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Categories: Anthropology: General, Chemistry: General

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An international study has documented post-mortem bone modifications not linked to consumption.

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Researchers created nanoribbons made of phosphorus and tiny amounts of arsenic, which they found were able to conduct electricity at temperatures above -140 degrees Celsius, while retaining the highly useful properties of the phosphorus-only ribbons.

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Researchers have developed a method of 'wiring up' graphene nanoribbons (GNRs), a class of one-dimensional materials that are of interest in the scaling of microelectronic devices. Using a direct-write scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) based process, the nanometer-scale metal contacts were fabricated on individual GNRs and could control the electronic character of the GNRs. The researchers say that this is the first demonstration of making metal contacts to specific GNRs with certainty and that those contacts induce device functionality needed for transistor function.

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A new study suggests patches of fertile soil in the Amazon, known as dark earth, were intentionally produced by ancient Amazonians as a way to improve the soil and sustain large and complex societies.

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Half a million years ago, earlier than was previously thought possible, humans were building structures made of wood, according to new research.

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A groundbreaking study is reshaping our understanding of crocodile evolution by pinpointing the onset of slow growth rates to the Late Triassic period, much earlier than the previously assumed Early Jurassic timeline. The research highlights newly discovered fossil crocodile ancestors (known as crocodylomorphs) that exhibited slow growth rates, similar to modern-day crocodilians. Intriguingly, these early crocodylomorphs were not the lethargic, semi-aquatic creatures we are familiar with today; they were small, active, and fully terrestrial. The study also suggests that this slow-growth strategy was not a mere evolutionary quirk but a survival mechanism, as only the slow-growing crocodylomorphs managed to survive the End-Triassic mass extinction. This stands in stark contrast to the fast-growing dinosaurs of the same era, setting the stage for the divergent evolutionary paths that would later define their modern descendants.

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A research team has achieved a significant breakthrough in the development of a hybrid silicon photocatalyst.

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X-rays of an ancient jawless fish shows earliest-known example of internal cartilage skull, unlike that of any other known vertebrate.

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A team has used neutron crystallography to image all of the atoms in a radical intermediate of a copper amine oxidase enzyme. They disclosed previously unknown details, such as precise conformational changes, that help to explain the enzyme's biochemistry. This work might help researchers engineer enzymes that facilitate unusual chemistry or are highly efficient at room temperature that are useful in chemical industry.

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Using engineered microbes as microscopic factories has given the world steady sources of life-saving drugs, revolutionized the food industry, and allowed us to make sustainable versions of valuable chemicals previously made from petroleum. But behind each biomanufactured product on the market today is the investment of years of work and many millions of dollars in research and development funding. Scientists want to help the burgeoning industry reach new heights by accelerating and streamlining the process of engineering microbes to produce important compounds with commercial-ready efficiency.

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Life on a faraway planet -- if it's out there -- might not look anything like life on Earth. But there are only so many chemical ingredients in the universe's pantry, and only so many ways to mix them. Scientists have now exploited those limitations to write a cookbook of hundreds of chemical recipes with the potential to give rise to life. Their ingredient list could focus the search for life elsewhere in the universe by pointing out the most likely conditions -- planetary versions of mixing techniques, oven temperatures and baking times -- for the recipes to come together.

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In the incredibly small world of molecules, the elementary building blocks -- the atoms -- join together in a very regular pattern. In contrast, in the macroscopic world with its larger particles, there is much greater disorder when particles connect. A research team has now succeeded in achieving the same precise arrangement of atoms shown in molecules, but using nanometer-sized particles, known as 'plasmonic molecules' -- combinations of nanoscale metallic structures that have unique properties.

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Researchers combined soft microactuators with high-energy-density chemical fuel to create an insect-scale quadrupedal robot that is powered by combustion and can outrace, outlift, outflex and outleap its electric-driven competitors.

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Storing renewable energy as hydrogen could soon become much easier thanks to a new catalyst based on single atoms of platinum.

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Researchers have grown a high-performing 2D semiconductor to a full-size, industrial-scale wafer. In addition, the semiconductor material, indium selenide (InSe), can be deposited at temperatures low enough to integrate with a silicon chip.

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Researchers have developed a way of detecting the early onset of deadly infectious diseases using a test so ultrasensitive that it could someday revolutionize medical approaches to epidemics. The test is an electronic sensor contained within a computer chip. It employs nanoballs -- microscopic spherical clumps made of tinier particles of genetic material -- and combines that technology with advanced electronics.

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A new study sheds new light on the origins of modern brain cells. Researchers find evidence that specialized secretory cells found in placozoans, tiny sea creatures the size of a grain of sand, have many similarities to the neuron, such as the genes required to create a partial synapse. From an evolutionary point of view, early neurons might have started as something like these cells, eventually gaining the ability to create a complete synapse, form axons and dendrites and create ion channels that generate fast electrical signals -- innovations which gave rise to the neuron in more complex animals such as jellyfish. Though the complete story of how the first neuron appeared remains to be told, the study demonstrates that the basic building blocks for our brain cells were forming in the ancestors of placozoans grazing inconspicuously in the shallow seas of Earth around 800 million years ago.

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Researchers studying diamond-rich rocks from Western Australia's Argyle volcano have identified the missing third key ingredient needed to bring valuable pink diamonds to the Earth's surface where they can be mined, which could greatly help in the global hunt for new deposits.

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Researchers discover how molecules in ancient glass rearrange and recombine with minerals over centuries to form a patina of photonic crystals -- ordered arrangements of atoms that filter and reflect light in very specific ways -- an analog of materials used in communications, lasers and solar cells.

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Lab-based studies reveal how carbon atoms diffuse on the surface of interstellar ice grains to form complex organic compounds, crucial to reveal the chemical complexity in the universe.