A new study conducted by researchers from the Institute of Modern Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences  has uncovered a key mechanism involving Intermolecular Coulombic Decay in aqueous environments initiated by heavy-ion irradiation, providing insights about the effectiveness of such irradiation.

A new study sheds light on the driving force behind the grand sprite fireworks—lightning and thunderstorms.

In advancing sustainable energy solutions, an international collaborative team of scientists has achieved a significant milestone in low-carbon chemical conversion. In their recent publication in Nature, the team, led by Professors Zhengxiao GUO of Department of Chemistry at The University of Hong Kong (HKU), Weixin HUANG of University of Science and Technology of China, Richard CATLOW of University College London and Junwang TANG of Tsinghua University, have discovered a photocatalytic approach to converting methane to ethanol with high selectivity of around 80% and a methane conversion rate of 2.3% in a single run using a packed-bed flow reactor. The system achieves an impressive apparent quantum efficiency (AQE) of 9.4%, which measures how effectively it converts incident photons into electrons that participate in the reaction under specific wavelength conditions.

A team from the Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, studied the sediments that Hurricanes Fabian (2003) and Igor (2010) transported from the Bermuda carbonate platform -- a shallow-water reef refuge for marine life – and deposited to the deep ocean. They found significant effects on the deep ocean environment that lasted for weeks. Hurricane Fabian delivered as much sediment to the deep ocean in just two weeks as would normally take a full year to accumulate. These sediments -- carbonate-rich material that forms in the thriving ecosystem on reef platforms -- have major effects on the ocean environment. If they get buried in deep sediments, they can sequester carbon for millennia or more. They can also provide a buffering effect to help offset ocean acidification, a consequence of rising atmospheric CO₂ concentrations. The scientists, from the MBL's Oceanic Flux Program, published their data in Journal of Geophysical Research - Oceans.

In a new study published in Nano Letters, researchers at the University of Rochester show that precisely layering nano-thin materials creates excitons—essentially, artificial atoms—that can act as quantum information bits, or qubits.

University of Texas at Dallas scientists are investigating how structures made from several layers of graphene stack up in terms of their fundamental physics and their potential as reconfigurable semiconductors for advanced electronics.