New strategy enables co-production of hydrogen and fresh water from seawater
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Updates every hour. Last Updated: 20-Oct-2026 19:16 ET (20-Oct-2026 23:16 GMT/UTC)
Scientists recently discovered various Denisovan remains in Southwest China dating back to the late Middle Pleistocene, including the first Denisovan radius—one of two long bones in the forearm.
Spin-orbit coupling (SOC), an interaction between an electron’s spin and its motion, plays a key role in creating topological insulators—unusual materials that are insulating in their interior but can conduct electricity along their surfaces. Now, a new study published in Newton finds that increasing temperature weakens SOC in the topological insulator Bi2Se3, driving a transition to a normal insulating state. The findings suggest that temperature could serve as a new “knob” for controlling the topological properties of materials.
The universe has been having fewer and fewer stellar “babies.” Over the past 4.5 billion years, the rate of star birth has crashed to less than half of what it once was. But here’s the twist: the most essential “fuel” for making stars has barely decreased. This finding comes from an international team led by researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, in collaboration with the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument project. They used China’s Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope to make high-precision measurements of cosmic neutral atomic hydrogen over the past 4.5 billion years.