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Categories: Ecology: Trees, Engineering: Nanotechnology

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To obtain the biggest cherry harvest, trees should be pollinated by both honey bees and mason bees. This new study shows yet another benefit of biodiversity.

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By mining X-ray images, researchers have made significant new discoveries about the reactivity of lithium iron phosphate, a material used in batteries for electric cars and in other rechargeable batteries.

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Researchers have invented a nano-thin superbug-slaying material that could one day be integrated into wound dressings and implants to prevent or heal bacterial infections. The innovation -- which has undergone advanced pre-clinical trials -- is effective against a broad range of drug-resistant bacterial cells, including 'golden staph', which are commonly referred to as superbugs.

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New research shows that, in addition to trees, humble grasses also play an essential role in capturing carbon.

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As the climate and wildfire crises have intensified, so too have concerns regarding the loss of carbon captured and stored in forests from decades to centuries of tree growth. A new study describes where to optimize ongoing wildfire mitigation efforts and reduce carbon loss due to wildfire, benefitting communities and climate at the same time. The study evaluated where living trees and the carbon they store are at risk of burning in the future. They then compared these areas to communities that are vulnerable to wildfire as identified in the Forest Service's Wildfire Crisis Strategy. Areas of overlap highlight 'opportunity hot spots' where action can reduce the risk from wildfire to both carbon and communities.

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Researchers report that the flexible shoulders and elbows that allow us to throw a football or reach a high shelf may have evolved as a natural braking system that let our primate ancestors get out of trees without dying. The researchers used sports-analysis software to compare the climbing movements of chimpanzees and small monkeys called mangabeys. While the animals climb up trees similarly, the researchers found that the shallow, rounded shoulder joints and shortened elbow bones that chimps have -- similar to humans -- allow them to fully extend their arms above their heads when climbing down, holding onto branches like a person going down a ladder to support their greater weight. When early humans left forests for the grassy savanna, these versatile appendages would have been essential for gathering food and using tools for hunting and defense. The findings are among the first to identify the significance of 'downclimbing' in the evolution of apes and early humans.

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Researchers have pushed the limits of the possible in the field of atomic-scale spin-optics, creating a spin-optical laser from monolayer-integrated spin-valley microcavities without requiring magnetic fields or cryogenic temperatures.

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By adding a naturally-occurring polymer that makes wood more porous, scientists have engineered trees easier to disassemble into simpler building blocks.

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Scientists demonstrated a conceptual breakthrough by fabricating atomically precise quantum antidots using self-assembled single vacancies in a two-dimensional transition metal dichalcogenide.

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Tropical forests in South America lose their ability to absorb carbon from the atmosphere when conditions become exceptionally hot and dry, according to new research. For a long time, tropical forests have acted as a carbon sink, taking more carbon out of the air than they release into it, a process that has moderated the impact of climate change. But new research found that in 2015 -- 2016, when an El Niño climate event resulted in drought and the hottest temperatures ever recorded, South American forests were unable to function as a carbon sink.

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In 2012, when the spotted lanternfly (Lycorma delicatula) arrived in the U.S. from its home in China, scientists, land managers, and growers were understandably concerned that the sap-feeding insect would damage native and commercial trees. New long-term research has discovered that hardwood trees, such as maple, willow and birch, may be less vulnerable than initially thought.

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Researchers have revealed an innovative approach to track individual molecule dynamics within nanofluidic structures, illuminating their response to molecules in ways never before possible.

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Optical-resolution photoacoustic microscopy is an up-and-coming biomedical imaging technique for studying a broad range of diseases, such as cancer, diabetes and stroke. But its insufficient sensitivity has been a longstanding obstacle for its wider application. Recently, a research team developed a multi-spectral, super-low-dose photoacoustic microscopy system with a significant improvement in the system sensitivity limit, enabling new biomedical applications and clinical translation in the future.

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New work could help forest managers predict which forests are most at risk from drought and which will survive.

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A new article found that overhunting of gorillas, elephants, and other large fruit-eating seed-dispersers make tropical forests less able to store or sequester carbon.

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A study on 'canopy soils' on old trees in Costa Rica shows they are important habitats and carbon stores that cannot easily be replaced.

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A new approach to quantum light emitters generates a stream of circularly polarized single photons, or particles of light, that may be useful for a range of quantum information and communication applications. A team stacked two different, atomically thin materials to realize this chiral quantum light source.

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Scientists have developed a flexible battery as thin as a human cornea, which stores electricity when it is immersed in saline solution, and which could one day power smart contact lenses.

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In the form of DNA, nature shows how data can be stored in a space-saving and long-term manner. Bioinformatics specialists are developing DNA chips for computer technology. Researchers show how a combination of molecular biology, nanotechnology, novel polymers, electronics and automation, coupled with systematic development, could make DNA data storage useful for everyday use possible in a few years.

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A new study of cavity-nesting birds in Ecuador shows the influence of deforestation on their habitat and reproductive success. Nest boxes could help.