A team led by scientists at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory identified and successfully demonstrated a new method to process a plant-based material called nanocellulose that reduced energy needs by a whopping 21%. The approach was discovered using molecular simulations run on the lab's supercomputers, followed by pilot testing and analysis.

Researchers at ETH Zurich have managed to make sound waves travel only in one direction. In the future, this method could also be used in technical applications with electromagnetic waves.

Massive volcanic carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions contributing to an extreme global ocean deoxygenation event over 120 million years ago has modern day implications for understanding a climate warming "tipping point," according to new research published in Nature, led by a scientist at Ocean Networks Canada, a University of Victoria initiative.

Scientists at La Trobe University have discovered a new antibody-like molecule that could be used in therapy to prevent infection from multiple malaria parasite species.

The correlation between serotonin and depression is highly debated and is relevant for diagnosis, treatment, and drug development. To better study this area, a Chinese team has now developed a fluorescent probe for imaging processes that is highly sensitive and selective toward serotonin. In their paper published in Angewandte Chemie International Edition, they offer preliminary results obtained from cell and animal models.

A widely used disinfectant worldwide, chloroxylenol, has been associated with eco-toxicological threats in water environments due to its relatively high chemical stability and massive consumption. Researchers at the School of Engineering of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) have discovered a promising alternative known as 2,6-dichlorobenzoquinone (2,6-DCQ), which works more effectively in combating certain common bacteria, fungi and viruses, and can be rapidly degraded and detoxified in receiving waters.

New evidence suggests that billions of years ago, a star may have passed very close to our solar system. As a result, thousands of smaller celestial bodies in the outer solar system outside Neptune's orbit were deflected into highly inclined trajectories around the sun. It is possible that some of them were captured by the planets Jupiter and Saturn as moons.

Severe drought in the American Southwest and Mexico and more severe wet years in the Northeast are the modern norm in North America, according to new research—and the analysis suggests these seasonal patterns will be more extreme in the future.

Tons of dead fish, mussels and snails were seen floating on the Oder River (Germany) in early August 2022. It soon became clear what was causing the environmental disaster in the German-Polish border river: a mixture of excessive salinity, high water temperatures, low water levels and excessive inputs of nutrients and wastewater triggered a bloom of the brackish water algae Prymnesium parvum, whose algal toxin prymnesin has a lethal effect on organisms.

Scientists have solved a decade-long question about the mechanism that preserves the centromere, the hub that ensures DNA divides correctly during cell division.