Ancient Egyptian mummified bodies smell ‘woody,’ ‘spicy’ and ‘sweet’, finds a new study led by researchers from UCL and the University of Ljubljana, revealing new details about mumification practices.

A Nebraska research team recently published a study in Communications Earth and Environment that is one of the first to show that methanogens, micro-organsms ubiquitous in low-oxygen envrionments like aquifers, soil and even permafrost, can propel their growth by dissolving calcium carbonate, one of the Earth's most abundant minerals. The discovery paints a clearer picture of carbon flow through the environment and offers new information to guide bioenergy development. 

Electronic textiles, such as heating pads and electric blankets, can keep the wearer warm and help ease aches and pains. However, prolonged use of these devices could cause heat-related illnesses, including hyperthermia or burns. Recently, a group of researchers designed and tested a “smart” jacket equipped with environmental sensors, heat-generating and color-changing yarns, and artificial intelligence (AI) to control temperature and prevent overheating. Their results are published in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces. 

In the race to combat global climate change, much attention has been given to natural “carbon sinks:” those primarily terrestrial areas of the globe that absorb and sequester more carbon than they release. While scientists have long known that coastal salt marshes are just such a sink for “blue carbon,” or carbon stored in the ocean and coastal ecosystems, it has been difficult to get an accurate estimate of just how much they store, and so most of the focus has been on terrestrial sinks such as forests and grasslands. Now, a team of scientists at the University of Massachusetts Amherst recently debuted a new, highly accurate method for quantifying carbon capture in the Northeast’s salt marshes — and it’s a lot.

Recent research by scientists from Technion, the University of Stuttgart, and the University of Duisburg-Essen has further explored the properties of quasiperiodic crystals. The study, led by Prof. Guy Bartal and others, reveals that the higher-dimensional nature of these crystals not only influences their mechanical properties but also their topological properties. This research demonstrates that topological properties remain unchanged in two-dimensional projections of the crystals, and only a reference to the original higher-dimensional crystal allows for distinctions.

Researchers at the University of Bristol have made a breakthrough in the development of “life-like” synthetic materials which are able to move by themselves like worms. Scientists have been investigating a new class of materials called ‘active matter’, which could be used for various applications from drug delivery to self-healing materials.

A team led by Prof. Guo Guangcan from the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) has demonstrated the ability to electrically manipulate the spin filling sequence in a bilayer graphene (BLG) quantum dot (QD). This achievement, published in Physical Review Letters, showcases the potential to control the spin degree of freedom in BLG, a material with promising applications in quantum computing and advanced electronics.