For The Better

A novel method to extract lignin could help spin wheat straw into gold. Lignin produced using the new method was color-neutral, odorless and homogenous, an advance that could make this carbon-neutral material a more viable candidate for development of …

Engineers have created a ‘supercapacitor’ made of ancient, abundant materials, that can store large amounts of energy. Made of just cement, water, and carbon black (which resembles powdered charcoal), the device could form the basis for inexpensive sys…

Researchers have discovered new cell types in the visual system of flies, made possible by their creation of a tool that finds and labels neurons during development. The study combines single-cell sequencing data with a novel algorithm to identify pair…

Slow earthquakes are slow-slip phenomena that last many days or months, and you barely notice them. In 2007, researchers proposed how the magnitude and duration of earthquakes vary, which can help differentiate slow and fast earthquakes. Seismologists …

Earth is rapidly warming and scientists are developing a variety of approaches to reduce the effects of climate change. An astronomer has proposed a novel approach — a solar shield to reduce the amount of sunlight hitting Earth, combined with a tether…

Researchers have described a new class of molecules that inhibit efflux pumps so that antiboitics remain effective.

Results of a long-term, federally funded study of cognitively healthy adults — most with a family history of Alzheimer’s disease — have added to evidence that low spinal fluid levels of a protein linked to learning and memory in mice may serve as an …

The research team administered AP39 to some worms from birth, and to others after reaching adulthood. They found that this compound improved the integrity of mitochondria — the ‘power house’ of cells, which produces our cells’ energy, and kept the wor…

Scientists found that trout from lakes stocked decades ago in the Wind River Mountains have higher numbers of gill rakers, which are bony or cartilage structures in the gullets of fish that act as sieves to retain zooplankton and nourish the trout. The…

Everyday life involves the three dimensions or 3D — along an X, Y and Z axis, or up and down, left and right, and forward and back. But, in recent years scientists have explored a ‘fourth dimension’ (4D), or synthetic dimension, as an extension of our…

In skin, some aberrant adult epidermal stem cells turn on SOX9, kickstarting a process that ultimately activates cancer genes.

In skin, some aberrant adult epidermal stem cells turn on SOX9, kickstarting a process that ultimately activates cancer genes.

Chemists describe a powerful new way to create new-to-nature, ‘unnatural’ amino acids, which could find use in protein-based therapies and open up novel branches of organic chemistry.

Chemists describe a powerful new way to create new-to-nature, ‘unnatural’ amino acids, which could find use in protein-based therapies and open up novel branches of organic chemistry.

Chemical engineering researchers have overcome the challenge of designing such properly self-aligning structures by using fluid mechanics, chemo-mechanical processes — and a little stickiness.