Researchers have made a popular type of dye-sensitized solar cell (aromatic-fused porphyrin) more efficient by adjusting and updating their structure. The team report a series of adaptations with a power conversion efficiency of 10.7%, the highest yet for this kind of dye-sensitized solar cell, the most efficient solar technology available at present.

Current dye-sensitized solar cells are made up of a porous layer of titanium dioxide covered with a molecular dye. As sunlight is taken in, electrons are excited as they pass through, and are collected for power, before being ‘recycled’, reintroduced into the electrolyte and back to the dye molecule...

Finding prompts a rethinking of the icy moon’s subsurface ocean. Researchers have discovered that the yellow color visible on portions of the surface of Jupiter’s moon Europa is actually sodium chloride.

A familiar ingredient has been hiding in plain sight on the surface of Jupiter’s moon Europa...

An artificial nose developed at Tampere University, Finland, helps neurosurgeons to identify cancerous tissue during surgery and enables the more precise excision of tumours.

Electrosurgical resection using devices such as an electric knife or diathermy blade is currently a widely used technique in neurosurgery. When tissue is burned, tissue molecules are dispersed in the form of surgical smoke. In the method developed by researchers at Tampere University, the surgical smoke is fed into a new type of measuring system that can identify malignant tissue and distinguish it from healthy tissue.

An article on using surgical smoke to identify brain tumours was recently published in the Journal of Neurosurgery...

New research suggests most of Earth’s heavy metals were spewed from a largely overlooked kind of star explosion called a collapsar. That gold on your ring finger is stellar – and not just in a complimentary way.

In a finding that may overthrow our understanding of where Earth’s heavy elements such as gold and platinum come from, new research by a University of Guelph physicist suggests that most of them were spewed from a largely overlooked kind of star explosion far away in space and time from our planet.

Some 80 per cent of the heavy elements in the universe likely formed in collapsars, a rare but heavy element-rich form of supernova explosion from the gravitational collapse of old, massive stars typicall...