Studying the physics behind this fleeting fluid phenomenon could improve various industrial processes.

Identifying a mineral might sound straightforward: analyze its chemistry, compare it to known minerals and voilà. But for geologists, this process can be a time-consuming puzzle requiring specialized expertise and a lot of manual calculation. Now, a team of researchers at Rice University’s Department of Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences has developed MIST — Mineral Identification by Stoichiometry — the first online tool capable of automatically identifying hundreds of different mineral species from their chemical composition using a carefully designed rules-based algorithm.

In a first-of-its-kind breakthrough, researchers at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering (UChicago PME) have turned a protein found in living cells into a functioning quantum bit, or qubit, the foundation of quantum technologies. The protein qubit can be used as a quantum sensor capable of detecting minute changes and ultimately offering unprecedented insight into biological processes.

Phytoplankton—microscopic algae that form the base of ocean food webs—have long been viewed as transient players in the global carbon cycle: They bloom, die, and the carbon they contain is quickly recycled back into the ecosystem. However, a research team led by Prof. WANG Faming at the South China Botanical Garden of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has discovered that these tiny organisms can directly pump "stubborn" carbon into the ocean, where it may persist for centuries.

Most metals found in nature are actually in their oxide forms. To extract those metals to use in critical applications — ranging from infrastructure such as bridges and buildings to advanced technologies like airplanes, semiconductors or even quantum materials — those oxides must be reduced with gases. A new study from Binghamton University and Brookhaven Laboratory illuminating how different gases can affect oxide reduction, however, has the potential to revamp scientific understandings and current industrial practices. 

Using a small bench-top reactor, researchers at the University of British Columbia have demonstrated that electrochemically loading a solid metal target with deuterium fuel can boost nuclear fusion rates.  

For the first time, astrophysicists detected a supernova embedded in a wind rich with silicon, sulfur and argon. Observations suggest the massive star lost its outer hydrogen and helium layers long before exploding. Discovery offers direct evidence of the long-theorized inner shell structure of massive stars.