Science News

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Argonne researchers seek to expedite the cleanup of the Hanford site by influencing the chemical properties of plutonium particles in 54 million gallons of waste.

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Human activities account for a substantial amount - anywhere from 20% to more than 60% - of toxic thallium that has entered the Baltic Sea over the past 80 years, according to new research by scientists affiliated with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and other institutions.

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A team of scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Ames National Laboratory recently developed a chemical conversion process that makes diesel out of plastic waste.

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The New York Aquarium is debuting a traveling art exhibit, “Washed Ashore: Art to Save the Sea” to message about how plastics polluting the environment are harmful to wildlife and people. The exhibit will be at the aquarium Friday, May 24, to Monday, Sept. 2, 2024.

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Thunderstorms in the American Midwest. Tiny particles in the cloud cover of the Amazon rainforest. Heat waves in Baltimore. What do these very different places have in common? They’re all areas where the Department of Energy Office of Science Biological and Environmental Research (BER) program is supporting climate research.

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All-perovskite tandem solar cells could soon pick up where silicon solar cells reach their limits. These highly efficient, lightweight and flexible cells have already proven themselves in the laboratory – now, Empa researchers are working on scaling them up and making them ready for the real world.

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Vigorous exercise burns fat more in males than in females, but the benefits of exercise are broad for both sexes.

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Charge-recharge cycling of lithium-superrich iron oxide, a cost-effective and high-capacity cathode for new-generation lithium-ion batteries, can be greatly improved by doping with readily available mineral elements.

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Professor Way Kuo, Senior Fellow of the Hong Kong Institute for Advanced Study, City University of Hong Kong, has been awarded the Special Prize and Gold Medal with Congratulations of the Jury at the 49th International Exhibition of Inventions of Geneva (IEIG).

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Scientists at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and six other Department of Energy national laboratories have developed a United States-based perspective for achieving net-zero carbon emissions. The roadmap was recently published in the journal Nature Reviews Chemistry.

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Sharon Dent, Ph.D., professor of Epigenetics and Molecular Carcinogenesis at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS). Dent is a global leader in the field of chromatin research whose foundational work has helped define the role of chromatin in cancer growth and development.

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Renowned evolutionary biologist Adriana Darielle Mejía Briscoe of the University of California, Irvine has been elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences. She joins a class of 144 scientists from around the world being recognized this year for their outstanding accomplishments in original research.

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Reaching net-zero carbon emissions goals requires finding transformative paths to manage carbon in difficult-to-electrify economic sectors.

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Event at National Press Club features nutrition, food safety scientists and leaders addressing major issues with a research and regulatory lens.

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An SMU-led research team has found that ancient rocks and fossils from long-extinct marine reptiles in Angola clearly show a key part of Earth’s past – the splitting of South America and Africa and the subsequent formation of the South Atlantic Ocean.

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The Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory and other institutions joined industry stakeholders in exploring solutions for power grid climate resilience at the Climate READi Southeast workshop co-hosted by EPRI and ORNL’s Water Power Program on April 10-11.

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A research team using the ChemCam instrument onboard NASA’s Curiosity rover discovered higher-than-usual amounts of manganese in lakebed rocks within Gale Crater on Mars, which indicates that the sediments were formed in a river, delta, or near the shoreline of an ancient lake. The results were published today in Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets.

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Researchers at The Ohio State University played a major role in analyzing the first year of data from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument’s survey into the history of the universe.

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Researchers report in ACS Central Science that they have 3D printed a bioink containing plant cells that were then genetically modified, producing programmable materials. Applications could someday include biomanufacturing and sustainable construction.

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Working with teens, UW researchers designed RESeT: a snowy virtual world with six activities intended to improve mood. In a 3-week study of 44 teens, researchers found that most of the teens used the technology about twice a week without being prompted and reported lower stress levels after using the environment.

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For the first time, chemists in the University of Minnesota Twin Cities College of Science and Engineering have created a highly reactive chemical compound that has eluded scientists for more than 120 years. The discovery could lead to new drug treatments, safer agricultural products, and better electronics.

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Interdisciplinary researchers in Illinois, the U.S. and around the world can advance their projects with the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology's new Zeiss Xradia 630 Versa micro-CT scanner, the first of its kind with life science applications in the U.S.

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Evapotranspiration (ET) includes evaporation from soil and open water pools such as lakes, rivers, and ponds, as well as transpiration from plant leaves. The difference between precipitation and ET indicates the water balance available for societal needs, including agricultural and industrial production. However, measuring ET is challenging.

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Argonne and Toyota are collaborating on a cutting-edge battery recycling process that retains the structure of valuable components. It shows great promise to make battery recycling much more environmentally friendly and profitable.

