Biology: Zoology Offbeat: Computers and Math Offbeat: Earth and Climate Offbeat: General Offbeat: Plants and Animals
Published

Broadband buzz: Periodical cicadas' chorus measured with fiber optic cables      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Through an emerging technology called distributed fiber optic sensing, cables bringing high-speed internet to American households can be used to detect temperature changes, vibrations, and even sound. And periodical cicadas -- the insects that emerge by the billions every 13 or 17 years and make a racket with their mating calls -- are loud enough to be detected. A new study shows how fiber optic sensing could open new pathways for charting populations of these famously ephemeral bugs.

Chemistry: General Chemistry: Inorganic Chemistry Environmental: General Environmental: Water Geoscience: Environmental Issues Geoscience: Geochemistry
Published

Durable plastic pollution easily, cleanly degrades with new catalyst      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Found in fishing nets, carpet, clothing, Nylon-6 is a major contributor to plastic pollution, including ocean pollution. Now, chemists have developed a new catalyst that quickly, cleanly and completely breaks down Nylon-6 in a matter of minutes -- without generating harmful byproducts. Even better: The process does not require toxic solvents, expensive materials or extreme conditions, making it practical for everyday applications. In experiments, the new process recovered 99% of the polymer's building blocks, which can then be upcycled into higher-value products.

Chemistry: General Chemistry: Inorganic Chemistry Chemistry: Organic Chemistry
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Artificial intelligence paves way for new medicines      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Researchers have developed an AI model that can predict where a drug molecule can be chemically altered.

Chemistry: General Chemistry: Inorganic Chemistry Chemistry: Organic Chemistry Energy: Batteries Environmental: General Environmental: Water Geoscience: Environmental Issues Geoscience: Geochemistry
Published

Greener solution powers new method for lithium-ion battery recycling      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Used lithium-ion batteries from cell phones, laptops and a growing number of electric vehicles are piling up, but options for recycling them remain limited mostly to burning or chemically dissolving shredded batteries. Researchers have improved on approaches that dissolve the battery in a liquid solution in order to reduce the amount of hazardous chemicals used in the process. This simple, efficient and environmentally-friendly solution overcomes the main obstacles presented by previous approaches.

Computer Science: Artificial Intelligence (AI) Engineering: Robotics Research Mathematics: Statistics Offbeat: Computers and Math Offbeat: General
Published

How do you make a robot smarter? Program it to know what it doesn't know      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Engineers have come up with a new way to teach robots to know when they don't know. The technique involves quantifying the fuzziness of human language and using that measurement to tell robots when to ask for further directions. Telling a robot to pick up a bowl from a table with only one bowl is fairly clear. But telling a robot to pick up a bowl when there are five bowls on the table generates a much higher degree of uncertainty -- and triggers the robot to ask for clarification.

Chemistry: Biochemistry Chemistry: Inorganic Chemistry Physics: General Physics: Optics Physics: Quantum Physics
Published

Compact accelerator technology achieves major energy milestone      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Researchers have demonstrated a compact particle accelerator less than 20 meters long that produces an electron beam with an energy of 10 billion electron volts (10 GeV). There are only two other accelerators currently operating in the U.S. that can reach such high electron energies, but both are approximately 3 kilometers long. This type of accelerator is called a wakefield laser accelerator.

Chemistry: Biochemistry Chemistry: General Chemistry: Inorganic Chemistry Chemistry: Organic Chemistry
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Chemists use oxygen, copper 'scissors' to make cheaper drug treatments possible      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Researchers have devised a way to produce chemicals used in medicine and agriculture for a fraction of the usual cost. Using oxygen as a reagent and copper as a catalyst to break organic molecules' carbon-carbon bonds and convert them into amines, which are widely used in pharmaceuticals. Traditional metal catalysis uses expensive metals such as platinum, silver, gold and palladium, but the researchers used oxygen and copper -- an abundant base metal.

Biology: Biochemistry Biology: Cell Biology Biology: General Chemistry: Biochemistry Chemistry: General Chemistry: Inorganic Chemistry Computer Science: General Energy: Technology Offbeat: Computers and Math Offbeat: General Offbeat: Plants and Animals
Published

Hybrid transistors set stage for integration of biology and microelectronics      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Researchers create transistors combining silicon with biological silk, using common microprocessor manufacturing methods. The silk protein can be easily modified with other chemical and biological molecules to change its properties, leading to circuits that respond to biology and the environment.

Offbeat: Computers and Math Offbeat: General Physics: General Physics: Quantum Physics
Published

First experimental evidence of hopfions in crystals opens up new dimension for future technology      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Hopfions, magnetic spin structures predicted decades ago, have become a hot and challenging research topic in recent years. New findings open up new fields in experimental physics: identifying other crystals in which hopfions are stable, studying how hopfions interact with electric and spin currents, hopfion dynamics, and more.

Chemistry: Inorganic Chemistry
Published

Discovery of structural regularity hidden in silica glass      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Glass is a fundamental material. Yet its atomic structure still baffles scientists to this day. Researchers have developed a new way to quantify ring shapes in chemically bonded networks of glass, chipping away at some of the mysteries behind glass's atomic structure.  

