The timing and duration of the Last Interglacial period have been controversial, with some studies suggesting a relatively short duration that is orbitally forced and others suggesting a long duration that is at most only partly related to orbital forcing. New, high-precison thermal ionization mass spectrometric (TIMS) U-series ages of Last Interglacial corals from Hawaii and Bermuda test these...

The synthesis of SmCl3(THF)3 from SmCl3.6H2O is described. The reaction of SmCl3(THF)3 with NaBH4 in dry THF gave white microcrystalline tris (tetrahydroborato) tris (tetrahydrofuran) samarium (III), Sm(BH4)3(THF)3. The vibrational and magnetic properties of Sm(BH4)3...

Naturally occurring microbes perform a variety of useful functions, with more complex processes requiring multiple functions performed by communities of multiple microbes. Synthetic biology via genetic engineering may be used to achieve desired multiple functions, e.g. multistep chemical and biological transformations, by adding genes to a single organism, but this is sometimes not possible due...