Colossal collisions linked to solar system science
A new study shows a deep connection between some of the largest, most energetic events in the universe and much smaller, weaker ones powered by our own Sun.
Read MoreHow species form: What the tangled history of polar bear and brown bear relations tells us
A new study is providing an enhanced look at the intertwined evolutionary histories of polar bears and brown bears. Becoming separate species did not completely stop these animals from mating with each other. Scientists have known this for some time, but the new research draws on an expanded dataset — including DNA from an ancient […]
Read MoreFossil biomolecules provide insights into which dinosaurs were warm- or cold-blooded
Spectroscopy reveals clues to dinos’ metabolisms
Read MoreAkzoNobel Protects World’s Biggest Offshore Wind Farm
All 165 of its giant 8MW turbines being protected from the North Sea by coatings supplied by AkzoNobel.
Read MoreNASA to Inflate Heat Shield on Earth Before Spaceflight Demo
NASA is inviting media to see a technology that could one day help land humans on Mars after it is inflated for the final time on Earth before its spaceflight demonstration later this year.
Read MoreDickinson Crater on Venus
This November 1996 image from Magellan shows Dickinson, an impact crater in the northeastern Atalanta Region of Venus.
Read MoreAerogel integrated wood provides better insulation than existing plastic-based materials
One day soon, buildings could become more energy-efficient—and environmentally sustainable—with insulating material developed from wood by researchers in Sweden. The newly-developed material offers as good or even better thermal performance than ordinary plastic-based insulation materials, according to researchers reporting recently in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces.
Read MoreTriggering microscale self-assembly using light and heat
Self-assembly is the spontaneous organization of building blocks into structures or patterns from a disordered state. Everyday examples include the freezing of liquids or the crystallization of salts. These self-assembly processes also occur in many biological systems, such as the folding of proteins or the formation of DNA helixes, and there is increased interest in […]
Read MoreFluorescent molecules revealed by quantum chemistry and machine learning
RIKEN chemists have demonstrated a powerful way of designing molecules to satisfy predefined specifications by using it to create six fluorescent compounds. This method, which combines machine learning and quantum chemistry, promises to save chemists a lot of time making and testing compounds in the lab.
Read MoreFun With Protein Degradation
Here’s a nice protein degradation paper (and its earlier BioRxiv version) that suggests a new assay that could turn out to be quite useful. In a lot of these experiments, protein levels are quantified (more or less) by Western blots. That’s fairly labor intensive and imperfectly reproducible, and I think that a lot of people get […]
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A new origin story for domesticated chickens starts in rice fields 3,500 years ago
It turns out that chicken and rice may have always gone together, from the birds’ initial domestication to tonight’s dinner. In two new studies, scientists lay out a potential story of chicken’s origins. This poultry tale begins surprisingly recently in rice fields planted by Southeast Asian farmers around 3,500 years ago, zooarchaeologist Joris Peters and […]
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Growing wildfire threats loom over the birthplace of the atomic bomb
There are things I will always remember from my time in New Mexico. The way the bark of towering ponderosa pines smells of vanilla when you lean in close. Sweeping vistas, from forested mountaintops to the Rio Grande Valley, that embellish even the most mundane shopping trip. The trepidation that comes with the tendrils of […]
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