Showing 20 articles starting at article 481

< Previous 20 articles        Next 20 articles >

Categories: Geoscience: Geochemistry

Return to the site home page

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

By tightly regulating nitrogen uptake, microorganisms avoid overeating nitrogen and thus wasting energy. Scientists now reveal how some methanogenic archaea manage to do so.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

New research could lead to major improvements in marine oil spill cleanup processes. The innovative study assessed the impact of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill on microscopic seawater bacteria that perform a significant role in ecosystem functioning.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

A research team has developed a novel catalyst for the high-efficiency and stable production of high-purity green hydrogen.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

A new way to measure the ocean oxygen level and its connections with carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere during the last ice age could help explain the role oceans played in past glacial melting cycles and improve predictions of how ocean carbon cycles will respond to global warming.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

In the switch to 'greener' energy sources, the demand for rechargeable lithium-ion batteries is surging. However, their cathodes typically contain cobalt -- a metal whose extraction has high environmental and societal costs. Now, researchers in report evaluating an earth-abundant, carbon-based cathode material that could replace cobalt and other scarce and toxic metals without sacrificing lithium-ion battery performance.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Researchers have developed a material to remove urea from water and potentially convert it into hydrogen gas. By building these materials of nickel and cobalt atoms with carefully tailored electronic structures, the group has unlocked the potential to enable these transition metal oxides and hydroxides to selectively oxidize urea in an electrochemical reaction. The team's findings could help use urea in waste streams to efficiently produce hydrogen fuel through the electrolysis process, and could be used to sequester urea from water, maintaining the long-term sustainability of ecological systems, and revolutionizing the water-energy nexus.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

A new battery material could offer a more sustainable way to power electric cars. The lithium-ion battery includes a cathode based on organic materials, instead of cobalt or nickel.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Researchers found that wolf spiders can't signal others or perceive danger from predators as easily on rain-soaked leaves compared to dry ones. Even communicating with would-be mates is harder after it rains.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Researchers have created a new way to detect 'forever chemical' pollution in water, via a luminescent sensor.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Our latest study shows there are racial/ethnic and socioeconomic disparities in air pollution emissions reductions, particularly in the industry and energy generation sectors. The findings provide a national investigation of air pollution emission changes in the 40 years following the enactment of the Clean Air Act (CAA). Until now, studies have primarily focused on evaluating air pollution disparities at a single time point, focusing on pollutant concentrations instead of emissions. A focus on emissions, however, has more direct implications for regulations and policies. In this study, the researchers used county-level data to evaluate racial/ethnic and socioeconomic disparities in air pollution emissions changes in the contiguous U.S. from 1970 to 2010.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

New insights from artificial intelligence about permafrost coverage in the Arctic may soon give policy makers and land managers the high-resolution view they need to predict climate-change-driven threats to infrastructure such as oil pipelines, roads and national security facilities.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Fake plants are moving into the 21st century! Researchers developed literal 'power plants' -- tiny, leaf-shaped generators that create electricity from a blowing breeze or falling raindrops. The team tested the energy harvesters by incorporating them into artificial plants.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

A new study finds that, contrary to previous beliefs, large amounts of aerosol particles can form over vast areas of the West Siberian taiga in the spring. When temperatures rise, this can have a significant impact on the climate.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Researchers use light-reactive molecules to influence the acidity of a liquid and thereby capture of carbon dioxide. They have developed a special mixture of different solvents to ensure that the light-reactive molecules remain stable over a long period of time. Conventional carbon capture technologies are driven by temperature or pressure differences and require a lot of energy. This is no longer necessary with the new light-based process.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

A research team investigated how the emergence of the first living systems from inert geological materials happened on the Earth, more than 3.5 billion years ago. Scientists found that by mixing hydrogen, bicarbonate, and iron-rich magnetite under conditions mimicking relatively mild hydrothermal vent results in the formation of a spectrum of organic molecules, most notably including fatty acids stretching up to 18 carbon atoms in length.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

An insight into preventing perovskite semiconductors from degrading quickly could help enable solar cells estimated to be two to four times cheaper than today's thin-film solar panels.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Scientists have developed a way to convert carbon dioxide (CO2), a potent greenhouse gas, into carbon nanofibers, materials with a wide range of unique properties and many potential long-term uses. Their strategy uses tandem electrochemical and thermochemical reactions run at relatively low temperatures and ambient pressure and could successfully lock carbon away to offset or even achieve negative carbon emissions.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Water samples from 20 sites were tested using a panel of immortalized human cell lines corresponding to the liver, kidney and brain to measure cytotoxicity. Results show that each control toxin induced a consistent pattern of cytotoxicity in the panel of human cell lines assayed. Known toxins were seen only during blooms. Because cell toxicity was seen in the absence of blooms, it suggests that there might be either emergent toxins or a combination of toxins present at those times. Findings suggest that other toxins with the potential to be harmful to human health may be present in the lagoon.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Record heat across the world profoundly impacted the global water cycle in 2023, contributing to severe storms, floods, megadroughts and bushfires, new research shows.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

The widely used dry-cleaning and degreasing solvent perc can be converted to useful chemicals by a new clean, safe and inexpensive procedure. The discovery using on-demand UV activation may open the path to upcycling perc and thus contribute to a more sustainable society.