Chemistry: General Chemistry: Inorganic Chemistry Chemistry: Organic Chemistry Environmental: General Environmental: Water Geoscience: Earth Science Geoscience: Environmental Issues Geoscience: Geochemistry Geoscience: Geography
Published

Effect of aerosol particles on clouds and the climate captured better      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Global measurements and model calculations show that the complex relationship between the chemistry and climate impact of aerosol particles can be successfully captured by a simple formula.

Offbeat: Computers and Math Offbeat: General
Published

People watched other people shake boxes for science: Here's why      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

When researchers asked hundreds of people to watch other people shake boxes, it took just seconds for almost all of them to figure out what the shaking was for. The deceptively simple work by perception researchers is the first to demonstrate that people can tell what others are trying to learn just by watching their actions. The study reveals a key yet neglected aspect of human cognition, and one with implications for artificial intelligence. 'Just by looking at how someone's body is moving, you can tell what they are trying to learn about their environment,' said author Chaz Firestone, an assistant professor of psychological and brain sciences who investigates how vision and thought interact. 'We do this all the time, but there has been very little research on it.'

Computer Science: Artificial Intelligence (AI) Offbeat: Computers and Math Offbeat: General
Published

AI system self-organizes to develop features of brains of complex organisms      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Scientists have shown that placing physical constraints on an artificially-intelligent system -- in much the same way that the human brain has to develop and operate within physical and biological constraints -- allows it to develop features of the brains of complex organisms in order to solve tasks.

Chemistry: Biochemistry Chemistry: General Chemistry: Inorganic Chemistry Chemistry: Organic Chemistry Environmental: General Environmental: Water Geoscience: Environmental Issues Geoscience: Geochemistry
Published

Putting an end to plastic separation anxiety      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Bio-based plastics often end up in recycling streams because they look and feel like conventional plastic, but the contamination of these compostable products makes it much harder to generate functional material out of recycled plastic. Scientists have now developed a biology-driven process to convert these mixtures into a new biodegradable material that can be used to make fresh products. The scientists believe the process could also enable a new field of biomanufacturing wherein valuable chemicals and even medicines are made from microbes feeding off of plastic waste.

Biology: Cell Biology Biology: General Biology: Marine Chemistry: General Chemistry: Inorganic Chemistry Ecology: Sea Life Physics: Optics
Published

A deep-sea fish inspired researchers to develop supramolecular light-driven machinery      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Chemists have developed a bioinspired supramolecular approach to convert photo-switchable molecules from their stable state into metastable one with low-energy red light. Their work enables fast, highly selective, and efficient switching, providing new tools for energy storage, activation of drugs with light, and sensing applications.

Chemistry: Inorganic Chemistry Physics: Acoustics and Ultrasound Physics: Optics
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Novel measurement technique for fluid mixing phenomena using selective color imaging method      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

A novel measurement technique has been developed to visualize the fluid flow and distribution within two droplets levitated and coalesced in space using fluorescence-emitting particles. This technique enabled the estimation of fluid motion within each droplet, thereby revealing the internal flow caused by surface vibration when the droplet merging promotes fluid mixing.

Chemistry: Biochemistry Chemistry: General Chemistry: Inorganic Chemistry Chemistry: Organic Chemistry Energy: Technology Environmental: General Geoscience: Environmental Issues Geoscience: Geochemistry
Published

Pushing the boundaries of eco-friendly chemical production      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

A team of pioneering researchers has made a significant leap forward in the complex world of molecular chemistry. Their focus? Azaarenes, unique molecular puzzle pieces crucial to many everyday products, from eco-friendly agrochemicals to essential medicines. The team developed an innovative way to modify these molecules using light-powered enzymes -- a groundbreaking discovery that holds promise for new industrially relevant chemical reactions and sustainable energy solutions.

Offbeat: Computers and Math Offbeat: General
Published

Wearables capture body sounds to continuously monitor health      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

From heart beats to stomach gurgles, sounds hold important health information. New wireless devices sit on skin to continuously capture these sounds, then stream data to smartphones or tablets in real time. In pilot studies, devices accurately tracked sounds associated with cardiorespiratory function, gastrointestinal activity, swallowing and respiration. The devices are particularly valuable for premature babies, who can experience apneas and gastrointestinal complications, which are accompanied by sounds.

Computer Science: Artificial Intelligence (AI) Computer Science: General Offbeat: Computers and Math Offbeat: General
Published

Realistic talking faces created from only an audio clip and a person's photo      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

A team of researchers has developed a computer program that creates realistic videos that reflect the facial expressions and head movements of the person speaking, only requiring an audio clip and a face photo.   DIverse yet Realistic Facial Animations, or DIRFA, is an artificial intelligence-based program that takes audio and a photo and produces a 3D video showing the person demonstrating realistic and consistent facial animations synchronised with the spoken audio (see videos).

Chemistry: Biochemistry Chemistry: General Chemistry: Inorganic Chemistry Chemistry: Organic Chemistry Engineering: Nanotechnology
Published

Engineering bacteria to biosynthesize intricate protein complexes      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Protein cages found in nature within microbes help weather its contents from the harsh intracellular environment -- an observation with many bioengineering applications. Researchers recently developed an innovative bioengineering approach using genetically modified bacteria; these bacteria can incorporate protein cages around protein crystals. This in-cell biosynthesis method efficiently produces highly customized protein complexes, which could find applications as advanced solid catalysts and functionalized nanomaterials.