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Enzo di Fabrizio and his team have developed a new technique to produce a direct image of the DNA helix and its inner structure. This is the first time scientists have ever been able to produce an image of DNA that allows a direct visual evaluation of quantitative and qualitative characteristics of the building blocks of life.

Mismanagement of discarded electronics within Europe involves a volume 10 times that of e-waste shipped to foreign shores in undocumented exports, according to a comprehensive 2-year investigation into the functioning of the used and waste electronics market.

Longer, more severe, and hotter droughts and a myriad of other threats, including diseases and more extensive and severe wildfires, are threatening to transform some of the world’s temperate forests, a new study published in Science has found. Without informed management, some forests could convert to shrublands or grasslands within the coming decades.

A new method of manufacturing glass could lead to the production of ‘designer glasses’ with applications in advanced photonics, whilst also facilitating industrial scale carbon capture and storage. An international team of researchers, writing today in the journal Nature Communications, report how they have managed to use a relatively new family of sponge-like porous materials to develop new hybrid glasses.

A new study conducted by the Media Insight Project, a collaboration between the American Press Institute and The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, found that while the similarities to the rest of their generation are numerous, there are some distinct differences in the way that Hispanic and African American Millennials use technology to access news and information. The source of their information is one area of difference: these young adults are more likely to use YouTube and Instagram for news than Millennials in general, though all groups rely heavily on Facebook.

(Phys.org)—A small team of researchers with members from The Netherlands Institute of Ecology, the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology and Wageningen University has found that wild great tits living under street lights that emit white light have higher than normal amounts of the stress hormone corticosterone in their blood. In their paper published in Royal Society – Biology Letters, the group describes the field studies they carried out, what they learned and offer suggestions for ways to protect wildlife from the damaging impact of light pollution.

Researchers at the Universitat Jaume I in Spain have developed materials based on graphene that can catalyse reactions for the conversion and storage of energy. The technology patented by the UJI combines graphene and organometallic compounds in a single material without altering the most interesting properties of graphene, such as its electrical conductivity.

Lecithin is an ingredient that you’ve probably never heard of, but one that plays a vital role in the production of chocolate and many other foods. It’s never been clear how this ingredient works on a molecular level, and confectioners have relied on observational methods – essentially trial and error – to perfect their recipes.

Being able to effectively tune the electron-transport properties of a single-molecule has been a long-standing issue towards the crystallization of molecular electronics, where individual molecules mimic the behavior of common electronic components as a true alternative to conventional silicon devices. To functionalize electron transport properties, each and every individual molecule must be precisely aligned in place with sub-nanometer precision.

A NASA-funded sounding rocket is getting ready to launch to give insight into one of the biggest mysteries in solar physics—the fact the sun’s atmosphere is some 1,000 times hotter than its surface. The mission, developed by scientists and students at Montana State University in Bozeman, Montana, will make a 15-minute journey into space on a Black Brant IX suborbital sounding rocket.