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Now, the Navy’s quest to power its ships by converting seawater into fuel is nearer to fruition. University of Rochester chemical engineers—in collaboration with researchers at the Naval Research Laboratory, the University of Pittsburgh, and OxEon Energy—have demonstrated that a potassium-promoted molybdenum carbide catalyst efficiently and reliably converts carbon dioxide to carbon monoxide, a critical step in turning seawater into fuel. “This is the first demonstration that this type of molybdenum carbide catalyst can be used on an industrial scale,” says Marc Porosoff, assistant professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering at Rochester....

The findings were reported in a recent paper that was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The scientists found these properties in oxide-based “nanolattices,” which are tiny, hollow materials with a structure resembling that of sea sponges. “This has been seen before in simple nanostructures, like a nanowire, which is about 1,000 times thinner than a hair,” said Yong Zhu, a professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at NC State, and one of the lead authors on the paper....

Researchers from the University of Cambridge have presented a new DNA sequencing method in a paper published in the journal Nature Biotechnology. This method can detect the specific location and interaction between small molecule drugs and their targeted genome. “Understanding how drugs work in the body is essential to creating better, more effective therapies,” said co-first author Dr. Zutao Yu from the Yusuf Hamied Department of Chemistry. “But when a therapeutic drug enters a cancer cell with a genome that has three billion bases, it’s like entering a black box....

A DESY-led research team has been using high-intensity X-rays to observe a single catalyst nanoparticle at work. The experiment has revealed for the first time how the chemical composition of the surface of an individual nanoparticle changes under reaction conditions, making it more active. The team led by DESY’s Andreas Stierle is presenting its findings in the journal Science Advances. This study marks an important step towards a better understanding of real, industrial catalytic materials....

At the US National Ignition Facility (NIF), scientists and engineers have been working on how to focus the 192 laser beams on a gold lined “hohlraum” capsule, just a few millimeters long, containing a pellet of hydrogen isotopes. As 500 terawatts of laser power hits the capsule, it generates X-rays that blast into the pellet, causing the atoms of deuterium and tritium inside to fuse. This process converts a tiny amount of their mass into a burst of energy....

In April 2015, after traveling for about half the age of the universe, a flood of powerful gamma rays from a distant galaxy slammed into Earth’s atmosphere. That torrent generated a cascade of light – a shower that fell onto the waiting mirrors of the Very Energetic Radiation Imaging Telescope Array System (VERITAS) in Arizona. The resulting data have given astronomers a unique look into that faraway galaxy and the black hole engine at its heart....

Trinity College Dublin researchers point to changes in government advice in Wales, England and Scotland. Researchers from Trinity College Dublin are calling on the government in Ireland to change recommendations for vitamin D supplements. A new publication from Dr. Eamon Laird and Professor Rose Anne Kenny, School of Medicine, and the Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing (TILDA), in collaboration with Professor Jon Rhodes at University of Liverpool, highlights the association between vitamin D levels and mortality from COVID-19....

Two MIT researchers have developed a thin-film material whose phase and electrical properties can be switched between metallic and semiconducting simply by applying a small voltage. The material then stays in its new configuration until switched back by another voltage. The discovery could pave the way for a new kind of “nonvolatile” computer memory chip that retains information when the power is switched off, and for energy conversion and catalytic applications....

Voyager 1 appears to have at long last left our solar system and entered interstellar space, says a University of Maryland-led team of researchers. Carrying Earthly greetings on a gold plated phonograph record and still-operational scientific instruments – including the Low Energy Charged Particle detector designed, built and overseen, in part, by UMD’s Space Physics Group – NASA’s Voyager 1 has traveled farther from Earth than any other human-made object....

A new study, led by Dr. Asaf Tzachor in collaboration with an international team of scientists, has evaluated a state-of-the-art biotechnology system that grows Spirulina. The system, developed and run by Vaxa Impact Nutrition, is located at the ON Power Geothermal Park in Iceland, and takes advantage of resources available through the Hellisheidi power station, including renewable electricity for lighting and power usage, hot and cold water streams for temperature control, freshwater for cultivation, and carbon dioxide for biofixation....

