Science

Across the Ganges to southwest Bangladesh and the Sundarbans The next morning our group of 23 American and Bangladeshi students and professors crossed the Jamuna River, as the Brahmaputra is known here, to the Sirajganj Hard Point.  This concrete embankment was built to protect the city of Sirajganj from the slow westward migration of the river.  Because it now sticks out into the river, they have been extending the land to the north and south to even out the bank.  The Hard Point also provided a great view across the Jamuna. Our group walking along the embankment of the Sirajganj Hard Point along the Jamuna River. During the long bus rides, we read, napped, ...

Adjusting the distance between nanoparticles creates different coloursPablo Cencillo-Abad, Daniel Fran A nanotechnology paint inspired by a butterfly’s wing is so lightweight that using it on a Boeing 747 could cut the plane’s mass by half a tonne. A paint’s colour normally comes from pigments, which are molecules that absorb certain wavelengths of light and reflect the rest. Some of these pigments can be environmentally polluting, difficult to remove and they can fade over time, especially in extreme heat or under prolonged sunlight. Now, Debashis Chanda at the University of Central Florida and his colleagues have designed a pigment-free paint that instead uses flakes of aluminium nanoparticles that trap and resonate certain wavelengths of light, just as certain wavel...

A diamond anvil was used to create the materialSteve Jacobsen/Science Education Resource Center (SERC) at Carleton College Room-temperature, room-pressure superconductivity has been a central goal of materials science for more than a century, and it may have finally been achieved. If this new superconducting material holds up, it could revolutionise the way our world is powered – but the results are headed for serious scientific scrutiny first. When a material is superconductive, electricity flows through it with zero resistance, which means none of the energy involved is lost as heat. But every superconductor made so far has required extraordinarily high pressures, and most have required very low temperatures. Ranga Dias at the University of Rochester in New York and...

Cordilleran Ice Sheet Retreat Caused Volcanic Eruptions, Deoxygenation Events 10,000 Years Ago Ocean deoxygenation occurs when oxygen levels drop in the ocean, threatening marine animals and ecosystems that rely on small amounts of oxygen dissolved in water to survive. Known sources of deoxygenation include climate change, massive algae blooms, and nutrient pollution. In an attempt to better understand these events, researchers in a recent study looked to the past for clues about triggers and causes of deoxygenation events and found a surprising source to add to the list: ice sheet retreat. Understanding deoxygenation matters for aquatic ecosystems because ox...