Donovan Gibson 
Researchers have found a way to super-charge the ‘engine’ of sustainable fuel generation — by giving the materials a little twist. The researchers, led by the University of Cambridge, are developing low-cost light-harvesting semiconductors that power devices for converting water into clean hydrogen fuel, using just the power of the sun. These semiconducting materials, known …
Metabolites of lipid and flavonoids and the transcriptome profile analysis. A Lipid composition and the parentheses refer to the number of this ingredient. B Lipid composition of seeds at four developmental stages. C LA content in each kind of lipid. D Flavonoid composition and related numbers. E Co-expression network analysis on all the transcriptome data …
While ESA’s satellite INTEGRAL was observing the sky, it spotted a burst of gamma-rays — high-energy photons — coming from the nearby galaxy M82. Only a few hours later, ESA’s XMM-Newton X-ray space telescope searched for an afterglow from the explosion but found none. An international team, including researchers from the University of Geneva (UNIGE), …
The column chart shows changes incharacteristic metabolites after BL/BRZ treatment. Credit: Horticulture Research (2024). DOI: 10.1093/hr/uhae056 Diosgenin, a secondary metabolite isolated from the Dioscorea spp. plant family, is an irreplaceable and ideal starting material for the synthesis of steroid hormone drugs. Dioscorea zingiberensis is the world’s most desirable and important plant source of steroid hormone …
Did you know that 99% of synthetic diamonds are currently produced using high-pressure and high-temperature (HPHT) methods?[2] A prevailing paradigm is that diamonds can only be grown using liquid metal catalysts in the gigapascal pressure range (typically 5-6 GPa, where 1 GPa is about 10,000 atm), and typically within the temperature range of 1300-1600 °C. …
Credit: CC0 Public Domain Nestlé has been criticized for adding sugar and honey to infant milk and cereal products sold in many poorer countries. The Swiss food giant controls 20% of the baby-food market, valued at nearly US$70 billion. Nadine Dreyer asked public health academic Susan Goldstein why extra sugar is particularly bad for babies …
The impact of human activities — such as greenhouse gas emissions and deforestation — on Earth’s surface have been well-studied. Now, hydrology researchers from the University of Arizona have investigated how humans impact Earth’s deep subsurface, a zone that lies hundreds of meters to several kilometers beneath the planet’s surface. “We looked at how the …
Plots of (the log of) water pollution abatement spending by steam electric power plants, against the democrat vote margin (1985–2015). Credit: Environmental and Resource Economics (2024). DOI: 10.1007/s10640-024-00859-w A new study led by the University of East Anglia (UEA) shows how firms in the United States behave differently depending on the political party in charge—even …
More than half a billion years ago, the deep, dark ocean was aglow with the eerie light of bioluminescent corals, new genetic and fossil analyses suggest. The findings push the origins of bioluminescence back by nearly 300 million years, researchers report April 24 in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B. “Our study presents the …
Estuaries — where freshwater rivers meet the salty sea — are great locations for birdwatching and kayaking. In these areas, waters containing different salt concentrations mix and may be sources of sustainable, “blue” osmotic energy. Researchers in ACS Energy Letters report creating a semipermeable membrane that harvests osmotic energy from salt gradients and converts it …