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Blog – Page 2046

Prof. Polshettiwar’s group at Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Mumbai has developed a novel “plasmonic reduction catalyst stable in air,” defying the common instability of reduction catalysts in the presence of air. The catalyst merges platinum-doped ruthenium clusters, with “plasmonic black gold.” This black gold efficiently harvests visible light and generates numerous hot spots due to plasmonic coupling, enhancing its catalytic performance.

The team describes their work in a paper published in the journal Nature Communications.

What sets this catalyst apart is its remarkable performance in the semi-hydrogenation of acetylene, an important industrial process. In the presence of excess ethene, and using only illumination without any external heating, the catalyst achieved an ethene production rate of 320 mmol g−1 h−1 with around 90% selectivity. This efficiency surpasses all known plasmonic and traditional thermal catalysts.

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Laser sources operating at the 1.2 μm wavelength band have some unique applications in photodynamic therapy, biomedical diagnosis and oxygen sensing. Additionally, they can be adopted as pump sources for mid-infrared optical parametric generation as well as visible light generation by frequency doubling.

Laser generation at 1.2 μm waveband has been achieved with different solid-state lasers including semiconductor lasers, diamond Raman lasers, and fiber lasers. Among these three types, the fiber laser thanks to its simple structure, good beam quality, and operation flexibility, is a great choice for 1.2 μm waveband laser generation.

Researchers led by Prof. Pu Zhou at National University of Defense Technology (NUDT), China, are interested in a fiber laser at 1.2 μm waveband. Current high power fiber lasers are mostly ytterbium-doped fiber lasers at 1 μm waveband, and the maximum output at 1.2 μm waveband is limited at 10-watt level.

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Evolutionary biologists at Johns Hopkins Medicine report they have combined PET scans of modern pigeons along with studies of dinosaur fossils to help answer an enduring question in biology: How did the brains of birds evolve to enable them to fly?

The answer, they say, appears to be an adaptive increase in the size of the cerebellum in some fossil vertebrates. The cerebellum is a brain region responsible for movement and motor control.

The research findings are published in the Jan. 31 issue of the Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

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How can back-to-back atmospheric rivers impact the economy? This is what a recent study published in Science Advances hopes to address as a team of researchers led by Stanford University investigates the economic toll of back-to-back atmospheric rivers compared to single events. This study holds the potential to help scientists, the public, and city planners better prepare for atmospheric rivers, as they can cause widespread flooding in short periods of time.

For the study, the researchers analyzed data from the Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications, version 2, (MERRA-2) between 1981 and 2021 and computer algorithms to ascertain the economic impact of atmospheric rivers throughout California. The goal was to ascertain how much worse back-to-back atmospheric rivers were compared to single events. The study’s findings discovered that back-to-back atmospheric rivers caused three times greater economic damage than single events, which is also higher when the first atmospheric river exhibits greater strength.

“Our work really shows that we need to consider the likelihood for multiple, back-to-back events for predicting damages, because damage from multiple events could be far worse than from one event alone,” said Dr. Katy Serafin, who is a coastal scientists and assistant professor in the Department of Geography at the University of Florida and a co-author on the study.

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