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Categories: Chemistry: Inorganic Chemistry, Ecology: Nature

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Invasive alien species are animals that may pose a threat to biodiversity, but it's time to deal with that threat in a more ethical way.

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In just 26 years, the distribution of rare butterflies has plummeted by 72% in Eastern Denmark. Several species are threatened with extinction, yet the conservation actions aiming to safeguard species have proved unsuccessful.

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A new study has uncovered intriguing insights into the evolution of plant biology, effectively rewriting the history of how they evolved over the past billion years.

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Beyond-silicon technology demands ultra-high-performance field-effect transistors (FETs). Transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) provide an ideal material platform, but the device performances such as contact resistance, on/off ratio, and mobility are often limited by the presence of interfacial residues caused by transfer procedures. We show an ideal residue-free transfer approach using polypropylene carbonate (PPC) with a negligible residue for monolayer MoS2. By incorporating bismuth semimetal contact with atomically clean monolayer MoS2-FET on h-BN substrate, we obtain an ultralow Ohmic contact resistance approaching the quantum limit and a record-high on/off ratio of ~1011 at 15 K. Such an ultraclean fabrication approach could be the ideal platform for high-performance electrical devices using large-area semiconducting TMDs.

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Elephants, buffaloes and other heavy herbivores are effective against invasive plants. This is the conclusion of a new study that used Indian data, including data from the world's largest survey of wildlife based on camera traps. But smaller animals can do the same: you don't need elephants to get the same effect, the researchers point out.

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Diversified farming is an important complement to forest protections for reversing tropical biodiversity declines.

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More than 100 years of observations in nature have revealed a universal pattern of species abundances: Most species are rare but not very rare, and only a few species are very common. These so-called global species abundance distributions have become fully unveiled for some well-monitored species groups, such as birds. For other species groups, such as insects, however, the veil remains partially unlifted. A new study demonstrates how important biodiversity monitoring is for detecting species abundances on planet Earth and for understanding how they change.

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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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Digital information exchange can be safer, cheaper and more environmentally friendly with the help of a new type of random number generator for encryption. The researchers behind the study believe that the new technology paves the way for a new type of quantum communication.

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Flowering for some plants is a yearly occurrence, for others, it is a once-in-a-lifetime event. A widespread species of bamboo in Japan, Phyllostachys nigra var. henonis, takes this one-time flowering event and pushes it to the extreme: they flower once every 120 years before dying to make way for the next generation. Researchers have realized there might be another issue at hand with this monocarpic species, which is the lack of germination of the seeds from a majority of the flowering specimens. Implications of a once dense field of bamboo, something that serves both as a food source and a source of material for crafts, turning to grassland for several years until the regeneration of bamboo begins to start somehow, can impact the ecology of the area in addition to the country's economy.

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Hydrogen spillover is exactly what it sounds like. Small metal nanoparticles anchored on a thermally stable oxide, like silica, comprise a major class of catalysts, which are substances used to accelerate chemical reactions without being consumed themselves. The catalytic reaction usually occurs on the reactive -- and expensive -- metal, but on some catalysts, hydrogen atom-like equivalents literally spill from the metal to the oxide. These hydrogen-on-oxide species are called 'hydrogen spillover.'

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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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A main crux of neuroscience is learning how our senses translate light into sight, sound into hearing, food into taste, and texture into touch. Smell is where these sensory relationships get more complex and perplexing. To address this question, a research team are investigating how airborne chemicals connect to odor perception in the brain. They discovered that a machine-learning model has achieved human-level proficiency at describing, in words, what chemicals smell like.

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By controlling the arrangement of multiple inorganic and organic layers within crystals using a novel technique, researchers have shown they can control the energy levels of electrons and holes (positive charge carriers) within a class of materials called perovskites. This tuning influences the materials' optoelectronic properties and their ability to emit light of specific energies, demonstrated by their ability to function as a source of lasers.

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A team of researchers addressed the question: what happens to a Ga-promoted Cu surface under reaction conditions required for the synthesis of methanol? They found complex structural transformations of this bimetallic catalyst that might change the common view on the catalytically active surface structure.

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At a time of unparalleled rates of biodiversity loss, a new interconnected system to monitor biodiversity around the world is needed to guide action quickly enough to target conservation efforts to where they are most needed.

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Plant species from certain geographic regions are more successful in spreading outside their native ranges than others -- but why? Ecologists provide answers by exploring how the ecological and evolutionary histories of plants can influence their relationships with humans and their success as invaders.

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New research found that marine heat waves -- prolonged periods of unusually warm ocean temperatures -- haven't had a lasting effect on the fish communities that feed most of the world. The finding is in stark contrast to the devastating effects seen on other marine ecosystems cataloged by scientists after similar periods of warming, including widespread coral bleaching and harmful algal blooms.

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Researchers have been able to substantially improve photoclick chemistry. They were able to boost the reactivity of the photoclick compound in the popular PQ-ERA reaction through strategic molecular substitution. They now report a superb photoreaction quantum yield, high reaction rates and notable oxygen tolerance.

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Researchers generated large scale gene expression data to investigate the molecular networks that operate in one of the closest algal relatives of land plants, a humble single-celled alga called Mesotaenium endlicherianum.