physorg.com:Spotlight stories

Experts find early ocher mine in Mexican underwater caves Experts and cave divers in Mexico's Yucatan peninsula have found ocher mines that are some of the oldest on the continent, which could explain why ancient skeletons were found in the narrow, twisting labyrinths of now-submerged sinkhole caves.
Scientific 'red flag' reveals new clues about our galaxy Figuring out how much energy permeates the center of the Milky Way—a discovery reported in the July 3 edition of the journal Science Advances—could yield new clues to the fundamental source of our galaxy's power, said L. Matthew Haffner of Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.
'Fang'tastic: Biologists report snake-like dental glands in amphibians Utah State University biologist Edmund 'Butch' Brodie, Jr. and colleagues from So Paulo's Butantan Institute report the first known evidence of oral venom glands in amphibians. Their research, supported by the Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development, appears in the July 3, 2020, issue of iScience.
Toward super-fast motion of vortices in superconductors An international team of scientists from Austria, Germany, and Ukraine has found a new superconducting system in which magnetic flux quanta can move at velocities of 10 to 15 km/s. This opens access to investigations of the rich physics of non-equilibrium collective systems and renders a direct-write Nb-C superconductor as a candidate material for single-photon detectors. The results are published in Nature Communications.
Histone H3-H4 tetramer found to be a copper reductase enzyme A team of researchers at the University of California has found that the histone H3-H4 tetramer is a copper reductase enzyme. In their paper published in the journal Science, the group describes two experiments they carried out that showed that histones are involved in reducing copper inside of cells. Johannes Rudolph and Karolin Luger with the University of Colorado at Boulder have published a Perspective piece in the same journal issue giving an outline of research involving histones and describing the work done by the team in California.
Rare-metal abundance points to a missing companion star for the supernova Cassiopeia A The massive star that exploded to form the supernova known as Cassiopeia A most likely had a companion star that has yet to be spotted, a spectroscopic analysis by RIKEN astrophysicists suggests. This will provide fresh impetus to efforts to locate the companion.
Industrial 'borrow pits' benefit beavers and wolverines, study shows Beavers and wolverines in northern Alberta are using industry-created borrow pits as homes and feeding grounds, according to a new study by University of Alberta ecologists.
New species of Ichthyosaur discovered in museum collection Hauffiopteryx altera (Latin for different from) has been identified as a new species of Ichthyosaurs by researchers from McGill University and the State Museum of Natural History Stuttgart in Germany.
New breakthrough in 'spintronics' could boost high speed data technology Scientists have made a pivotal breakthrough in the important, emerging field of spintronics—which could lead to a new high speed energy efficient data technology.
Heatwave trends accelerate worldwide The first comprehensive worldwide assessment of heatwaves down to regional levels has revealed that in nearly every part of the world heatwaves have been increasing in frequency and duration since the 1950s.
Harvesting hydrogen from nanogardens Easily produced, nature-like nanostructures of cobalt phosphide are highly effective catalysts for the electrolysis of water, according to research performed by chemist Ning Yan and his team at the University of Amsterdam's Van 't Hoff Institute for Molecular Sciences together with co-workers from the School of Physics and Technology at Wuhan University, China. In a paper featured on the front cover of the Journal of Materials Chemistry A, they describe how relatively straightforward electrochemical deposition methods yield grass-, leaf-, and flower-like nanostructures that carry the promise of efficient hydrogen generation.
How to get rid of the coffee-stain effect The coffee-stain effect is a well-known effect in physics and daily life in which a dark-colored edge remains when a fluid containing particles evaporates. This is caused by an "avalanche" of particles moving to the outer edge, University of Twente scientists showed in a past study. In inkjet and 3-D printing, this is an undesired effect. Now, researchers have demonstrated that the effect can be suppressed by modifying the surface using an oily layer, according to results published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
Image: Hubble captures one galaxy, two asteroids At first sight, this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope portrays the sparkling stars of AGC111977, a dwarf galaxy located around 15 million light years away and visible in the lower left part of the image. Other galaxies appear sprinkled across the frame, along with foreground stars from our own galaxy, the Milky Way.
Enhancing the performance of solar cells with 'graphene armor' A team of researchers, affiliated with UNIST has come up with a novel electrode that could greatly improve the stability of perovskite solar cells (PSCs), the most promising candidate for the next generation solar cells due to their low cost and high power conversion efficiency. This is because inserting a protection layer between the metal-based electrode and the perovskite film can prevent metal-induced degradation and that graphene, as such a layer, can effectively suppress the diffusion of metals and halide ions.
Toward lasers powerful enough to investigate a new kind of physics In a paper that made the cover of the journal Applied Physics Letters, an international team of researchers has demonstrated an innovative technique for increasing the intensity of lasers. This approach, based on the compression of light pulses, would make it possible to reach a threshold intensity for a new type of physics that has never been explored before: quantum electrodynamics phenomena.