barnard’s Star is classified as a red dwarf — low-mass stars that often host closely-packed planetary systems, often with multiple rocky planets. Red dwarfs are extremely numerous in the Universe, so scientists…

This infrared image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope was taken by the onboard Near-Infrared Camera for the JWST Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey, or JADES, program. The NIRCam data was used to determine which galaxies to study further with spectroscopic observations. One such galaxy, JADES-GS-z14-0 (shown in the pullout), was determined to be at a redshift of 14.3, making it the current record-holder for most distant known galaxy. This corresponds to a time less than 300 million years after the big bang. Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Brant Robertson (UC Santa Cruz), Ben Johnson (CfA), Sandro Tacchella (Cambridge), Marcia Rieke (University of Arizona), Daniel Eisenstein (CfA), Phill Cargile (CfA)
Physics & Astronomy

James Webb Telescope Uncovers Complex Chemistry in Primordial Galaxy

University of Arizona astronomers have learned more about a surprisingly mature galaxy that existed when the universe was just less than 300 million years old – just 2% of its current age. Observed by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, the galaxy – designated JADES-GS-z14-0 – is unexpectedly bright and chemically complex for an object from this primordial era, the researchers said. This provides a rare glimpse into the universe’s earliest chapter. The findings, published in the journal Nature Astronomy, build…

A logarithmic spiral with a diameter of 500 μm, approximately half the diameter of a sewing needle. Image Credit: Yilin Wong
Life & Chemistry

Chemistry and Force Create Stunning Spiral Patterns on Surfaces

Hundreds of regular patterns spontaneously form on a small germanium chip Key takeaways UCLA doctoral student Yilin Wong noticed that some tiny dots had appeared on one of her samples, which had been accidentally left out overnight. The layered sample consisted of a germanium wafer topped with evaporated metal films in contact with a drop of water. On a whim, she looked at the dots under a microscope and couldn’t believe her eyes. Beautiful spiral patterns had been etched into the…

Scientist examining cells under a microscope with reflection in glasses. Credit by Image-Source, Envato
Life & Chemistry

Exploring Electrochemistry in Condensate Innovations

By Leah Shaffer Much of cell behavior is governed by the actions of biomolecular condensates: building block molecules that glom together and scatter apart as needed. Biomolecular condensates constantly shift their phase, sometimes becoming solid, sometimes like little droplets of oil in vinegar, and other phases in between. Understanding the electrochemical properties of such slippery molecules has been a recent focus for researchers at Washington University in St. Louis. In research published in Nature Chemistry, Yifan Dai, assistant professor of…

A pair of dorcas copper butterflies, a North America native species, and one of the 324 species studied in this report. Image Credit: Photo by David Pavlik, Michigan State University
Life & Chemistry

Study Explores Future Without Butterflies in Ecosystems

Butterflies are disappearing in the United States. All kinds of them. With a speed scientists call alarming, and they are sounding an alarm. A sweeping new study published in Science for the first time tallies butterfly data from more than 76,000 surveys across the continental United States. The results: between 2000 and 2020, total butterfly abundance fell by 22% across the 554 species counted. That means that for every five individual butterflies within the contiguous U.S. in the year 2000,…

Synthesis of NFN@C Catalyst and Schematic Illustration of Tumor Catalytic Therapy. Image Credit: ZHAO Jiaping
Life & Chemistry

Magnetic Catalysts Boost Tumor Treatment with Electronic Density

Recently, a collaborative research team led by Professor WANG Hui and Professor ZHANG Xin from the Hefei Institutes of Physical Science of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, successfully developed a novel carbon-coated nickel ferrite (NFN@C) nanocatalyst with significant potential in cancer therapy. The results have been published in Advanced Functional Materials. Cancer therapy has always struggled with targeting tumor cells effectively while minimizing damage to healthy tissue. Traditional treatments like chemotherapy and radiation often have limited precision and serious side effects….

Confocal microscopy images: Taken by Samarpita Sen, The Gurdon Institute, University of Cambridge. Rendered in this form by Rituparno Chowdhury. Image Credit: Samarpita Sen/Rituparno Chowdhury
Materials Sciences

Twisted Light: A New Power Source for Next-Gen Electronics

Researchers have advanced a decades-old challenge in the field of organic semiconductors, opening new possibilities for the future of electronics. The researchers, led by the University of Cambridge and the Eindhoven University of Technology, have created an organic semiconductor that forces electrons to move in a spiral pattern, which could improve the efficiency of OLED displays in television and smartphone screens, or power next-generation computing technologies such as spintronics and quantum computing. The semiconductor they developed emits circularly polarised light—meaning…

A new paper from the lab of Asst. Prof. Chibueze Amanchukwu (left) of the UChicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering, including first author Priyadarshini Mirmira (right), demonstrates a new technique for building inorganic and polymer electrolytes at the same time and in the same vessel. (Photo by John Zich). Image Credit: UChicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering / John Zich
Materials Sciences

