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Categories: Ecology: Trees, Engineering: Graphene
Published Trees in areas prone to hurricanes have strong ability to survive even after severe damage
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source The island of Dominica took a direct hit from Category 5 Hurricane Maria. Nine months afterward, researchers found that while 89% percent of trees located in nine previously documented forest stands were damaged, but only 10 percent had immediately died. The most common damage was stem snapping and major branch damage. The damage with the highest rates of mortality were uprooting and being crushed by a neighboring tree. Large individual trees and species with lower wood density were susceptible to snapping, uprooting and mortality. Those on steeper slopes were more prone to being crushed by neighboring trees.
Published Fully recyclable printed electronics ditch toxic chemicals for water
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Engineers have produced fully recyclable printed electronics that replace the use of chemicals with water in the fabrication process. By bypassing the need for hazardous chemicals, the demonstration points down a path industry could follow to reduce its environmental footprint and human health risks.
Published US forests face an unclear future with climate change
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Climate change might compromise how permanently forests are able to store carbon and keep it out of the air. In a new study, researchers found that the regions most at risk to lose forest carbon through fire, climate stress or insect damage are those regions where many forest carbon offset projects have been set up. The authors assert that there's an urgent need to update these carbon offsets protocols and policies.
Published Discovery of ferroelectricity in an elementary substance
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Researchers have discovered a new single-element ferroelectric material that alters the current understanding of conventional ferroelectric materials and has future applications in data storage devices.
Published Gone for good? California's beetle-killed, carbon-storing pine forests may not come back
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Ponderosa pine forests in the Sierra Nevada that were wiped out by western pine beetles during the 2012-2015 megadrought won't recover to pre-drought densities, reducing an important storehouse for atmospheric carbon.
Published Insect decline also occurs in forests
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source The number of insects has been declining for years. This has already been well documented for agricultural areas. In forests, however, temporal trends are mostly studied for insect species that are considered pests. Now, a research team has studied the trends of very many insect species in German forests. Contrary to what the researchers had suspected, the results showed that the majority of the studied species are declining.
Published Researchers assemble pathogen 'tree of life'
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Researchers provide open-access tool to capture new data on a global plant destroyer, Phytophthora.
Published Strong ultralight material could aid energy storage, carbon capture
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Materials scientists showed that fine-tuning interlayer interactions in a class of 2D polymers can determine the materials' loss or retention of desirable mechanical properties in multilayer or bulk form.
Published Is it COVID-19 or the flu? New sensor could tell you in 10 seconds
(via sciencedaily.com) Have a cough, sore throat and congestion? Any number of respiratory viruses could be responsible. Today, scientists report using a single-atom-thick nanomaterial to build a device that can simultaneously detect the presence of the viruses that cause COVID-19 and the flu -- at much lower levels and much more quickly than conventional tests for either.
Published Nanophysics: The right twist
(via sciencedaily.com) Stacked layers of ultrathin semiconductor materials feature phenomena that can be exploited for novel applications. Physicists have studied effects that emerge by giving two layers a slight twist.
Published Graphene grows -- and we can see it
(via sciencedaily.com) Graphene is the strongest of all materials. On top of that, it is exceptionally good at conducting heat and electrical currents, making it one of the most special and versatile materials we know. For all these reasons, the discovery of graphene was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2010. Yet, many properties of the material and its cousins are still poorly understood -- for the simple reason that the atoms they are made up of are very difficult to observe.
Published Can insights from the soapbark tree change the way we make vaccines?
(via sciencedaily.com) The medicinal secrets of the Chilean soapbark tree have been laid bare, unlocking a future of more potent, affordable, and sustainably sought vaccines. Researchers have taken a major step forward in addressing this problem, by using a combination of genome mining and bioengineering techniques to produce saponin-based vaccine adjuvants in the laboratory without harvesting material directly from trees.
Published New simulation reveals secrets of exotic form of electrons called polarons
(via sciencedaily.com) Conditions mapped for the first time of polaron characteristics in 2D materials. TACC's Frontera supercomputer generated quantum mechanical calculations on hexagonal boron nitride system of 30,000 atoms.
Published Forest growing season in eastern U.S. has increased by a month
(via sciencedaily.com) The growing period of hardwood forests in eastern North America has increased by an average of one month over the past century as temperatures have steadily risen, a new study has found.
Published Douglas-fir in Klamath Mountains are in 'decline spiral'
(via sciencedaily.com) Increases in mortality among Douglas-fir in the Klamath Mountains are the result of multiple factors that have the iconic tree in a 'decline spiral' in parts of the region.
Published Mind-control robots a reality?
(via sciencedaily.com) Researchers have developed biosensor technology that will allow you to operate devices, such as robots and machines, solely through thought control.
Published Mountain forests are being lost at an accelerating rate, putting biodiversity at risk
(via sciencedaily.com) More than 85% of the world's bird, mammal, and amphibian species live in mountains, particularly in forest habitats, but researchers report that these forests are disappearing at an accelerating rate. Globally, we have lost 78.1 million hectares (7.1%) of mountain forest since 2000 -- an area larger than the size of Texas. Much of the loss occurred in tropical biodiversity hotspots, putting increasing pressure on threatened species.
Published Another crystalline layer on crystal surface as a precursor of crystal-to-crystal transition
(via sciencedaily.com) Ice surfaces have a thin layer of water below its melting temperature of 0 degrees Celsius. Such premelting phenomenon is important for skating and snowflake growth. Similarly, liquid often crystallizes into a thin layer of crystal on a flat substrate before reaching its freezing temperature, i.e. prefreezing. The thickness of the surface layer usually increases and diverges as approaching the phase transition (such as melting and freezing) temperature. Besides premelting and prefreezing, whether similar surface phenomenon exists as a precursor of a phase transition has rarely been explored. Scientists now propose that a polymorphic crystalline layer may form on a crystal surface before the crystal-crystal phase transition and names it pre-solid-solid transition.
Published Nano cut-and-sew: New method for chemically tailoring layered nanomaterials could open pathways to designing 2D materials on demand
(via sciencedaily.com) A new process that lets scientists chemically cut apart and stitch together nanoscopic layers of two-dimensional materials -- like a tailor altering a suit -- could be just the tool for designing the technology of a sustainable energy future. Researchers have developed a method for structurally splitting, editing and reconstituting layered materials, called MAX phases and MXenes, with the potential of producing new materials with very unusual compositions and exceptional properties.
Published 3D internal structure of rechargeable batteries revealed
(via sciencedaily.com) Researchers have pioneered a technique to observe the 3D internal structure of rechargeable batteries. This opens up a wide range of areas for the new technique from energy storage and chemical engineering to biomedical applications.