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Nouabalé-Ndoki National Park, Sangha Trinational, Republic of Congo, April 30 2024 -- A recent study, published in the scientific journal “Plant Ecology and Evolution,” sheds valuable insights into forest stands of Gilbertiodendron dewevrei (G. dewevrei) in the Sangha Trinational region.

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Carbon emissions associated with air travel to professional conferences make up a sizable fraction of the emissions produced by researchers in academia. Andrea Gokus, a McDonnell Center postdoctoral fellow in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, is advocating for astronomers and others to reduce those emissions.

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Organic electrochemical transistors allow current to flow in devices like implantable biosensors. But scientists long knew about a quirk about their activation that no one could explain. Researchers have now solved the mystery, paving the way to custom-tailored OECTs for biosensing, brain-inspired computation and beyond.

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Common household products containing nanoparticles – grains of engineered material so miniscule they are invisible to the eye – could be contributing to a new form of indoor air pollution, according to a Rutgers study. In a study published in the journal Science of the Total Environment, a team of Rutgers researchers found people walking through a space, where a consumer product containing nanoparticles was recently sprayed, stirred residual specks off carpet fibers and floor surfaces, projecting them some three to five feet in the air.

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Probiotics have been touted as a treatment for everything from diarrhea to mental health disorders, with sales of probiotic supplements expected to exceed $65 billion globally in 2024.

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Conservationists and scientists from almost 20 institutions in the United States, Europe, and Africa, have concluded that immediate conservation efforts to protect red colobus monkey species could have cascading net positive impacts on African tropical forest health in the face of a growing biodiversity crisis.

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In a significant stride towards personalized cancer care, the National Cancer Center Japan (NCCJ) has marked a decade of progress in cancer genomic medicine (CGM). A comprehensive review outlines the evolution of CGM in Japan, highlighting the pivotal role of the NCCJ in this advancement. The study encapsulates the historical milestones, current achievements, and future directions in the field of CGM.

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A groundbreaking study has recognized the cGAS-STING signaling pathway as a formidable ally in the immune system's battle against cancer. This pivotal discovery may pave the way for innovative immunotherapies capable of amplifying the body's inherent defenses to detect and eradicate cancer cells, signifying a substantial advance towards more potent cancer treatments.

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Vera C. Rubin Observatory's successfully coats 8.4-meter primary/tertiary mirror in on-site coating chamber

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A new type of bioplastic could help reduce the plastic industry’s environmental footprint. Researchers have developed a biodegradable form of thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) filled with bacterial spores that, when exposed to nutrients present in compost, germinate and break down the material at the end of its life cycle.

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One group commonly misunderstood by voice technology are individuals who speak African American English, or AAE.

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Argonne National Laboratory is working with Talon Metals to develop a process that could dramatically increase the number of electric vehicle batteries produced from mined nickel ore.

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Interactions between wind turbines could reduce power output by 30% in proposed offshore wind farm areas along the East Coast, new research has found. In all, the farms could still meet 60% of the electricity demand of New England.

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Sometimes not finding something is just as exciting and useful as finding it. Take hot Jupiter WASP-43 b, for example. This tidally locked world has a searing hot permanent dayside and a somewhat cooler nightside. Astronomers using Webb to map the temperature and analyze the atmosphere around the planet expected to detect methane, a common carbon molecule, on the nightside.

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Scientists at PPPL have finished building a new plasma measurement instrument that could aid efforts to boost the heat of fusion reactions in facilities known as tokamaks.

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The Korea Institute of Civil Engineering and Building Technology (KICT) has conducted research on a nano-material-based adsorption process to efficiently remove uranium wastewater extracted from actual radioactive-contaminated soil. They have also proposed its applicability to prevent secondary environmental pollutions.

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The discovery of the most massive stellar black hole yet in the Milky Way galaxy has captured the attention of astronomers worldwide. This extraordinary find, identified through data from the European Space Agency's Gaia mission, showcases the remarkable capabilities of modern astronomical technology.

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Researchers at the University of Vienna, along with collaborators from France, Germany, Switzerland and the USA, have achieved a major breakthrough in understanding how genetic drivers influence the evolution of a specific photosynthesis mechanism in Tillandsia (air plants). This sheds light on the complex actions that cause plant adaptation and ecological diversity. The results of their study are now published in Plant Cell.

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UTEP study could lead to reusing ‘produced water’

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Computer simulations by astronomers support the idea that dark matter – matter that no one has yet directly detected but which many physicists think must be there to explain several aspects of the observable universe – exists, according to the researchers, who include those at the University of California, Irvine.