Earth

Belgian chocolate is a world-famous delight. But producing a divinely delicious bar of chocolate that has a beautiful gloss, makes that wonderful sound when you break it, melts in your mouth, and maintains all these qualities throughout its entire shelf life, is not easy. The crystallisation of the cocoa butter -- the fat in the chocolate -- plays an important role in that process.

The atomic nucleus is highly complex. This complexity partly stems from the nuclear interactions in atomic nuclei, which induce strong correlations between the elementary particles, or nucleons, that constitute the heart of the atom. The trouble is that understanding this complexity often requires a tremendous amount of computational power. In a new study published in EPJ A, Susanna Liebig from Forschungszentrum Jülich, Germany, and colleagues propose a new approach to nuclear structure calculations.

Ants comprise one lineage of the triumvirate of eusocial insects and experienced their early diversification within the Cretaceous. The success of ants is generally attributed to their remarkable social behavior. Recent studies suggest that the early branching lineages of extant ants formed small colonies of either subterranean or epigeic, solitary specialist predators.

Crystals are solid materials composed of microscopic building blocks arranged in highly ordered patterns. They have countless applications, ranging from metallurgy to jewellery to electronics. Many of the properties that make crystals useful depend on the detailed pattern of arrangement of their constituents, which, in turn, is highly sensitive to the details of the interaction between the building blocks.

Washington, D.C., May 31, 2016 -- If you've ever felt groggy the morning after traversing time zones, you can thank the temporary mismatch between your body's 24-hour circadian rhythm and your new local time. In mammals, this rhythm is governed on a neuronal and hormonal level by the suprachiasmatic nucleus, a tiny region of the brain's nestled directly above the two optic nerves. But it's not just a long flight that can throw us out of whack.

CORVALLIS, Ore. - The hydrothermal vents and methane seeps on the ocean floor that were once thought to be geologic and biological oddities are now emerging as a major force in ocean ecosystems, marine life and global climate.

However, even as researchers learn more about their role in sustaining a healthy Earth, these habitats are being threatened by a wide range of human activities, including deep-sea mining, bottom trawling and energy harvesting, scientists say in a report published in Frontiers in Marine Science.