New One-Pot Technique Enhances Material Synthesis Efficiency

UChicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering research created inorganic and polymer battery electrolytes simultaneously, with potential applications across chemistry Creating battery electrolytes – the component that carries the charged particles back and forth between a battery’s two terminals – has always been a tradeoff. Solid-state inorganic electrolytes move the particles extremely efficiently, but being solid and inorganic means they’re also brittle, hard to work with and difficult to connect seamlessly with the terminals. Polymer electrolytes are a dream to work…

The lowest energy and the dynamical unstable configurations, as well as their corresponding phonon dispersion relationships. Image Credit: WANG XIanlong
Materials Sciences

Phosphorus Doping Enhances Stability of Polymer Nitrogen

Using first-principles calculations, a research group led by Prof. WANG Xianlong from the Hefei Institutes of Physical Science of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, found that phosphorus doping is an effective way to achieve high-energy polymeric nitrogen with black-phosphorus structure (BP-N) stable at ambient pressure. The research results were published in Matter and Radiation at Extremes. Cubic gauche nitrogen with diamond-like structure and BP-N with black phosphorus structure, represented by polymeric all-nitrogen materials, are a class of high-energy density materials composed…

Precisely tailored Zn1−xCdxSe/ZnSe shells with a continuous gradient structure were synthesized using the facile high-temperature successive ion layer adsorption and reaction (HT-SILAR) strategy. This process enables the formation of large-particle alloyed red CdZnSe/Zn1−xCdxSe/ZnSe/ZnS/CdZnS QDs. The obtained QDs exhibit an ultra-narrow FWHM of 17.1 nm and a near-unity PLQY, resulting in a record EQE of 38.2% and an exceptional T95 lifetime of over 21,000 hours (tested at 1000 cd m–2) for red QLEDs.
Materials Sciences

Quantum Dot Technology: Enhanced Color and Longevity in Displays

Quantum dot light-emitting diodes (QLEDs) have made rapid progress in luminescence, efficiency, and stability, making them promising candidates for displays and solid-state lighting applications. However, achieving high-performance QLEDs with high color purity remains a persistent challenge, particularly red QLEDs, thus limiting the popularity of ultra-high definition devices. Recently, Soochow University, in collaboration with Macau University of Science and Technology and other research institutes, reported a facile high-temperature successive ion layer adsorption and reaction (HT-SILAR) strategy for the growth of high-quality,…

Proportion of current geological resource production exceeding production capacity determined by the regional water availability for the top ten geological resources with the largest volume of water overconsumption. Image Credit: National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST)
Earth Sciences

Geological Resources and Regional Water Availability Limits

The study shows that the regional water availability constrains the current and future production of 32 geological resources Geological resources such as critical metals and minerals, essential for the diffusion of technologies such as renewable energy and energy storage towards a decarbonized society, are indispensable for supporting modern life in the form of various products and services. Their demand is expected to increase in the coming years owing to global population as well as economic growth. Thus far, scientists and…

CUREE, an autonomous underwater robot, is used by the researchers to collect acoustic data for analysis. Image Credit: Austin Greene, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
Earth Sciences

Neural Network Identifies Coral Reef Sounds with ‘Fishial’ Recognition

Faster identification of fish sounds from acoustic recordings can improve research, conservation efforts Coral reefs are some of the world’s most diverse ecosystems. Despite making up less than 1% of the world’s oceans, one quarter of all marine species spend some portion of their life on a reef. With so much life in one spot, researchers can struggle to gain a clear understanding of which species are present and in what numbers. In JASA, published on behalf of the Acoustical…

Flooding in the low-lying Mapunapuna industrial area on O'ahu, Hawai'i. Image Credit: Hawaiʻi Sea Grant King Tides Project.
Earth Sciences

Flooding Risks Increase in Hawai’i’s Sinking Coastal Areas

Some parts of Hawai‘i are sinking faster than others. That discovery, published recently in a study by researchers at the University of Hawai‘i (UH) at Mānoa, also highlights that as sea level rises, the infrastructure, businesses, and communities in these low-lying areas are at risk of flooding sooner than scientists anticipated, particularly in certain urban areas of O‘ahu. “Our findings highlight that subsidence is a major, yet often overlooked, factor in assessments of future flood exposure,” said Kyle Murray, lead…

Visualisation of seismic model S40RTS (Ritsema et al., 2011), showing the LLVP (large red area) under Africa, made using the GPlates software. Image Credit: Jeroen Ritsema et al.
Earth Sciences

Unlocking Earth’s Deep Mantle: Evolutionary History Revealed

A new study led by researchers at Cardiff University, the University of Oxford, the University of Bristol, and the University of Michigan has revealed that two continent-size regions in Earth’s deep mantle have distinctive histories and resulting chemical composition, in contrast to the common assumption they are the same. The findings are available to read in the journal Scientific Reports. Seismologists have long known that seismic waves – generated by earthquakes – do not travel through all parts of Earth’s…

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