A study in Science has put a surprising new contender near the top of the Cretaceous ocean food chain. Researchers studying fossilized jaws from Japan and Canada report that Nanaimoteuthis haggarti, an ancient octopus relative, may have reached about 19 meters in length. The estimate places the animal in the same size range as some…
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A study in Nature Chemical Biology reports that researchers at the University of Bayreuth and the University of Ottawa have transformed inactive artificial protein scaffolds into working enzymes. The team used a computational workflow called CANVAS to add a custom catalytic pocket to minimal protein barrels, creating engineered enzymes that could carry out a benchmark…
Researchers at Texas A&M have tested a dramatic way to improve oil-spill cleanup, controlled fire whirls that burn upward like giant rotating flames. In large-scale field experiments, the team found that these spinning fires can consume crude oil faster and produce less soot than conventional in-situ burning. The work, published in Fuel, points to a…
A study in Frontiers tested three levels of added alkalinity in seawater and found a sharp chemical boundary for a proposed ocean-based carbon removal method. Researchers led by Georgia Southern University reported that high doses can cause calcium carbonate to form solid particles within a day, reducing the benefit the process is meant to deliver.…
