The transplutonium actinides are highly radioactive and rare, making them difficult to study. To examine their chemical properties, researchers typically use non-radioactive lanthanides as surrogates. In this study, scientists streamlined the synthesis of transplutonium actinide compounds, which allowed for more accurate direct comparisons of lanthanides and heavy actinide compounds, showing that transplutonium actinides have truly unique properties.

An international team led by researchers in Japan and Europe has discovered a new multi-planet system around a Sun-like star, including an ultra-short period planet with one of the highest densities ever measured. The findings, published in Nature Scientific Reports, shed new light on the formation and evolution of planets in extreme environments.

Chickpeas and lentils, either whole or in flour form, offer more nutritional value to the human diet than products made from oats and wheat, research from the University of Adelaide has found.

Lior Shamir, a computer scientist in the Carl R. Ice College of Engineering at Kansas State University, published a study of James Webb Space Telescope images that suggests astronomers should factor the Milky Way's rotational velocity in observations of deep space galaxies.

Simulations of quantum many-body problems are a challenge for even the most powerful conventional computers. Quantum computing has the potential to solve this challenge using an approach called an analog quantum simulation. To succeed, these simulations need theoretical approximations of how quantum computers represent many-body systems. In this research, nuclear physicists developed a new framework to analyze these approximations and minimize their effects.

A recent study reveals how the expansion and functional divergence of terpene synthase genes (TPSs) in flowering plants (angiosperms) have driven the astonishing diversity of terpenes—critical compounds involved in plant defense, floral scents, and fruit flavors. 

Dr. Elizabeth Houghton recently graduated from the Irving K. Barber Faculty of Science’s Department of Biology. Her latest paper, published in Plant Biology, examines how sweet cherries, like many fruit trees, use a natural survival strategy called supercooling to protect undeveloped flower buds during freezing temperatures.