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Categories: Engineering: Nanotechnology, Offbeat: Paleontology and Archeology

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In a groundbreaking study an international team of scientists has investigated the evolutionary patterns behind the development of sabre teeth, with some unexpected results along the way.

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New modelling reveals that low-carbon concrete can recycle double the amount of coal ash compared to current standards, halve the amount of cement required and perform exceptionally well over time.

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Researchers have leveraged deep learning techniques to enhance the image quality of a metalens camera. The new approach uses artificial intelligence to turn low-quality images into high-quality ones, which could make these cameras viable for a multitude of imaging tasks including intricate microscopy applications and mobile devices.

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The research cracks the code on the iconic baobab tree's origin story, revealing their surprising origins in Madagascar and incredible long-distance dispersals to Africa and Australia. The study unveils how baobabs developed unique pollination mechanisms -- some attracting hawkmoths, others lemurs, and even bats -- showcasing remarkable evolutionary adaptations. The research sheds light on how climate change has shaped the baobab's distribution and diversification over millions of years, offering valuable insights for understanding plant responses to future environmental shifts.

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The ability to regulate body temperature, a trait all mammals and birds have today, may have evolved among some dinosaurs early in the Jurassic period about 180 million years ago. The new study looked at the spread of dinosaurs across different climates on Earth throughout the Mesozoic Era (the dinosaur era lasting from 230 to 66 million years ago), drawing on 1,000 fossils, climate models and the geography of the period, and dinosaurs' evolutionary trees.

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A new system could enable simple, low-cost detectors for monitoring water for lead contamination, and potentially other heavy metals as well.

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Researchers have taken a key step toward closing the silver nanoparticles knowledge gap with a study that indicates the particles' shape and surface chemistry play key roles in how they affect aquatic ecosystems.

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A research team has demonstrated that an iron-based amorphous alloy, widely used as a soft magnetic material in transformers and motors, can be transformed into a 'transverse' thermoelectric conversion material that converts electric and thermal currents in orthogonal directions, with just a short period of heat treatment. This is the first example that highlights the importance of microstructure engineering in the development of transverse thermoelectric conversion materials, and provides new design guidelines for materials development to realize environmentally friendly power generation and thermal management technologies using magnetic materials.

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Scientists delve into the composition of nanocomposites for ultraviolet metasurface fabrication.

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When old food packaging, discarded children's toys and other mismanaged plastic waste break down into microplastics, they become even harder to clean up from oceans and waterways. These tiny bits of plastic also attract bacteria, including those that cause disease. Researchers describe swarms of microscale robots (microrobots) that captured bits of plastic and bacteria from water. Afterward, the bots were decontaminated and reused.

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Move over, graphene. There's a new, improved two-dimensional material in the lab. Borophene, the atomically thin version of boron first synthesized in 2015, is more conductive, thinner, lighter, stronger and more flexible than graphene, the 2D version of carbon. Now, researchers have made the material potentially more useful by imparting chirality -- or handedness -- on it, which could make for advanced sensors and implantable medical devices.

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Researchers used commercially available tabletop lasers to create tiny, atomically sharp nanostructures in samples of a layered 2D material called hexagonal Boron Nitride (hBN). The new nanopatterning technique is a simple way to modify materials with light--and it doesn't involve an expensive and resource-intensive clean room.

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Researchers uncovered compelling evidence that Earth's magnetic field was in a highly unusual state when the macroscopic animals of the Ediacaran Period -- 635 to 541 million years ago -- diversified and thrived. Their study raises the question of whether these fluctuations in Earth's ancient magnetic field led to shifts in oxygen levels that may have been crucial to the proliferation of life forms millions of years ago.

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Researchers report the development of a durable and transparent antimicrobial surface containing copper nanoparticles. The nanostructured surface was obtained by dewetting ultrathin metal copper films on a glass substrate.

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A research team has developed a fentanyl sensor that is six orders of magnitude more sensitive than any electrochemical sensor for the drug reported in the past five years. The portable sensor can also tell the difference between fentanyl and other opioids.

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New catalyst is made from an inexpensive, abundant metal and table sugar. Catalyst converts carbon dioxide (CO2) into carbon monoxide, a building block for producing a variety of useful chemicals including syngas. With recent advances in carbon capture technologies, post-combustion carbon capture is becoming a plausible option to help tackle the global climate change crisis. But how to handle the captured carbon remains an open-ended question. The new catalyst potentially could provide one solution for disposing the potent greenhouse gas by converting it into a more valuable product.

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A new documentary has recreated the face of a 75,000-year-old female Neanderthal whose flattened skull was discovered and rebuilt from hundreds of bone fragments by a team of archaeologists and conservators.

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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 new study.

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How did North America's saber-toothed cats hunt without breaking their unwieldy saber-like canines, which are vulnerable to sideways bending stresses? A paleontologist provides mechanical evidence that during adolescence, when young cats were learning to hunt, their baby teeth remained in place for up to 30 months to laterally buttress the emerging permanent sabers. By the time the baby teeth fell out, presumably the adult cat knew how to protect its sabers during attacks.

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Ultrafast laser spectroscopy allows the ascertainment of dynamics over extremely short time scales, making it a very useful tool in many scientific and industrial applications. A major disadvantage is the considerable measuring time this technique usually requires, which often leads to lengthy acquisition times spanning minutes to hours. Researchers have now developed a technique to speed up spectroscopic analysis.