ScienceDaily: Matter & Energy News

New research has big implications for genomic medicine. Scientists have defined with atomic precision a new genome editing tool that is less than half the size of CRISPR-Cas9 -- currently the most reliable genome editing system. This new tool would allow scientists to fit genetic editors into smaller viral delivery systems to fix a variety of diseases.

Tie-dyeing is a fun activity that can spice up clothes with colorful patterns. Although kits are available in stores, nature provides dyes that can be extracted from items found in one's yard -- for example, acorns and rust. Researchers now present a 'green' process for tie-dyeing cotton with renewable resources and wastes that undergraduate students can easily do under minimal supervision. The activity links together science, art and sustainability.

Recently conducted tests used new algorithms to outperform state-of-the-art programming for autonomous underwater sonar imaging, significantly improving the speed and accuracy for identifying objects such as explosive mines, sunken ships, airplane black boxes, pipelines and corrosion on ship hulls.

A recently developed catalyst for breaking down plastics continues to advance plastic upcycling processes. In 2020, scientists developed the first processive inorganic catalyst to deconstruct polyolefin plastics into molecules that can be used to create more valuable products. Now, the team has developed and validated a strategy to speed up the transformation without sacrificing desirable products.

The percentage of water in arc volcanoes, which form above subduction zones, may be far more than many previous studies have calculated. This increased amount of water has broad implications for understanding how Earth's lower crust forms, how magma erupts through the crust, and how economically important mineral ore deposits form, according to a new article.

Researchers are using light in novel ways to better image biological samples.

Particle accelerators have helped researcher to draw new leading limits on the existence of magnetic monopoles from the collisions of energetic cosmic rays bombarding the Earth's atmosphere.

A team of researchers has built a better system to quickly produce high-resolution 3D images in real time, providing a quantitative analysis of organoids.

Chemists have processed waste plastic from end-of-life trucks into graphene for composite materials in new vehicles.

Researchers have demonstrated the benefits of a new non-radioactive, neutral negative staining reagent by imaging viruses at nanometer-scale. The salt-presenting reagent is a structurally stable and neutral molecule with a longer shelf life and less procurement restrictions than the conventionally used reagent, uranyl acetate.

The top ten per cent most valuable homes in the western United States are 70% more likely to be in high wildfire hazard areas than median-value properties, according to a new study.

Researchers propose a process for improving the accuracy of acoustic positioning in shallow water using a mathematical method for removing the reflected waves. This work may lead to the safer navigation of submarines and divers in ports and other narrow waters.