Newswise: SciNews

Saint Louis University Researchers Uncover Blueprint for More Sustainable Agriculture

Saint Louis University Medical Center — Fri, 09 Oct 2026 18:40:58 EST

In a new study published in Nature, Saint Louis University School of Medicine researchers reveal an entirely unexpected blueprint for how one of the oldest microbes on Earth processes nitrogen to create ammonia, the building block of fertilizer.

Saint Louis University Researchers Uncover Blueprint for More Sustainable Agriculture

Saint Louis University — Fri, 09 Oct 2026 18:40:24 EST

Battery Manufacturing and Recycling Could Go Green With This 'Glue'

University of California San Diego — Fri, 09 Oct 2026 18:40:00 EST

A new battery binder -- the glue that holds together a battery's internal parts -- could simplify both battery manufacturing and recycling by cutting down on toxic ingredients, energy use and waste. Batteries made with the new binder performed just as well as conventional lithium-ion batteries.

Researchers Make 'Molecular Movies' with Powerful X-Rays to Help Advance Therapeutics

SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory — Fri, 09 Oct 2026 18:35:22 EST

Using X-ray free-electron lasers like SLAC's Linac Coherent Light Source, researchers study how enzymes catalyze reactions, which could help them develop drugs and other medical treatments.

Genesis Mission Draws on PNNL Expertise for Five New SI-Driven Projects

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory — Fri, 09 Oct 2026 18:25:21 EST

New Genesis Mission projects aim to solve challenging problems in grid, computing, physics and geothermal energy with PNNL contributions.

American Physical Society honors Argonne scientist and chief communications officer as 2026 fellows

Argonne National Laboratory — Fri, 09 Oct 2026 18:00:07 EST

The American Physical Society, or APS, has elected Argonne scientist Richard Schaller and Argonne Chief Communications Officer Katie Yurkewicz as fellows. The prestigious APS Fellowship is awarded to less than one-half of 1% of the APS' 50,000 members.

Two Brookhaven Lab Physicists Named Fellows of the American Physical Society

Brookhaven National Laboratory — Fri, 09 Oct 2026 12:00:00 EST

Two physicists at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory have been named 2026 Fellows of the American Physical Society (APS). Lijuan Ruan and Xin Qian are being honored for their contributions to the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) and for tracking ghostlike neutrinos, respectively.

No. 1 on TOP500 and HPCG: LineShine Supercomputer Introduces a New Architecture for HPC-AI Converged Scientific Computing

Higher Education Press — Fri, 09 Oct 2026 08:55:02 EST

After nine years, a Chinese supercomputer has returned to the top of the global TOP500 list. In the June 2026 rankings, LineShine, an exascale system deployed at the National Supercomputer Center in Shenzhen, achieved 2.1984 EFlops of sustained HPL performance, becoming the first CPU-only system on the TOP500 list to exceed 2 EFlops in sustained double-precision performance. LineShine also ranked first on the HPCG list with 22.0049 PFlops. While HPL mainly reflects high-precision dense-computing capability, HPCG places greater emphasis on memory access, communication, and sparse-computation performance, which are often closer to the demands of real scientific applications. Together, the two rankings make LineShine an important case for understanding the next generation of supercomputing architecture.

Interview Prep and Media Training for Experts - Best Practices Webinar

Newswise — Fri, 09 Oct 2026 08:45:46 EST

How are PIOs training their speakers before they sit down for an interview? Hear discussion of strategic preparation and best practices for getting them ready to talk to reporters. From landing the story with a good pitch, to the night before the booking, plan ahead to make your expert and your organization shine.

FAU's Alka Sapat Named Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration

Florida Atlantic University — Fri, 09 Oct 2026 08:30:31 EST

Alka Sapat, Ph.D., professor and director of the School of Public Administration within FAU's Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, has been named a 2026 Fellow of the prestigious National Academy of Public Administration, one of the nation's highest honors for scholars and practitioners whose work has made significant and continuing contributions to public administration and public policy.

Tuning Sulfur and Selenium Mix Unlocks Record Solar Hydrogen From Eco-Friendly Quantum Dots

Chinese Academy of Sciences — Fri, 09 Oct 2026 07:35:15 EST

Researchers have discovered that precisely balancing sulfur and selenium in eco-friendly quantum dots can minimize performance-killing atomic defects, unlocking record-breaking efficiency for solar hydrogen production. By fine-tuning the chalcogenide composition in copper-indium-sulfur-selenium quantum dots, the team found that a 1:1 sulfur-to-selenium ratio minimizes crystal lattice distortion and reduces anion vacancies to their lowest level. This structural optimization dramatically improves charge carrier concentration and lifetime, enabling more efficient conversion of sunlight into hydrogen fuel without using toxic heavy metals.

Artificial Intelligence: Language Models That See Every Letter

Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet Muenchen (LMU) — Fri, 09 Oct 2026 07:05:36 EST

Before large language models (LLMs) can process text, they split it into chunks such as words or word fragments. The LLM behind ChatGPT, for example, splits "LMU Munchen" into the three chunks "LM", "U" and "Munchen", so it never directly sees the individual letters in "Munchen".

Cows Can Become Pregnant Even Without Embryonal Interferon Tau

Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet Muenchen (LMU) — Fri, 09 Oct 2026 06:50:39 EST

For decades, scientists have believed that a protein called interferon tau (IFNT) is indispensable for pregnancy in cattle. Produced by the early embryo, it was thought to signal its presence to the mother and prevent the hormonal changes that would otherwise end the pregnancy.

