Showing 20 articles starting at article 341

< Previous 20 articles        Next 20 articles >

Categories: Ecology: Animals, Physics: Optics

Return to the site home page

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Entropy, the amount of molecular disorder, is produced in several systems but cannot be measured directly. A new equation sheds new light on how entropy is produced on a very short time scale in laser excited materials.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

High-power lasers are often used to modify polymer surfaces to make high-tech biomedical products, electronics and data storage components. Now researchers have discovered a light-responsive, inexpensive sulfur-derived polymer is receptive to low power, visible light lasers -- promising a more affordable and safer production method in nanotech, chemical science and patterning surfaces in biological applications.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

An international team of 25 scientists has proposed a roadmap for how to prevent the next pandemic by conserving natural areas and promoting biodiversity, thereby providing animals with enough food, safe havens and distance to limit contact and the transfer of pathogens to humans.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Two red-tailed coral snakes have been observed competing over a caecilian in the first documented wild case of kleptoparasitism within the family Elapidae.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Researchers have successfully transformed CO2 into methanol by shining sunlight on single atoms of copper deposited on a light-activated material, a discovery that paves the way for creating new green fuels.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Pushing for a higher speed isn't just for athletes. Researchers, too, can achieve such feats with their discoveries. A new device called SCARF (for swept-coded aperture real-time femtophotography) can capture transient absorption in a semiconductor and ultrafast demagnetization of a metal alloy. This new method will help push forward the frontiers of knowledge in a wide range of fields, including modern physics, biology, chemistry, materials science, and engineering.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Thanks to diligent observers, seahorses, those enigmatic and charismatic fish, are not only being discovered in new habitats and expanded geographic ranges, they are also being found at new ocean depths. While their capacity for male pregnancy has long fascinated people, new information on sex ratio and pregnancy seasonality has been discovered.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Beautiful white wall paint does not stay beautiful and white forever. Often, various substances from the air accumulate on its surface. This can be a desired effect because it makes the air cleaner for a while -- but over time, the color changes and needs to be renewed. Now, special titanium oxide nanoparticles have been developed that can be added to ordinary, commercially available wall paint to establish self-cleaning power: The nanoparticles are photocatalytically active, they can use sunlight not only to bind substances from the air, but also to decompose them afterwards.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Humans pass on more viruses to domestic and wild animals than we catch from them, according to a major new analysis of viral genomes.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

A small-bird species, the Japanese tit (Parus minor), uses wing movements as a gesture to convey the message 'after you,' according to new research. When a mating pair arrives at their nest box with food, they will wait outside on perches. One will then often flutter its wings toward the other, apparently indicating for the latter to enter first. The researchers say that this discovery challenges the previous belief that gestural communication is prominent only in humans and great apes, significantly advancing our understanding of visual communication in birds.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Spiders that disguise themselves as ants live in many locations around the globe but until now most had been able to avoid detection from fossil researchers as well as predators.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

What maintains stability within an ecosystem and prevents a single best competitor from displacing other species from a community? Does ecosystem stability depend upon the presence of a wide variety of species, as early ecologists believed, or does diversity do the exact opposite, and lead to instability, as modern theory predicts? A new study suggests an answer to this question that has been a subject of debate among ecologists for half a century.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

The 2023 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was focused on quantum dots -- objects so tiny, they're controlled by the strange rules of quantum physics. Quantum dots used in electronics are often toxic, but their nontoxic counterparts are being explored for uses in medicine and in the environment, including water decontamination. One team of researchers has specially designed carbon- and sulfur-based dots for these environmental applications.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Researchers have incorporated a swept illumination source into an open-top light-sheet microscope to enable improved optical sectioning over a larger area of view. The advance makes the technique more practical for nondestructive 3D pathology.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Killer whales foraging in deep submarine canyons off the coast of California represent a distinct subpopulation that uses specialized hunting techniques to catch marine mammals, researchers report.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Lithium-ion rechargeable batteries are showing up in ever more devices, and the increasing use of this technology means more lithium is expected to find its way into the environment as a contaminant. In new research, a team has explored how this ion accumulates in a common Southern crustacean, the crawfish, with implications for the environment and public health.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Scientists unveil next-generation research trends in metaphotonics platforms with AI.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Scientists found that farmed salmon production leads to an overall loss of essential dietary nutrients. They say that eating more wild 'feed' species directly could benefit our health while reducing aquaculture demand for finite marine resources.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

At first glance, Rabih Al-Kaysi's molecular motors look like the microscopic worms you'd see in a drop of pond water. But these wriggling ribbons are not alive; they're made from crystallized molecules that perform coordinated movements when exposed to light. With continued development, these tiny machines could be used as drug-delivery robots or engineered into arrays that direct the flow of water around submarines.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Researchers have made very fast and very precise images of excitons -- in fact, accurate to one quadrillionth of a second and one billionth of a meter. This understanding is essential for developing more efficient materials with organic semiconductors.