Phys.org

For decades, the ability to visualize the chemical composition of materials, whether for diagnosing a disease, assessing food quality, or analyzing pollution, depended on large, expensive laboratory instruments called spectrometers. These devices work by taking light, spreading it out into a rainbow using a prism or grating, and measuring the intensity of each color. The problem is that spreading light requires a long physical path, making the device inherently bulky.

When the six tiny spacecraft of NASA's SunRISE (Sun Radio Interferometer Space Experiment) mission settle into their orbits high above Earth after launching later this year, they'll function as one giant radio dish to track the rumbles of radio bursts coming from deep within the sun's atmosphere, or corona. Those bursts are generated by solar energetic particle events that could, in extreme cases, irradiate unprotected astronauts and satellites; tracking the radio waves they generate with SunRISE will help scientists mitigate their effects.

One of the major challenges facing the agricultural sector is reserving the post-harvest quality of fruits. Significant economic losses can be caused by rapid ripening and deterioration in tropical fruits, such as bananas, which are among the world's most important staple crops. Bananas are highly prone to spoilage during transportation, storage, and marketing because of their high sensitivity to post-harvest degradation.

New UBC Okanagan research shows that wildfire can change how much water remains in streams during the driest months of the year.

For more than a decade, local and state laws have been increasingly focused on providing more protection and agency to workers fighting wage theft, according to new data published on LawAtlas.org and analysis in a new article in the American Journal of Public Health.

Today, as Greenland once again becomes a strategic prize, history seems poised to repeat itself. Staying with the Polar Inuit means refusing to speak of territory while erasing those who inhabit it.

In early January, a giant sinkhole formed at an intersection in the West Oak Lane neighborhood of North Philadelphia after a water main break. Just two weeks earlier, the city reopened a section of the Schuylkill River Trail in Center City that had been shut down for two months due to a sinkhole. Last summer, some residents of Point Breeze in South Philly also waited two months for a sinkhole on their block to be repaired.

The ocean is continuously ventilated when surface waters sink and transport, for example, oxygen and carbon to greater depths. The efficiency of this process can be estimated using the so-called water age, which describes the time elapsed since a water mass last was in contact with the atmosphere.

Pūkeko use sound elements to create calls and combine them to create complex call sequences in order to expand the range of options for expressing themselves—these are the findings of an international team including Konstanz researchers. Until now, this behavior had only been known in vocal learning animals, such as primates, whales or songbirds.

A new analysis of air quality data from the past 70 years shows that Canada's record wildfire smoke in 2023 is part of a broader, continent-wide trend toward smokier skies across North America.

Light is a universal stimulus that influences all living things. Cycles of light and dark help set the biological clocks for organisms ranging from single-celled bacteria to human beings. Some bacteria use photosynthesis to convert sunlight into energy just like plants, but other bacteria sense light for less well-known functions.