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Categories: Biology: Botany, Chemistry: General

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The soils of northern forests are key reservoirs that help keep the carbon dioxide that trees inhale and use for photosynthesis from making it back into the atmosphere.

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A new study has used a series of innovative field experiments to show how plants combine circadian clock signals with environmental cues under naturally fluctuating conditions.

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New research using neural networks, a form of brain-inspired AI, proposes a solution to the tough challenge of modelling the states of molecules.

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Scientists have engineered a highly selective catalyst that can convert methane, a major component of natural gas, into methanol, an easily transportable liquid fuel, in a single, one-step reaction. This direct process for methane-to-methanol conversion runs at a temperature lower than required to make tea and exclusively produces methanol without additional byproducts.

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Who are we? Why are we here? We are stardust, the result of chemistry occurring throughout vast clouds of interstellar gas and dust. To better understand how that chemistry could create prebiotic molecules, researchers investigated the role of low-energy electrons created as cosmic radiation traverses through ice particles. Their findings may also inform medical and environmental applications on our home planet.

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Honey bees may play a role in increasing virus levels in wild bumble bees each spring, according to researchers who analyzed seasonal trends of parasite and virus transmission in bees.

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Tortilla chips and fresh salsa are tasty, but they could be even more appealing if you grow the ingredients yourself. Now, researchers report that some salsa ingredients -- cilantro, bell pepper and jalapeno -- can be more sustainably cultivated with recycled glass. Their pilot study found that partially substituting soil in a planter with recycled glass fragments speeds up plant development and reduces unwanted fungal growth.

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The distribution of outermost shell electrons, known as valence electrons, of organic molecules was observed for the first time. As the interactions between atoms are governed by the valence electrons, the findings shine light on the fundamental nature of chemical bonds, with implications for pharmacy and chemical engineering.

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Researchers have succeeded in forming metal-organic framework thin films on a substrate while controlling the growth direction of crystals so that they are arranged neatly without gaps. The resulting thin films of unprecedented high quality can be expected for use as optical sensors, optical elements, and transparent gas adsorption sheets.

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Epigenetics confers a survival advantage in plants to endure harsh weather by inducing bud dormancy. Environmental factors or intrinsic signals trigger the transition between growth and dormancy. Researchers explore the role of chromatin and transcriptional changes in the bud and further analyze data using artificial intelligence models. The findings of this study highlight epigenetic strategies to overcome the effects of short winters during global warming for plant survival.

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A team of scientists was recently able to observe how promethium forms chemical bonds when placed in an aqueous solution.

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Bioengineers around the world have been working to create plastic-producing microbes that could replace the petroleum-based plastics industry. Now, researchers have overcome a major hurdle: getting bacteria to produce polymers that contain ring-like structures, which make the plastics more rigid and thermally stable. Because these molecules are usually toxic to microorganisms, the researchers had to construct a novel metabolic pathway that would enable the E. coli bacteria to both produce and tolerate the accumulation of the polymer and the building blocks it is composed of. The resulting polymer is biodegradable and has physical properties that could lend it to biomedical applications such as drug delivery, though more research is needed.

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Researchers have developed molecular wires with periodic twists. By controlling the lengths of regions between twists, the electrical conductivity of individual polymer chains can be enhanced. This work may lead to novel organic electronics or single-molecule wires.

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Machine learning models have become increasingly popular for risk assessment of chemical compounds. However, they are often considered 'black boxes' due to their lack of transparency. To increase confidence in these models, researchers proposed carefully identifying the areas of chemical space where these models are weak. They developed an innovative software tool for this purpose, and the results of this research approach have just been published.

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Researchers develop a one pot process to transform aromatic ketones to esters, offering advancements in pharmaceutical synthesis and materials science.

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Engineering researchers have successfully developed a quantum microprocessor chip for molecular spectroscopy simulation of actual large-structured and complex molecules.

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Researchers have identified the genetic changes linked to why plants go through a developmental change similar to 'puberty' at different rates, a discovery which could lead to better crop nutrition.

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Scientists have developed a model capable of predicting the cycle lives of high-energy-density lithium-metal batteries by applying machine learning methods to battery performance data. The model proved able to accurately estimate batteries' longevity by analyzing their charge, discharge and voltage relaxation process data without relying on any assumption about specific battery degradation mechanisms. The technique is expected to be useful in improving the safety and reliability of devices powered by lithium-metal batteries.

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Some of the attractive hues of brightly colored, cloth-bound books from the Victorian era come from dyes that could pose a health risk to readers, collectors or librarians. The latest research on these 'poison books' used three techniques -- including one that hasn't previously been applied to books -- to assess dangerous dyes in a university collection and found some volumes had levels that might be unsafe.

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When a global pandemic forced previous a graduate student out of the lab and onto the computer, he found a world of difference hidden in the long-studied species of Botryoccocus braunii -- and discovered that it isn't one species at all, but three.