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Categories: Chemistry: Thermodynamics, Offbeat: Earth and Climate

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A polymer-based electrolyte makes for batteries that keep working -- and don't catch fire -- when heated to over 140 degrees F.

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Dinosaurs dominated the world right up until a deadly asteroid hit the earth, leading to their mass extinction, some 66 million years ago, a landmark study reveals. Fresh insights into dinosaurs' ecosystems -- the habitats and food types that supported their lives -- suggests that their environments were robust and thriving, right up until that fateful day, at the end of the Cretaceous period.

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New research, based on two decades' worth of data, shows that in the ten years after its onset in 2000, the Southwestern North American (SWNA) megadrought caused a 30% change in gravity wave activity in Earth's upper atmosphere.

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Experimental physicists growing icicles are closer to understanding why some form with ripples up and down their outsides, while others form with smooth, slick, even surfaces. By growing icicles from water samples with different contaminants like sodium chloride (salt), dextrose (sugar) and fluorescent dye, they discovered that water impurities become entrapped within icicles as they form and subsequently create chevron patterns that contribute to a ripple effect around their circumferences.

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As a result of climate change, over one-fifth of the UK may have suitable weather by mid-Century to grow Chardonnay grapes for still wines, according to new research.

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Up to 78% of walkers would take a more challenging route featuring obstacles such as balancing beams, stepping stones and high steps, research has found. The findings suggest that providing 'Active Landscape' routes in urban areas could help tackle an 'inactivity pandemic' and improve health outcomes.

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A specimen retrieved from a cupboard of the Natural History Museum in London has shown that modern lizards originated in the Late Triassic and not the Middle Jurassic as previously thought.

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A plant common to Japan, Causonis japonica, is the first to show a newly discovered trait. Its flowers can change color depending on the stage of its maturation cycle, and then change back to its original color. Although many flowers have been shown to change color depending on their maturation phase, Causonis japonica is the only known example of bidirectional color change. The pigments involved in the colors are related to nutrient-rich colorful vegetables, so understanding the flowers' color-changing tricks could have downstream applications in improving nutrient yields in certain food crops.

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Researchers have discovered a way to chemically recycle PVC into usable material, finding a way to use the phthalates in the plasticizers -- one of PVC's most noxious components -- as the mediator for the chemical reaction.

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Fossilized fragments of a skeleton, hidden within a rock the size of a grapefruit, have helped upend one of the longest-standing assumptions about the origins of modern birds.

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Thermally conductive polymer composites consist of fillers oriented in certain directions that form pathways for heat flow. However, conventional methods to control the orientation of these fillers are energy-intensive and require surface modifications that can deteriorate the quality and properties of these materials. Now, researchers have developed an energy-efficient method to control the orientation of the fillers without the need for surface modification, resulting in improvement in thermal conductivity.

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Scientists have devised a transparent coating for windows that could help cool the room, use no energy and preserve the view.

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Too much sun and too much heat can reduce the efficiency of photovoltaics. A solar farm with optimally spaced panels facing the correct direction could cool itself through convection using the surrounding wind. Researchers explored how to exploit the geometry of solar farms to enhance natural cooling mechanisms.

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A research team has developed a microelectromechanical system (MEMS) piezoelectric vibration energy harvester, which is only about 2 cm in diameter with a U-shaped metal vibration amplification component. The device allows for an increase of approximately 90 times in the power generation performance from impulsive vibration. Since the power generation performance can be improved without increasing the device size, the technology is expected to generate power to drive small wearable devices from non-steady vibrations, such as walking motion.

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Researchers have devised a method to transform post-consumer mixed plastics that wash up on beaches into a variety of valuable products.

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Researchers have found that boron arsenide, which has already been viewed as a highly promising material for heat management and advanced electronics, also has a unique property. After reaching an extremely high pressure that is hundreds of times greater than the pressure found at the bottom of the ocean, boron arsenide's thermal conductivity actually begins to decrease. The results suggest that there might be other materials experiencing the same phenomenon under extreme conditions.

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The system regulates its own temperature in response to environmental disturbances.

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Researchers have discovered and characterized a DNA sequence found in jawed vertebrates, such as sharks and humans, but absent in jawless vertebrates, such as lampreys. This DNA is important for the shaping of the joint surfaces during embryo development.

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Whatcheeria, a six-foot-long salamander-like creature that lived 340 million years ago, was the T. rex of its time: the biggest, baddest predator in its habitat. A new study reveals how they grew to their 'giant' size: instead of growing slow and steady throughout their lives like many modern reptiles and amphibians, they did most of their growing when they were young.

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A nanoscale view of bubble formation: Using computer simulation, a research team succeeded in modeling the behavior of molecules at the liquid -- gas interface at the nanometer scale, enabling them to describe the boiling process with extreme precision. The findings could be applied to future cooling systems for microprocessors, or to the production of carbon-neutral hydrogen, known as green hydrogen.