Researchers at the University of Houston’s Texas Center for Superconductivity have achieved another first in their quest toward ambient-pressure high-temperature superconductivity, bringing us one step closer to finding superconductors that work in everyday conditions – and potentially unlocking a new era of energy-efficient technologies.

Researchers at Rice University have developed a new method for performing chemical reactions using water instead of toxic solvents. The scientists created microscopic reactors capable of driving light-powered chemical processes by designing metal complex surfactants (MeCSs) that self-assemble into nanoscale spheres called micelles. This innovation could drastically reduce pollution in industries including pharmaceuticals and materials science, where harmful organic solvents are often necessary.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) marks a major milestone with the 20th anniversary of the Mercury Pulsed Power Facility, a cutting-edge research platform that continues to enable significant advancements in the fields of flash x-ray radiography, detection of nuclear materials, and radiation hardness of defense systems.

Beryllium-10, a rare radioactive isotope produced by cosmic rays in the atmosphere, provides valuable insights into the Earth's geological history. A research team from the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR), in collaboration with the TUD Dresden University of Technology and the Australian National University (ANU), has discovered an unexpected accumulation of this isotope in samples taken from the Pacific seabed. Such an anomaly may be attributed to shifts in ocean currents or astrophysical events that occurred approximately 10 million years ago. The findings hold the potential to serve as a global time marker, representing a promising advancement in the dating of geological archives spanning millions of years. The team presents its results in the scientific journal Nature Communications (DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-55662-4).

Glycosylation is the process by which cells add sugar groups (also called carbohydrates) to proteins to modify their functions. EMBL researchers developed a new method to systematically and quantitatively study glycosylation and used it to show that gut bacteria can influence glycosylation patterns in the brains of mice. Using this method, the researchers could identify over 150,000 glycosylated forms of proteins (‘proteoforms') in the brain, a more than 25-fold increase over previous studies. The study sheds new light on connections between the microbiome and the nervous system and provides a new method to study glycosylation's role in fundamental biological processes.

Incorporating trace amounts of Cu atoms into n-type Bi₂(Te, Se)₃ simultaneously realizes lattice plainification and band structure engineering, thus substantially facilitating thermoelectric transport and leading to excellent device efficiencies.