Soils in northern freshwater wetlands, called peatlands, are cold, water-saturated, and acidic. These conditions slow microbes' decomposition of organic matter into greenhouse gases. This process stores carbon in the soil. ...
Environment
Mar 6, 2024
0
2
With time scheduled to use a certain beamline at the National Synchrotron Light Source-II (NSLS-II), scientists from NSLS-II and their partner institutions faced a challenge. They planned on researching a special type of ...
Condensed Matter
Mar 5, 2024
0
6
Most of the energy from the sun and other stars comes from a chain of nuclear fusion reactions. The end of this chain is marked by the fusion of protons with beryllium-7 to form boron-8. This process is key in determining ...
General Physics
Feb 26, 2024
3
367
Bacteriophages—viruses that infect bacteria—are common in soil ecosystems. However, many of these phages have not been identified, and the bacteria they target are also a mystery.
Ecology
Feb 13, 2024
0
47
Fixed numbers of protons and neutrons—the building blocks of nuclei—can rearrange themselves within a single nucleus. The products of this reshuffling include electromagnetic (gamma ray) transitions. These transitions ...
General Physics
Feb 5, 2024
0
17
Collisions of high energy particles produce "jets" of quarks, anti-quarks, or gluons. Due to the phenomenon called confinement, scientists cannot directly detect quarks. Instead, the quarks from these collisions fragment ...
Quantum Physics
Jan 29, 2024
3
260
As an ocean wave laps up against a beach, it contains innumerable swirls and eddies. The seawater forms complex patterns at each level, from the waves that surfers catch to ripples too small and fast for the human eye to ...
General Physics
Jan 26, 2024
0
18
The discovery that neutrinos have mass was groundbreaking. However, their absolute mass remains unknown. Neutrinoless double beta decay experiments aim to determine whether neutrinos are their own antiparticles and, if so, ...
General Physics
Jan 22, 2024
0
1610
Humans store water in huge metal towers and deep concrete reservoirs. But nature's water storage is much more scenic—the snowpack that tops majestic mountains. Even if we don't realize it, humans rely on those natural water ...
Earth Sciences
Jan 17, 2024
0
19
Large, low-background detectors using xenon as a target medium are widely used in fundamental physics, particularly in experiments searching for dark matter or studying rare decays of atomic nuclei. In these detectors, the ...
General Physics
Jan 17, 2024
0
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