Tag Archives: oxygen molecule

Freezing Electrons in Flight

Using the world’s fastest laser pulses, which can freeze the ultrafast motion of electrons and atoms, UA physicists have caught the action of molecules breaking apart and electrons getting knocked out of atoms. Their research helps us better understand molecular processes and ultimately be able to control them in many possible applications.

In 1878, a now iconic series of photographs instantly solved a long-standing mystery: Does a galloping horse touch the ground at all times? (It doesn’t.) The images of Eadweard Muybridge taken alongside a racetrack marked the beginning of high-speed photography.

Approximately 134 years later, researchers in the University of Arizona department of physics have solved a similar mystery, one in which super-excited oxygen molecules have replaced the horse, and ultrafast, high-energy laser flashes have replaced Muybridge’s photo emulsion plates. (more…)

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Did Bone Ease Acid for Early Land Crawlers?

In a new paper in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, scientists propose that the bony structures in the skin of many early four-legged creatures might have been there to relieve acid buildup in bodily fluids. Analysis of their anatomy suggests that as they ventured out of water, the animals would have had trouble getting rid of enough CO2 to prevent acid buildup.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Here’s an anatomical packing list for making that historic trip from water to land circa 370 million years ago: Lungs? Check. Legs? Check. Patches of highly vascular bone in the skin? In a new paper, scientists propose why many of the earliest four-legged creatures that dared breathe on land carried bony skin features. (more…)

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