A TADF Additive Boosts Polymer Solar Cells Past 20% Efficiency in Layer-by-Layer Processing

Chinese Academy of Sciences — Fri, 09 Oct 2026 06:10:16 EST

A thermally activated delayed fluorescence (TADF) solid additive has been incorporated into the layer-by-layer (LBL) fabrication of polymer solar cells (PSCs), simultaneously optimizing nanoscale morphology and suppressing non-radiative recombination. The resulting devices achieved a power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 20.18%, with an open-circuit voltage (V_OC) of 0.915 V, a short-circuit current density (J_SC) of 27.05 mA/cm², and a fill factor (FF) of 81.53%. This synergistic strategy, which combines TADF photophysics with LBL processing, offers a reproducible route to high-performance organic photovoltaics (OPVs).

When AI Chatbots Give Bad Advice, No One Can See the Damage

Binghamton University, State University of New York — Fri, 09 Oct 2026 05:00:00 EST

As more and more people turn to AI chatbots for quick, 24/7 medical advice, a new perspective paper co-authored by faculty at Binghamton University, State University of New York explores the risks this practice carries that are largely invisible to users - and healthcare systems.

The Story Behind the Butterfly's Enhanced Visual World of Color

University of California San Diego — Thu, 08 Oct 2026 20:10:01 EST

UC San Diego biologists have unraveled the genetic adaptation that gave butterflies the ability to see rich, vivid color in their environment. The genetic change produces an additional photoreceptor that expands color vision for locating nectar and other butterflies.

Cosmic Cocktail: Exotic Methanol Discovered in Planet-Building Zones

National Radio Astronomy Observatory — Thu, 08 Oct 2026 20:05:35 EST

An international team of astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), of which the U.S. National Science Foundation National Radio Astronomy Observatory is a partner (NSF NRAO), has combined expertise from across the globe to open a new window on how the organic molecules that seed planets, and potentially life, form in space.

Phenomenex Introduces Strata-Mag RP to Enable Automated LC-MS/MS Sample Preparation at Scale

Phenomenex — Thu, 08 Oct 2026 19:40:15 EST

Phenomenex Inc., a Danaher Company and a global leader in the research and manufacture of advanced technologies for the separation sciences, today announced the launch of Strata-Mag RP, a magnetic bead-based extraction technology designed to help clinical research laboratories automate and standardize sample preparation for LC-MS/MS workflows for improved efficiency, performance and scale.

Webb Measures Distance to Farthest Fast Radio Burst, Suggesting Origin

Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) — Thu, 08 Oct 2026 19:25:48 EST

What mysterious phenomenon is capable of creating a millisecond-long blast of radio waves so powerful that we can detect it from billions of light-years away? The origin of such events, known as fast radio bursts (FRBs), remains uncertain. A recently discovered FRB contains a clue. The most distant one found to date, its host galaxy proved surprisingly small and young. This suggests that there is little delay between when galaxies form stars and when they become capable of generating FRBs. This indicates FRBs likely are caused by young neutron stars known as magnetars. Only the James Webb Space Telescope was able to detect and characterize the host galaxy, determining both its distance and its size.

Jefferson Lab Moves Forward on Genesis Mission Phase II Projects

Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility — Thu, 08 Oct 2026 19:25:34 EST

Jefferson Lab staff members partner on two Genesis Mission Phase II projects: the Lattice QCD at the Intelligence Frontier project will aid in the interpretation of a new generation of experiments and theory in high-energy and nuclear physics, increasing our understanding of the basic structure of the universe and the Multi-Office Accelerator Team Core (MOAT-Core) project will greatly expand SI-enabled capabilities for particle accelerator operations, connecting advanced SI-powered reasoning models with conventional accelerator tools through a shared platform to help optimize performance for accelerators and the experiments, industrial uses, manufacturing, and medical applications they enable.

A Temporary Melting Liquid Could Help Build Better Perovskite Solar Cells and LEDs

University of California San Diego — Thu, 08 Oct 2026 19:25:01 EST

Researchers developed a new way to make perovskite solar cells -- a promising next-generation solar technology -- more efficient and durable. Their crystallization technique produced more uniform perovskites with fewer defects, which boosted the performance of lab-made solar cells and LEDs.

Super Intelligence for Particle Accelerators Gets Another Boost

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory — Thu, 08 Oct 2026 19:15:57 EST

DOE's Genesis Mission has awarded Phase II funding to the Multi-Office Accelerator Team (MOAT) to deploy their Super Intelligence (SI) assistant at additional facilities across the United States. MOAT will also expand their SI tool from accelerator operations to accelerator design and digital twins.

African Gemsbok Spreading in New Mexico: How Far Could They Go Under Climate Change?

Thu, 08 Oct 2026 19:15:37 EST

A new University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign study shows suitable habitat for exotic gemsbok could expand under climate change from the animals' current range in New Mexico well into surrounding states.

New Building Blocks Expand Functions of Photonic Chips

Washington University in St. Louis — Thu, 08 Oct 2026 19:10:18 EST

WashU researchers are expanding what photonic chips can do by adding ultrathin crystalline materials as "photonic Legos."

DOE Announces Science Applications for Quantum Computing

Department of Energy, Office of Science — Thu, 08 Oct 2026 19:05:39 EST

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today announced the release of Quantum Genesis Priority Applications (QGPAs), a set of eight key scientific utility problems that will guide the Quantum Genesis's goal of developing fault-tolerant scientifically relevant quantum computers. This effort directly supports the goals outlined in President Trump's Executive Order Ushering in the Next Frontier of Quantum Innovation and builds on the recommendations made in the Blueprint for DOE Quantum Supercomputing and the Office of Science Advisory Committee's Quantum Report.