SciGlow is a newsletter of science stories from the major research labs. Headlines link to in-depth articles and editorials. SciGlow keeps scientists and others up-to-date on current research.
An international team of astronomers identified a kilonova – or a very powerful cosmic explosion – associated with a gamma-ray burst recorded in 2007. The discovery was possible thanks to a careful study of archive data of the Keck and Hubble Space Telescope optical data and with the X-ray telescope, on board the satellite Neil … Read more
Data from microsatellites can be used to detect and double the impact of sustainable interventions in agriculture at large scales, according to a new study led by the University of Michigan. By being able to detect the impact and target interventions to locations where they will lead to the greatest increase or yield gains, satellite … Read more
Los Alamos scientists have demonstrated that using chemically synthesized, magnetically doped quantum dots a few nanometers (billionths of a meter) across allows them to capture the kinetic energy of electrons created by ultraviolet light before it’s wasted as heat. “This discovery can potentially enable novel, highly-efficient solar cells, light detectors, photocathodes and light-driven chemical reactions,” … Read more
Olympic skaters can launch, perform multiple aerial turns, and land gracefully, anticipating imperfections and reacting quickly to correct course. To make such elegant movements, the brain must have an internal model of the body to control, predict, and make almost instantaneous adjustments to motor commands. So-called “internal models” are a fundamental concept in engineering and … Read more
A groundbreaking study published today in Nature Sustainability finds that countries can make a big impact in patrolling their coasts and enforcing their Exclusive Economic Zones as long as the benefits of protecting those maritime resources prove lucrative enough. The study by UC Berkeley researcher Gabriel Englander suggests that such often dismissed international laws can … Read more
Brain organoids created from human embryonic stem cells offer scientists a powerful way to study the developing brain in three dimensions. However, organoids need nutrients and oxygen carried in blood to thrive, just as a developing fetal brain does. Now Yale researchers have developed a method to induce growth of blood vessels in organoids and … Read more
The key numbers that climate scientists seek for predicting future global warming are the Earth’s transient- and equilibrium climate sensitivities which are the near- and long term temperature response to a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Uncertainties in these properties have long been limiting the ability to project future climate change. Recent focus has been … Read more
The revolutionary tech discoveries of the next few decades, the ones that will change daily life, may come from new materials so small they make nanomaterials look like lumpy behemoths. These new materials will be designed and refined at the picometer scale, which is a thousand times smaller than a nanometer and a million times … Read more
The International Panel on Climate Change has used University of Queensland research to update its National Greenhouse Gas Inventories Guideline for the first time in 13 years. UQ’s Advanced Water Management Centre has spent a decade researching greenhouse gas emissions from wastewater systems, both in lab-scale and full-scale, in close collaboration with its many utility … Read more
A titanic, expanding beam of energy sprang from close to the supermassive black hole in the centre of the Milky Way just 3.5 million years ago, sending a cone-shaped burst of radiation through both poles of the Galaxy and out into deep space. That’s the finding arising from research conducted by a team of scientists … Read more