A research team of fusion scientists succeeded in proving that ions can be heated by plasma oscillations driven by high-energy particles. This has been confirmed by performing a large-scale simulation with a newly developed hybrid-simulation program that links calculations for plasma oscillations, high-energy particles and ions. This research will accelerate studies of plasma self-heating for realizing fusion energy.
A team of scientists from the Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter (MPSD) in Hamburg and the Department of Physics at ETH Zurich in Switzerland, together with the Center for Computational Sciences of University of Tsukuba, has unraveled the light-induced electron-localization dynamics in transition metals at the attosecond timescale. The team investigated for the first time the many-body electron dynamics in transition metals before thermalization sets in. Their work has now appeared in Nature Physics.
A phenomenon that makes coral spawn more than once a year is improving the resilience of the Great Barrier Reef.
The discovery was made by University of Queensland and CSIRO researchers investigating whether corals that split their spawning over multiple months are more successful at spreading their offspring across different reefs.
Dr Karlo Hock, from UQ's School of Biological Sciences, said coral mass spawning events are one of the most spectacular events in the oceans.
"They're incredibly beautiful," Dr Hock said.
A PhD student of the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa, has discovered a new dinosaur species in the University's vaults, after it has been laying misidentified in a collection for 30 years.
Researchers from the Natural History Museum of Denmark and the Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences at the University of Copenhagen, have in collaboration with researchers at the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew in England, demonstrated that certain Aloe species shrink, or more scientifically speaking - fold - their cell walls together. In doing so, the plants preserve resources during drought. Concurrently, the carbohydrate (polysaccharide) composition of their cell walls are altered. The results have just been published in the journal Plant, Cell and Environment.
Trees are seen as saviors in an era of climate change. Via their leaves, they absorb carbon dioxide and transform the greenhouse gas into oxygen and biomass. According to estimates by the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the Amazon rainforests absorb a quarter of the carbon dioxide that is released each year from the combustion of fossil fuels. To date, global climate models have assumed that this absorption capacity will also remain constant in the future.
A University of Oklahoma team of microbiologists have developed a mathematical framework for quantitatively assessing ecological diversity in an ecological community whether deterministic or stochastic. A recent study by the team published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences examines the mechanisms controlling biological diversity and provides guidance for use of the null-model-based approaches for examining processes within the community.
Nickel is one of the most abundant elements on earth. It is hard, yet malleable, magnetic at room temperature, and a relatively good conductor of electricity and heat. Most notably, nickel is highly corrosion resistant, which provides for a variety of uses by industry.
However, a surprising discovery by a team of researchers at Texas A&M University has found that nickel not only corrodes, but does so in a way that scientists least expected.
What can you learn from two omes that you can't tell from one? You might determine how different bacterial strains in a water sample contribute specific functions to its overall microbiome. You might find that duplication of a section of a chromosome in cancer cells has wide-reaching effects on important proteins--or that it has a smaller effect than expected. First, though, you need to find a way to wrangle gigabytes of data saved in numerous, perhaps incompatible formats.
Some insects have the ability to manipulate plants to produce new organs known as galls, which manifest as abnormal growths on leaves, branches, or twigs. These galls provide insects and their offspring with food and shelter. Insects are also able to redirect the plant's nutrients, such as sugar, toward their galls, sometimes leaving the plant malnourished.