The number of species does not increase evenly when going from local ecosystems to continental scales – a phenomenon ecologists have recognised for decades. Now, an international team of scientists, including researchers from the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) and the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU), has developed a new theory to explain the three distinct phases typical of species distributions across scales. The theory, published in the journal Nature Communications, may be crucial for estimating how many species are lost when habitats are destroyed.

Astronomers have discovered a second long-sought production site of gold, uranium and other heavy elements — and answered a decades-long mystery in the process. The new work shows that such elements are produced not only by supernovae and neutron star collisions, but also by giant flares from highly magnetized neutron stars called magnetars. These enormous flares also create unique gamma-ray signals, one of which was seen 20 years ago that had, until now, defied explanation.

A metasurface-based approach is proposed for single-shot optical imaging that simultaneously captures all the three parameters of optical fields with arbitrary intensity, phase, and polarization distributions.

On Jan. 1, 2024, a 7.5-magnitude earthquake struck the Noto Peninsula in Japan, resulting in extensive damage in the region caused by uplift, when the land rises due to shifting tectonic plates. The observed uplift, however, varied significantly, with some areas experiencing as much as a 5-meter rise of the ground surface. To better understand how the characteristics of the affected fault lines impact earthquake dynamics, researchers in Japan used recently developed simulations to make a detailed model of the fault. The findings could help develop models to simulate scenarios of different earthquakes and mitigate disasters in the future.