The first large-scale study of the risks that countries face from dependence on water, energy, and land resources has found that globalization may be decreasing, rather than increasing, the security of global supply chains. Countries meet their needs for goods and services through domestic production and international trade. As a result, countries place pressures on natural resources both within and beyond their borders. Researchers from the University of Cambridge used macroeconomic data to quantify these pressures....

In the latest image, the Pillars have a steely gray look about them. They almost look like cosmic gravestones instead of stellar birthplaces. Why is this? Mid-infrared light is an important part of the spectrum for astronomers interested in studying clouds of dust. It reveals gas and dust in intricate detail. The densest areas of dust in the pillars show up as the darkest shades of grey. The red V-shaped region toward the top is where the dust clouds are thinner and cooler....

The vital role of oxytocin—the “love hormone”—for social attachments is being called into question. More than forty years of pharmacological and behavioral research has pointed to oxytocin receptor signaling as an essential pathway for the development of social behaviors in prairie voles, humans, and other species, but a genetic study publishing in the journal Neuron on January 27 shows that voles can form enduring attachments with mates and provide parental care without oxytocin receptor signaling....

Evacuation planners rarely considered the needs of carless and vulnerable populations before Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in 2005. These vulnerable populations include low-income, elderly, or young individuals with specific needs or tourists without a car while on vacation. In the aftermath of the storm, transportation planners called for a new focus on evacuation planning to meet the specific needs of these people. So what has America learned since Hurricane Katrina?...

What killed the dinosaurs 66 million years ago at the end of the Cretaceous Period? It has long been the topic of scientific debate, and many researchers have set out to determine what caused the five mass extinction events that reshaped life on planet Earth in a geological instant. Some experts believe that comets or asteroids that crashed into Earth were the most likely agents of mass destruction. Other scientists argue that immense volcanic eruptions were the primary cause of the extinction events....

In a paper that appeared online March 15 in the journal Science, the researchers describe a model for planarian (flatworm) eye regeneration that is governed by three principles acting in concert, which inform how progenitor cells behave in regeneration. The model invokes positional cues that create a scalable map; self-organization that attracts progenitors to existing structures; and progenitor cells that originate in a diffuse spatial zone, rather than a precise location, allowing flexibility in their path....

Astronomers using data from NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, have discovered dust in an unusual place–just outside the reach of a binary star system with a short 3-hour orbit. The binary consists of a white dwarf with a red dwarf companion separated by a distance slightly larger than the radius of the Sun; an extremely small stellar orbit by astronomical standards. The system is known as a “post-common envelope” binary because at some point in the past, one of the stars had expanded so much that its envelope of material engulfed the other star....

The study, published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, suggests that the NASA James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), scheduled to launch in November, will be sensitive enough to observe the birth of galaxies directly. The UK-led research team examined six of the most distant galaxies currently known, whose light has taken most of the universe’s lifetime to reach us. They found that the distance of these galaxies away from Earth corresponded to a “look back” time of more than 13 billion years ago, when the universe was only 550 million years old....

A key resource to advance research in quantum information science would be a source that could efficiently and reliably produce single photons. However, because quantum processes are inherently random, creating a photon source that produces single photons on demand presents a challenge at every step. Now University of Illinois Physics Professor Paul Kwiat and his former postdoctoral researcher Fumihiro Kaneda (now an assistant professor at Frontier Research Institute for Interdisciplinary Sciences at Tohoku University) have built what Kwiat believes is “the world’s most efficient single-photon source....

If the results are confirmed, the so-called X17 particle could help to explain dark matter, the mysterious substance scientists believe accounts for more than 80% of the mass in the universe. It may be the carrier of a “fifth force” beyond the four accounted for in the standard model of physics (gravity, electromagnetism, the weak nuclear force, and the strong nuclear force). Smashing atoms Most researchers who hunt for new particles use enormous accelerators that smash subatomic particles together at high speed and look at what comes out of the explosion....