Earth

Despite their nonchalant appearance, chameleons are formidable predators, capturing their prey by whipping out their tongues with incredible precision. They can even capture preys weighing up to 30% of their own weight. In collaboration with the Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle de Paris, researchers from the Université de Mons (UMONS) and the Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB) have studied this amazing sticky weapon.

Physicists from the Technological Institute for Superhard and Novel Carbon Materials, the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, and the Siberian Federal University have mathematically modelled diamond-based microstructures for producing compact high sensitivity sensors.

An array of GPS instruments near the San Andreas Fault System in Southern California detects constant motion of Earth's crust--sometimes large, sudden motion during an earthquake and often subtle, creeping motion. By carefully analyzing the data recorded by the EarthScope Plate Boundary Observatory's GPS array researchers from the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa (UHM), University of Washington and Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO) discovered nearly 125 mile-wide "lobes" of uplift and subsidence--a few millimeters of motion each year--straddling the fault system.

A new NOAA outlook shows that many coral reefs across around the world will likely be exposed to higher-than-normal sea temperatures for an unprecedented third year in a row, leading to increased bleaching - and with no signs of stopping.

Death is only one possible outcome from coral bleaching caused by rising sea temperatures due to global warming. Australian scientists report that many surviving corals affected by mass bleaching from high sea temperatures on the northern Great Barrier Reef are the sickest they have ever seen.

Exercise may have some surprising benefits for seniors who experience rapid muscle loss and muscle injury and loss as they age. Researchers at McMaster University have found that physical activity can help retain, even repair and regenerate damaged muscle in the elderly.

The findings challenge what is generally seen as an inevitable fact of life: that muscle atrophy and damage cannot be completely repaired in old age and in some cases lost altogether.

When physicists Georg Bednorz and K. Alex Muller discovered the first high-temperature superconductors in 1986, it didn't take much imagination to envision the potential technological benefits of harnessing such materials.

Using numerical modelling, researchers from Russia, the US, and China have discovered previously unknown features of rutile TiO2, which is a promising photocatalyst. The calculations were performed at an MIPT laboratory on the supercomputer Rurik. The paper detailing the results has been published in the journal Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics.

It's all on the surface

New research from Rice University theorizes that "anti-evolution" education legislation continues to be introduced because lawmakers want to appease religious constituents, not because they expect the bills to be made into laws.

OAK RIDGE, Tenn., June 20, 2016--Scientists can now detect magnetic behavior at the atomic level with a new electron microscopy technique developed by a team from the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Uppsala University, Sweden. The researchers took a counterintuitive approach by taking advantage of optical distortions that they typically try to eliminate.

While the effect of radiosensitizing molecules in radiation-based cancer therapies has been known for a long time, the exact molecular mechanisms behind it - the capacity of the radiosensitizer to locally augment the radiation damage to tumor cells by intratumoral administration of the agent - are yet to be deciphered.

Mothers will do anything to protect their children, but mongooses go a step further.

Mongooses risk their own survival to protect their unborn children through a remarkable ability to adapt their own bodies, says new research published in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution.

Pregnancy can takes a physical toll that, according to some theories, may increase the mother's levels of toxic metabolites that cause oxidative damage.

UPTON, NY--Chemically the same, graphite and diamonds are as physically distinct as two minerals can be, one opaque and soft, the other translucent and hard. What makes them unique is their differing arrangement of carbon atoms.

Polymorphs, or materials with the same composition but different structures, are common in bulk materials, and now a new study in Nature Communications confirms they exist in nanomaterials, too. Researchers describe two unique structures for the iconic gold nanocluster Au144(SR)60, better known as Gold-144, including a version never seen before.

Chapman University Institute for Quantum Studies (IQS) member Yutaka Shikano, Ph.D., recently had research published in Scientific Reports. Superconductors are one of the most remarkable phenomena in physics, with amazing technological implications. Some of the technologies that would not be possible without superconductivity are extremely powerful magnets that levitate trains and MRI machines used to image the human body. The reason that superconductivity arises is now understood as a fundamentally quantum mechanical effect.

WASHINGTON, D.C., June 14, 2016 - The removal of water from dense suspensions is a longstanding and perplexing industrial challenge -- one that's particularly important when it comes to papermaking and wastewater treatment.

But now, the work of a group of researchers from the University of British Columbia and the University of Cambridge is providing insight into both process and product development for natural fiber suspensions.