To protect themselves against type B ultraviolet rays (UV-B), which are highly harmful, plants have developed cellular tools to detect them and build biochemical defenses. A team of biologists from the University of Geneva ...
Biotechnology
Jul 11, 2016
0
5
A team of physicists including Russian researchers conducted an experiment that established control over the ultrafast motion of electrons at three attoseconds for the first time. (An attosecond is 1×10−18 of a second—that's ...
Optics & Photonics
Feb 23, 2016
0
21
The most widely used technology for producing X-rays – used in everything from medical and dental imaging, to testing for cracks in industrial materials – has remained essentially the same for more than a century. But ...
Optics & Photonics
Nov 24, 2015
4
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For consumers searching for just the right sunblock this summer, the options can be overwhelming. But scientists are now turning to the natural sunscreen of algae—which is also found in fish slime—to make a novel kind ...
Materials Science
Jul 29, 2015
0
18
Several decades ago, chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) were chemicals used in hairspray, deodorants, foam products, air conditioners and more. In 1974 chemists Sherwood Rowland and Mario Molina published a paper that indicated ...
Environment
Apr 7, 2015
0
13
Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich researchers have discovered a further function of the base-pairing that holds the two strands of the DNA double helix together: it plays a crucial role in protecting the DNA from the ...
Biochemistry
Sep 19, 2014
2
0
The molecular building blocks that make up DNA absorb ultraviolet light so strongly that sunlight should deactivate them – yet it does not. Now scientists have made detailed observations of a "relaxation response" that ...
General Physics
Jun 23, 2014
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0
Cosmic impacts are known to trigger mass extinctions on Earth. However, a new study adds to evidence that asteroid and cometary bombardment can also shelter life by generating pores in rocks that shelter microbes from damaging ...
Space Exploration
Jun 19, 2014
1
0
Observations from the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) have for the first time directly mapped out the molecular gas and dust in the host galaxies of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs)—the biggest explosions in ...
Astronomy
Jun 11, 2014
0
0
According to the theory, small clusters of molecules in the atmosphere have difficulty growing large enough to act as "cloud condensation nuclei" on which water droplets can gather to make our familiar low-altitude clouds. ...
Astronomy
Sep 4, 2013
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