Press Releases

A team led by Carnegie researcher Wenge Yang has made a major breakthrough in measuring the structure of nanomaterials under extremely high pressures. They developed a new way to get around the severe distortions of high-energy X-ray beams that are used to image the structure of a gold nanocrystal. The technique could lead to advancements of new nanomaterials created under high pressures and a greater understanding of what is happening in planetary interiors.

A research team, led by Carnegie’s Anna Michalak, has determined that the 2011 record-breaking algal bloom in Lake Erie was triggered by long-term agricultural practices coupled with extreme precipitation, followed by weak lake circulation and warm temperatures. The team also predicts that, unless agricultural policies change, the lake will continue to experience extreme blooms.

It has long been believed that male lions are dependent on females when it comes to hunting. But new evidence suggests that male lions are, in fact, very successful hunters in their own right. A new report from a team including Carnegie's Scott Loarie and Greg Asner shows that male lions use dense savanna vegetation for ambush-style hunting in Africa.

Using information gathered from several telescopes, a team of astronomers, including Carnegie’s Eric Murphy, searched the sky for very rarely seen dusty starburst galaxies, formed soon after the Big Bang. These galaxies are characterized by an unusually high rate of star formation. They are much more abundant in the early Universe than previously thought. Two of those identified are among the oldest ever found, indicating that these dusty starbursts likely evolve into the most massive galaxies ever observed in the local Universe.