Scientists discover 8 striking new bee species in the Pacific

Scientists discover 8 striking new bee species in the Pacific

Hylaeus derectus male. This little bee (3–5 mm) bee is only known thus far from near Mt Nadarivatu on Viti Levu, Fiji. It was collected from a canopy-flowering mistletoe. Credit: James Dorey Photography After a decade searching for new species of bees in forests of the Pacific Islands, all we had to do was look … Read more

Saturday Citations: Will they or won’t they? A black hole binary refuses to merge. Plus: Vestigial eyeballs

Saturday Citations: Will they or won’t they? A black hole binary refuses to merge. Plus: Vestigial eyeballs

“I know what you’re thinking. Was that six eyes or only two? Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement, I’ve kinda’ lost track myself.” Under a microscope, the head of a daddy longlegs glows magenta where its modern-day eyes form. Opsins shown in green indicate that two additional sets of vestigial eyes … Read more

New class of 2D material displays stable charge density wave at room temperature

New class of 2D material displays stable charge density wave at room temperature

Atoms of a tantalum disulfide (TaS2) crystal with a 2D endotaxial layer in the center. The pink cloud represents the charge density wave, a clumped pattern of electrons, surrounding the 2D layer. Credit: Hovden Laboratory Quantum materials have generated considerable interest for computing applications in the past several decades, but non-trivial quantum properties—like superconductivity or … Read more

Mass-produced, commercially-promising multicolored photochromic fiber

Mass-produced, commercially-promising multicolored photochromic fiber

a Photograph of the industrial-scale fabrication line of the photochromic fiber. The scale bar corresponds to 0.5 m. b Schematic illustration of the fabrication of the photochromic fiber. The inset shows a photograph of the fabricated and illuminated photochromic fiber. The scale bar corresponds to 10 cm. c Comparison of the luminescence attenuation in the … Read more

Synergy palladium single atoms and twinned nanoparticles for efficient CO₂ photoreduction

Synergy palladium single atoms and twinned nanoparticles for efficient CO₂ photoreduction

by KeAi Communications Co. Schematic diagram of CO2 photoreduction mechanism. Credit: Lei, Li et al., The challenge of regulating the electronic structures of metal single-atoms (M-SAs) with metal nanoparticles (M-NPs) lies in the synthesis of a definite architecture. Such a structure has strong electronic metal-support interactions and maintains electron transport channels to facilitate carbon dioxide … Read more

A new type of metallacrown ether based on polyoxometalate opens research opportunities

A new type of metallacrown ether based on polyoxometalate opens research opportunities

The creation of a polyoxometalatocrown ether (center) from a crown ether (upper left) and a polyoxometalate (lower left) and its capture of ammonium cations into a host-guest complex (far right). Credit: Fengping Xiao, Tsinghua University Crown ethers were discovered in 1967. They were then modified by adding a metal-containing unit, creating metallacrown ethers. These metallacrown … Read more

Night-shining cloud mission ends; yields high science results for NASA

Night-shining cloud mission ends; yields high science results for NASA

NASA’s Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere (AIM) mission, seen in this visualization, contributed to NASA’s understanding of the region that borders between Earth’s atmosphere and space. Credit: NASA After 16 years studying Earth’s highest clouds for the benefit of humanity—polar mesospheric clouds—from its orbit some 350 miles above the ground, NASA’s Aeronomy of Ice … Read more

New statistical tool to distinguish shared and unique features in data from different sources

New statistical tool to distinguish shared and unique features in data from different sources

Personalized PCA, a statistical tool capable of distinguishing shared and unique features, can help disentangle complex data from multiple sources, such as smartwatch data. Credit: This image was generated by OpenAI’s DALL-E 2, prompted by Naichen Shi. When facing a daunting dataset, Principal Component Analysis (PCA), known as PCA, can help distill complexity by finding … Read more

Rain offers slight reprieve from largest wildfire in history of Texas

Rain offers slight reprieve from largest wildfire in history of Texas

A firefighter battling the Smokehouse Creek Fire, near Amarillo, in the Texas Panhandle. Rainfall offered some reprieve from the largest wildfire in the history of Texas, officials said Friday, though dry, gusty conditions were expected to return this weekend for a blaze that has killed two people and scorched a million acres. Four major fires … Read more

Team finds novel vehicle for antibiotic resistance

Team finds novel vehicle for antibiotic resistance

B. fragilis is a commensal bacteria that normally lives in the human gastrointestinal tract. It can become pathogenic due to disruption of the normal intestinal mucosa through trauma or surgery. Credit: Centers for Disease Control/V.R. Dowell Jr. Antibiotic resistance is a significant and growing medical problem worldwide. Researchers at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) and … Read more