运用纳米结构钛钒氧化物制备的高稳定性正极材料

采用正十二烷胺作为分子模板制备了具有纳米结构的钛钒复合氧化物．将该复合物加热至330℃时,部分分子模板被消除．测试了该氧化物作为锂电池正极材料的性能,发现引入纳米结构极大地提高了材料的充放电稳定性．     

规范场、纽结与引力

20世纪物理学的两个最激动人心的发展是广义相对论与量子力学，后者最终形成了粒子相互作用的“标准模型”。广义相对论研究引力，而标准模型则研究剩下的自然力。不幸的是，这两种理论还没有整合成一个单一连贯的图像，还没有一个考虑到量子理论的引力有效理论。虽然量子化引力促使数学和物理学许多引人入胜的进展，但是在21世纪仍然面临着更大的挑战。     

宇宙中的暗物质

宇宙由什么组成？目前为止，我们还不知道。但是如果标准的引力理论成立，那么宇宙中的大部分物质是由一种无法被发现的形式存在，这些物质发出的光，当今的所有望远镜还不能观测到，这些看不见的物质就是暗物质。     

Prokaryotic cells of the deep sub-seafloor biosphere identified as living bacteria

Chemical analyses of the pore waters from hundreds of deep ocean sediment cores have over decades provided evidence for ongoing processes that require biological catalysis by prokaryotes. This sub-seafloor activity of microorganisms may influence the surface Earth by changing the chemistry of the ocean and by triggering the emission of methane, with consequences for the marine carbon cycle and even the global climate. Despite the fact that only about 1% of the total marine primary production of organic carbon is available for deep-sea microorganisms, sub-seafloor sediments harbour over half of all prokaryotic cells on Earth. This estimation has been calculated from numerous microscopic cell counts in sediment cores of the Ocean Drilling Program. Because these counts cannot differentiate between dead and alive cells, the population size of living microorganisms is unknown. Here, using ribosomal RNA as a target for the technique known as catalysed reporter deposition-fluorescence in situ hybridization (CARD-FISH), we provide direct quantification of live cells as defined by the presence of ribosomes. We show that a large fraction of the sub-seafloor prokaryotes is alive, even in very old (16 million yr) and deep (> 400 m) sediments. All detectable living cells belong to the Bacteria and have turnover times of 0.25-22 yr, comparable to surface sediments.     

拯救动物刻不容缓

物种的衰降及灭绝一直是自然界生物进化的组成部分之一,它体现了优胜劣汰的物竞天择自然规律。但现今的物种灭绝除自然界生物进化因素以外,人类异常干扰因素更堪称是"杀手"、"'元凶"。通过检测海洋无脊椎动物化石样品表明,自然界的物种灭绝现象已持续发生演绎了数百万年之久,每年约有1－3种物种速灭绝厄运。但现今状况则令人颇为吃惊,据科学测算,现今自然界物种的灭绝率为1000种／年以上,占纯天然性物种灭绝率指数的1000倍,这还仅是一种保守估算所得值（按最低保守数估算所得值）。像距今6500万年以前的恐龙遭厄运那样,人类目前已…     

Damage to the shallow Landers fault from the nearby Hector Mine earthquake

Crustal faults have long been identified as sites where localized sliding motion occurs during earthquakes, which allows for the relative motion between adjacent crustal blocks. Although there is a growing awareness that we must understand the evolution of fault systems on many timescales to relate present-day crustal stresses and fault motions to geological structures formed in the past, fault-zone damage and healing have been documented quantitatively in only a few cases. We have been monitoring the healing of damage on the shallow Johnson Valley fault after its rupture in the 1992 magnitude-7.3 Landers earthquake, and here we report that this healing was interrupted in 1999 by the magnitude-7.1 Hector Mine earthquake rupture, which occurred 20-30 km away. The Hector Mine earthquake both strongly shook and permanently strained the Johnson Valley fault, adding damage discernible as a temporary reversal of the healing process. The fault has since resumed the trend of strength recovery that it showed after the Landers earthquake. These observations lead us to speculate that fault damage caused by strong seismic waves may help to explain earthquake clustering and seismicity triggering by shaking, and may be involved in friction reduction during faulting.