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Categories: Paleontology: Early Mammals and Birds, Physics: Optics

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A new system represents the first time that the capabilities of conventional beam-scanning lidar systems have been combined with those of a newer 3D approach known as flash lidar. The nonmechanical 3D lidar system is compact enough to fit in the palm of the hand and solves issues of detecting and tracking poorly reflective objects.

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Some defects can be good. A new study shows that laser-induced defects in lithium-ion battery materials improve the performance of the battery.

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Scientists have compared the relationship among the strength of flight bones, body mass, and the way modern birds fly to better understand the evolution of flight in birds and extinct animals, such as the Pteranodon.

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Research offers a new approach to studying complex light in complex systems, such as transporting classical and quantum light through optical fiber, underwater channels, living tissue and other highly aberrated systems.

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Access to clean water is being strained as the human population increases and contamination impacts freshwater sources. Devices currently in development that clean up dirty water using sunlight can only produce up to a few gallons of water each day. But now, researchers in ACS Central Science report how loofah sponges inspired a sunlight-powered porous hydrogel that could potentially purify enough water to satisfy someone's daily needs -- even when it's cloudy.

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Researchers have made a groundbreaking discovery in the field of thermal radiation, uncovering a new method for generating spinning thermal radiation in a controlled and efficient manner using artificially structured surfaces, known as metasurfaces.

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Trapped ions have previously only been entangled in one and the same laboratory. Now, teams have entangled two ions over a distance of 230 meters. The nodes of this network were housed in two labs at the Campus Technik to the west of Innsbruck, Austria. The experiment shows that trapped ions are a promising platform for future quantum networks that span cities and eventually continents.

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Researchers have theorized a new mechanism to generate high-energy 'quantum light', which could be used to investigate new properties of matter at the atomic scale.

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Energy-efficient ways of cooling buildings and vehicles will be required in a changing climate. Researchers have now shown that electrical tuning of passive radiative cooling can be used to control temperatures of a material at ambient temperatures and air pressure.

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New developments for achieving structural coloring through plasma irradiation of graphite can reduce the reliance upon harmful color dyes. Colors achieved by plasma irradiation are completely erasable and can be manipulated using time exposed to the plasma irradiation, intensity of the irradiation and the thickness of the graphite layer applied. The application of plasma-structural coloring aims to lessen the environmental toll typical adverse dyes have and combat them with the technology surrounding structural colors.

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Laser-driven 'mirrors' capable of reflecting or manipulating light have been produced.

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The discovery of more than 250 fossilized eggs reveals intimate details about the lives of titanosaurs in the Indian subcontinent, according to a new study.

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A study is providing a glimpse into dinosaur and bird diversity in Patagonia during the Late Cretaceous, just before the non-avian dinosaurs went extinct. The fossils represent the first record of theropods -- a dinosaur group that includes both modern birds and their closest non-avian dinosaur relatives -- from the Chilean portion of Patagonia. The researchers' finds include giant megaraptors with large sickle-like claws and birds similar to todays ducks and geese.

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Orangutans, mice, and horses are covered with it, but humans aren't. Why we have significantly less body hair than most other mammals has long remained a mystery. But a first-of-its-kind comparison of genetic codes from 62 animals is beginning to tell the story of how people -- and other mammals -- lost their locks.

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Microraptor was an opportunistic predator, feeding on fish, birds, lizards -- and now small mammals. The discovery of a rare fossil reveals the creature was a generalist carnivore in the ancient ecosystem of dinosaurs.

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Sediment cores obtained from Eifel maar sites provide insight into the presence of large Ice Age mammals in Central Europe over the past 60,000 years: Overkill hypothesis not confirmed. Herds of megafauna, such as mammoth and bison, have roamed the prehistoric plains in what is today's Central Europe for several tens of thousands of years. As woodland expanded at the end of the last Ice Age, the numbers of these animals declined and by roughly 11,000 years ago, they had completely vanished from this region. Thus, the growth of forests was the main factor that determined the extinction of such megafauna in Central Europe.

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While the Diprotodon -- the extinct megafauna species that is distantly related to wombats but was the size of a small car -- is commonly (but incorrectly) thought of as Australia's 'giant wombat', researchers have shed light on a large species that does belong in the modern-day wombat family. The complete skull of this true fossil giant wombat, found in a Rockhampton cave in Queensland, Australia and estimated to be around 80,000 years old, has been described for the first time.

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Researchers have tested the biting efficiency of Smilodon, an extinct species of carnivore close to the extant felines. Using high-precision 3D scans and simulation methods, the team has just revealed how these animals managed to bite despite the impressive length of their teeth.

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Dinosaurs dominated the world right up until a deadly asteroid hit the earth, leading to their mass extinction, some 66 million years ago, a landmark study reveals. Fresh insights into dinosaurs' ecosystems -- the habitats and food types that supported their lives -- suggests that their environments were robust and thriving, right up until that fateful day, at the end of the Cretaceous period.

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Fossilized fragments of a skeleton, hidden within a rock the size of a grapefruit, have helped upend one of the longest-standing assumptions about the origins of modern birds.