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Categories: Chemistry: Inorganic Chemistry, Offbeat: Plants and Animals

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Researchers unveil the interaction between polymeric materials and sulfide solid electrolytes.

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Corals play an essential role in ocean ecosystems, and like many organisms, they are under threat from climate change and other human activities. To better protect coral, it's first necessary to understand them, in particular their reproductive life cycle, which only happens once a year. For the first time, researchers have produced a model for coral spawning, based on various environmental factors. They achieved this by tapping an often overlooked source of aquatic knowledge, an aquarium.

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Researchers have developed a sustainable and controllable strategy to manipulate interfacial heat transfer, paving the way for improving the performance of eco-friendly cooling in various applications such as electronics, buildings and solar panels.

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The toe tapping behavior of various amphibians has long attracted attention from researchers and pet owners. Despite being widely documented, the underlying functional role is poorly understood. In a new paper, researchers demonstrate that Dyeing poison frogs modulate their taps based on specific stimuli.

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The African turquoise killifish lives in ephemeral ponds in Zimbabwe and Mozambique. To survive the annual dry season, the fish's embryos enter a state of extreme suspended animation or 'diapause' for approximately 8 months. Now, researchers have uncovered the mechanisms that enabled the killifish to evolve this extreme survival state.

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An exceptionally rare fossilized porcupine skeleton discovered in Florida has allowed researchers to trace the evolutionary history for one of North America's rarest mammals.

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Australian researchers have found evidence of the oldest known platypus and a new species, dubbed 'echidnapus', which has a platypus-like anatomy alongside features that more closely resemble an echidna.

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Entomologists have solved the 250-year-old origin puzzle of the most prevalent indoor urban pest insect on the planet: the German cockroach. The team's research findings, representing the genomic analyses of over 280 specimens from 17 countries and six continents, show that this species evolved some 2,100 years ago from an outdoor-living species in Asia.

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Researchers have outlined a way to manipulate water molecules to make CO2R more efficient, with the ultimate goal of creating a clean energy loop. Through their new method, the team was able to perform CO2R with nearly 100% efficiency under mildly acidic conditions, using either gold or zinc as catalysts.

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Many of today's quantum devices rely on collections of qubits, also called spins. These quantum bits have only two energy levels, the '0' and the '1'. However, spins in real devices also interact with light and vibrations known as bosons, greatly complicating calculations. Researchers now demonstrate a way to describe spin-boson systems and use this to efficiently configure quantum devices in a desired state.

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Caterpillars respond defensively to electric fields similar to those emitted by their natural predators, scientists have found.

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Researchers have fabricated a device no wider than a human hair that will help physicists investigate the fundamental nature of matter and light. Their findings could also support the development of more efficient lasers, which are used in fields ranging from medicine to manufacturing.

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In an interdisciplinary study, researchers discovered that symbiotic bacteria communicate with legume plants through specific molecules and that this communication influences which bacteria grow near the plant roots. The findings provide insights into how plants and soil bacteria form beneficial partnerships for nutrient uptake and resilience. These results are a step towards understanding how communication between plants and soil bacteria can lead to specific beneficial associations providing plants with nutrients.

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A new study shows that the use of psilocybin, a compound found in the widely known 'magic mushrooms,' initiates a pattern of hyperconnectivity in the brain linked to the ego-modifying effects and feelings of oceanic boundlessness. The findings help explain the so-called mystical experiences people report during the use of psychedelics and are pertinent to the psychotherapeutic applications of psychedelic drugs to treat psychiatric disorders such as depression.

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Scientists develop a porous structures for lithium metal batteries.

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Researchers discovered that sulfur trioxide can form products other than sulfuric acid in the atmosphere by interacting with organic and inorganic acids. These previously uncharacterized acid sulfuric anhydride products are almost certainly key contributors to atmospheric new particle formation and a way to efficiently incorporate carboxylic acids into atmospheric nanoparticles. Better prediction of aerosol formation can help curb air pollution and reduce uncertainties concerning climate change.

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When it comes to the animal kingdom, bigger is better. Well, at least for proboscis monkeys, famously known for their long, large and droopy noses. Researchers have provided a world-first explanation for why male proboscis monkeys have larger and 'enhanced' nasal structures.

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Ants who receive a caffeine-laced sugary reward become more efficient at navigating back to the reward's location compared to ants that only receive sugar. Caffeinated ants move toward the reward via a more direct path but do not increase their speed, suggesting that caffeine improved their ability to learn. The study was conducted on Argentine ants (Linepithema humile), a globally invasive species, and the researchers say that incorporating caffeine into ant baits could aid efforts to control the ants by improving bait uptake.

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Members of the vertebrate group including anglerfishes are unique in possessing a characteristic known as sexual parasitism, in which males temporarily attach or permanently fuse with females to mate. Now, researchers show that sexual parasitism arose during a time of major global warming and rapid transition for anglerfishes from the ocean floor to the deep, open sea.

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A new study demonstrates that kangaroos, wallabies and other Australian marsupials fear humans far more than any other predator.