crystal

To better understand how these crystals gather charge, she works with model aerosols made from very small, transparent silica spheres.

Archaeologists have recovered thousands of clay-fired cooking balls and materials brought from faraway regions, such as quartz crystal from Arkansas, soapstone from the Atlanta area, and copper ornaments originating near the Great Lakes.

In a separate study in Cell Reports, the team mapped the crystal structure of another group of proteins that is essential in tuft cell lung cancer.

The other involves small magnetite crystals within the body that shift in response to magnetic forces, which would allow the animal to feel the field.

"We take advantage of a synthetic effective field that arises when a terahertz pulse drives ions in the crystal lattice in circles," explains lead author Zhiyang Zeng.