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Categories: Paleontology: General, Physics: Optics

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Geologists have reconstructed a massive and previously unknown tectonic plate that was once one-quarter the size of the Pacific Ocean. The team had predicted its existence over 10 years ago based on fragments of old tectonic plates found deep in the Earth’s mantle. To the lead researchers surprise, she found that oceanic remnants on northern Borneo must have belonged to the long-suspected plate, which scientists have named Pontus. She has now reconstructed the entire plate in its full glory.

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Palaeontologists discover molecular evidence of phaeomelanin, the pigment that produces ginger coloration. Phaeomelanin is now toxic to animals – this discovery may be first step in understand its evolution. 

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New research reaffirms that human footprints found in White Sands National Park, NM, date to the Last Glacial Maximum, placing humans in North America thousands of years earlier than once thought.  In September 2021, scientists announced that ancient human footprints discovered in White Sands National Park were between 21,000 and 23,000 years old. This discovery pushed the known date of human presence in North America back by thousands of years and implied that early inhabitants and megafauna co-existed for several millennia before the terminal Pleistocene extinction event. In a follow-up study, researchers used two new independent approaches to date the footprints, both of which resulted in the same age range as the original estimate. 

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Settling a half century of debate, researchers have discovered that tiny linear defects can propagate through a material faster than sound waves do. These linear defects, or dislocations, are what give metals their strength and workability, but they can also make materials fail catastrophically ­– which is what happens every time you pop the pull tab on a can of soda. The fact that they can travel so fast gives scientists a new appreciation of the unusual types of damage they might do to a broad range of materials in extreme conditions.

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Physicists have experimentally detected how so-called Hubbard excitons form in real-time. 

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For decades, scientists have assumed that mammals and their relatives that survived challenging times (like those during mass extinctions) made it because they were generalists that were able to eat just about anything and adapt to whatever life threw at them. A new study into the mammal family tree through multiple mass extinctions revealed that the species that survived aren't as generic as scientists had thought: instead, having new and different traits can be the key to succeeding in the aftermath of a catastrophe.

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Fossil researchers have discovered a novel genus and species of tiny wasp with a mysterious, bulbous structure at the end of each antenna.

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Whether you’re battling foes in a virtual arena or collaborating with colleagues across the globe, lag-induced disruptions can be a major hindrance to seamless communication and immersive experiences. That’s why researchers have developed new technology to make data transfer over optical fiber communication faster and more efficient.

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Using a novel method, beams of laser light can be deflected using air alone. An invisible grating made only of air is not only immune to damage from the laser light, but it also preserves the original quality of the beam.

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A team explores relationship between warming post-Ice Age temperatures and intensifying summer monsoon rains on groundwater reserves.

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Researchers have succeeded in printing uniformly sized droplets with a diameter of approximately 100 µm using a liquid film of fluorescent ink. This ink, with a viscosity roughly 100 times that of water, was irradiated with an optical vortex, resulting in prints of exceptional positional accuracy at the micrometer scale.

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The behavior of electrons in liquids is crucial to understanding many chemical processes that occur in our world. Using advanced lasers that operate at the attosecond, a team of international researchers has revealed further insights into how electrons behave in liquids.

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Recent study sheds new light on the enigmatic early evolution of snakes by examining an unexpected source: their brains. The results emphasize the significance of studying both the soft parts of animals’ bodies and their bones for understanding how animals evolved.

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Researchers have developed plasmonic plastic -- a type of composite material with unique optical properties that can be 3D-printed. This research has now resulted in 3D-printed optical hydrogen sensors that could play an important role in the transition to green energy and industry.

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Paleontologists discover possible DNA remains in fossil turtle that lived 6 million years ago in Panama, where continents collide.

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Researchers tried a new approach to resolve the scientific debate over whether it was a giant asteroid or volcanoes that wiped out the dinosaurs -- they removed scientists from the debate and let the computers decide. The researchers created a model powered by 130 interconnected processors that, without human input, reverse-engineered the Cretaceous-Paleogene mass extinction until they reached a scenario that matched the fossil record. The model determined that while a meteorite contributed to the cataclysm, the outpouring of climate-altering gases from the nearly 1-million-year eruptions of volcanoes in western India's Deccan Traps would have been sufficient to trigger the extinction and clear the way for the ascendance of mammals.

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The supermassive black hole at the heart of galaxy M87, made famous by the first picture of a black hole shadow, has yielded another first: the jet shooting out from the black hole has been confirmed to wobble, providing direct proof that the black hole is spinning.

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An international research team has taken a decisive step toward a new generation of atomic clocks. The researchers have created a much more precise pulse generator based on the element scandium, which enables an accuracy of one second in 300 billion years -- that is about a thousand times more precise than the current standard atomic clock based on caesium.

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Scientists show that it is possible to make a femtosecond laser that fits in the palm of one's hand using a glass substrate.

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The sun sends enormous amounts of energy to the earth. Nevertheless, some of it is lost in solar cells. This is an obstacle in the use of organic solar cells, especially for those viable in innovative applications. A key factor in increasing their performance: Improved transport of the solar energy stored within the material. Now a research group has shown that certain organic dyes can help build virtual highways for the energy.