376 results
- Physics
Can room-temperature superconductors work without extreme pressure?
The next generation of materials that conduct electricity with no resistance could shrug off the need for high pressure and low temperatures.
- Agriculture
Nanoscale nutrients can protect plants from fungal diseases
Applied to the shoots, nutrients served in tiny metallic packages are absorbed more efficiently, strengthening plants’ defenses against fungal attack.
- Quantum Physics
‘Designer molecules’ could create tailor-made quantum devices
Scientists are making molecules suited to a variety of quantum tasks by building them up, atom by atom.
- Chemistry
This weird chemical bond acts like a mash-up of hydrogen and covalent bonds
Chemistry students are taught that hydrogen bonds and covalent bonds are distinct, but a new study shows they exist on a continuum.
- Chemistry
Chemists are reimagining recycling to keep plastics out of landfills
Recycling plastics is really hard, and usually creates low-quality materials that aren’t good for much. Chemists are trying to change that.
- Chemistry
Beets bleed red but a chemistry tweak can create a blue hue
A new blue dye derived from beet juice might prove an alternative to synthetic blue dyes in foods, cosmetics or fabrics.
- Chemistry
Here’s a clue to how this tube worm’s slime can glow blue for days
Mucus oozed by a marine tube worm can glow for up to 72 hours. New results suggest that the light may sustain itself through some clever chemistry.
- Agriculture
How does a crop’s environment shape a food’s smell and taste?
Scientific explorations of terroir — the soil, climate and orientation in which crops grow — hint at influences on flavors and aromas.
- Physics
Here’s how the periodic table gets new elements
Today’s scientists keep adding to the periodic table. But an element has to earn its spot.
- Earth
Smoke from Australian fires rose higher into the ozone layer than ever before
The catastrophic wildfires in Australia around New Year’s generated a massive smoke plume that still hasn’t dissipated in the stratosphere.
- Chemistry
Ancient recipes led scientists to a long-lost natural blue
Led by medieval texts, scientists hunted down a plant and extracted from its tiny fruits a blue watercolor whose origins had long been a mystery.
- Chemistry
Brett McGuire searches space for the chemistry of life
The complex molecules Brett McGuire has discovered in interstellar space may point to the origins of carbon-based life.
