Recent Scientific Discoveries in the Spotlight

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Posts from the Sciencebase Archives -

 

For current scientific discoveries under the Spotlight, check out Intute.


2006

Emerging environmental chemistry [Dec 2006 - chemistry]
More than forty research papers highlight the effects of emerging contaminants on human health and the environment in the December 2006 issue...

Straightening the fish-eye view [Dec 2006 - physics]
The classic fish-eye lens gives photographers the visual equivalent of surround sound, capturing an all-encompassing view. But, ...

One fell swoop [Dec 2006 - earth]
Despite the conspiracy theories that claim the killing was down to a network of terror, the latest undercover investigations, just made public, reveal that the dinosaurs and the vast majority of animal life on earth died in a mass extinction ...

Grey to green [Nov 2006 - chemistry feature length article]
Peace talks and an IRA ceasefire were only dreamed of the last time I visited the city of Belfast in Northern Ireland and the Queen's University. Indeed, at the time there were still a few grey armoured vehicles on the streets and the city centre was still gated ...

Canary holidays safe…for now [Oct 2006 - earth]
Those worried that a holiday in the Canary Islands might be interrupted by a devastating collapse of the volcanic island of La Palma and an ensuing tsunami can relax. According to researchers in the Netherlands, La Palma ...

RNA revelations [Oct 2006 - chemistry]
Stanford University's Roger Kornberg is the sole winner of this year's Nobel Prize for Chemistry for figuring out exactly how the genetic material, DNA, in a eukaryotic organism, ...

Background reading wins physics Nobel [Oct 2006 - astronomy,physics]
This year's Nobel Prize for Physics cuts right to the chase, to one of the biggest questions that has vexed humanity ever since we first pondered the world around us - "Where did we come from?" In 1989 ...

The dark side of matter revealed [Sep 2006 - astronomy]
"There really is dark matter out there," says Dennis Zaritsky of the University of Arizona talking of the first evidence for this elusive cosmological substance, "Now we just need to figure out what it is." ...

Blue light [Sep 2006 - physics]
Blue light-emitting diodes (LEDs) are really bright. Too bright for theorists to handle, in fact. Why? Because, the materials from which they are made usually have impurities that should make their glow much duller ...

Waste bacteria build new catalysts [Sep 2006 - chemistry]
Bacteria could be the key to improving metal catalysts for the chemical industry, according to research in Germany. Scientists from the Forschungszentrum Rossendorf in Dresden have exploited the survival skills of bacteria that live in uranium ...


A keen eye for the stars [Aug 2006 - astronomy]
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope continues to surprise astronomers, this time by identifying the parent star of a distant planet through the observational technique of gravitational microlensing ...

Superconductors settle the score [Aug 2006 - materials,physics]
Cornell physicist J.C. Séamus Davis and colleagues at Tokyo University and AIST Labs, Tsukuba, Japan, have been watching superconductors ever so closely, atom by atom in fact ...

Red rocks date [Aug 2006 - earth]
The radioactive decay of the rust-coloured mineral monazite can help scientists synchronise their geological clocks thanks to work carried out at New York's Vanderbilt University ...

Supernova enigmatic variations [Jul 2006 - astronomy]
It sounds like an alien world from the latest Dr Who plot, but new observations of an X-ray source within the 2,000-year old supernova remnant RCW 103 hint at the presence of a strange kind of magnetar, ...

Ferro enough! [Jul 2006 - physics]
US researchers have found a way to induce switching in nanoscale materials, a discovery could lead the way to new types of memory devices for computer information storage, tiny sensors, and even nano motors to power microelectromechanical (MEMS) systems. ...

Lotus position [Jul 2006 - chemistry]
US chemists celebrated the 4th of July with publication of one of the most sought after materials - one that emulates the incredible water-repellency and pollution-protective nature of the surface of the lotus leaf ...

Wayz to go! [Jun 2006 - materials,physics]
The ultrasound equivalent of a laser could lead to important new discoveries in materials science by providing researchers with a non-destructive way to detect even the subtlest of changes, such as phase transitions deep in their samples ...

Cretaceous greenhouse [Jun 2006 - earth]
Looking at prehistoric climatic change may provide new insights into predicted near-future climate. New results for a greenhouse effect that occurred during the late Cretaceous some 75-90 million years ago ...

The really small print [Jun 2006 - chemistry]
Microscopic printing techniques could be used to make the next generation of electronic components for large-area displays with higher definition and covering much larger areas than currently possible displays ...

Black holes are actually green [May 2006 - astronomy]
The environmental impact of black holes is perhaps a distant and esoteric concept, but US astronomers have used the latest observations of nine black holes with NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory to estimate directly the efficiency of black holes ...

A carbon date with an ancient Greek [May 2006 - earth,materials]
Improvements in archaeological carbon dating techniques and the burnt remains of an old olive tree could lead to an explosive argument and the rewriting of the history books ...

Beating metals [May 2006 - materials]
Ever since the Iron Age, we have known that beating certain metals repeatedly makes them harder, but have not until now understood exactly why. ...


ET on the other hand [Apr 2006 - astronomy, chemistry]
Some molecules exist in handed, or chiral, forms. A left-handed form and a right-handed form. The building blocks of proteins, the amino acids, for instance, are chiral, as too are the proteins they form and even the genetic material, DNA, that codes for the proteins ...

Astronomers explain star birth in alcoholic haze [Apr 2006 - astronomy]
A vast cloud of methyl alcohol, spanning some 463 billion kilometres and wrapped around a stellar nursery could help astronomers explain the formation of some of the most massive stars in our galaxy ...

Global evidence [Apr 2006 - earth]
Irrespective of its cause, the effects of global warming seem to be becoming facts of life. Scientists at the US Geological Survey (USGS) have found evidence in eastern North America that the snow is melting and running off into rivers earlier than it did in the first half of the twentieth century ...

Throwing a stony theory in the greenhouse [Mar 2006 - earth]
A new theory to explain global warming was revealed at a meeting at the University of Leicester ...

Setting store by microporous polymers [Mar 2006 - chemistry]
UK chemists have devised a new approach to the storage of hydrogen gas that could power fuel-cell cars ...

Telescopes see more clearly with artificial star [Mar 2006 - astronomy,physics]
A laser optics system can produce a "guide" star anywhere in the night sky of the southern hemisphere ...

Sliding under [Feb 2006 - earth]
New insights into the differences between the subduction zones where the Earth's tectonic plates slide across each other could aid earthquake prediction ...

Stretching it [Feb 2006 - physics]
A 75 kilometre long optical fibre that can carry a pulse of laser light without loss of power could revolutionise long-distance voice and data transmissions, according to UK researchers ...

The Uber-Pluto [Feb 2006 - astronomy]
New measurements published in the February 2 issue of Nature support claims last year that the planetary membership of our Solar System should be extended to include a tenth that is bigger than Pluto ...

Oceanic extremes [Jan 2006 - earth]
Global warming could quickly disrupt ocean processes and lead to drastic climatological changes around the world, according to the latest study by researchers at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego ...

Magnetic seeds [Jan 2006 - astronomy]
The vast magnetic fields astronomers observe across galaxy clusters and galaxies themselves, but cannot yet explain, may have been seeded by lesser fields that formed in the very early Universe, even before the first atoms existed ...

An elephant's tale [Jan 2006 - chemistry]
Chemical analysis could help elephants and people live more harmoniously in countries such as Kenya where large free-roaming herds can wreak havoc on villages, livestock, and farmed crops ...

Scientific Discoveries in 2007

Scientific Discoveries in 2006

Scientific Discoveries in 2005

Read earlier scientific discoveries...

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