Researchers have discovered how bacteria break through spaces barely larger than themselves, by wrapping their flagella around their bodies and moving forward. Using a microfluidic device that mimics insect gut channels, the team revealed a remarkable "flagellar wrapping" motion that lets symbiotic bacteria pass through 1-micrometer-wide tunnels. Genetic manipulation and mathematical calculation showed that the flexibility of a tiny joint in the flagellum, called the hook, is crucial for this screw-like movement and even determines whether the bacteria can successfully infect their insect hosts. [...]
Global food trade is essential for food security, but its ecological consequences often remain unseen. A new data paper published in One Ecosystem introduces a global long-term dataset, quantifying biodiversity loss embodied in the international trade of staple food crops. As such, this dataset offers a novel perspective on how food trade redistributes environmental pressures worldwide. [...]
Quantum computers, systems that process information leveraging quantum mechanical effects, will require faster and energy-efficient memory components, which will allow them to perform well on complex tasks. Superconducting memories are promising memory devices that are made from superconductors, materials that conduct electricity with a resistance of zero when cooled below a critical temperature. [...]
Millions of years of isolation have shaped Australia's extraordinary mammal fauna into species unlike anywhere else in the world, from platypus to koalas and wombats. Tragically, Australia is the world leader in mammal extinctions. [...]
Iron is an essential trace element in biological cells. The concentration of the element and its so-called redox state—it can exist either in a doubly ionized state as iron (II) (Fe2+) or a triply ionized state as iron (III) (Fe3+)—play a key role in metabolic processes such as cellular respiration and in microbial stress responses. [...]
A new study of climate extremes since 1988 finds that many regions have seen increases in deaths due to floods, storms and extreme temperatures. In human terms, the harm comes not just from deaths, but also from lost labor and property damage. (And this doesn't consider damage to species and ecosystems.) A new look at trends and outliers has been published in Geophysical Research Letters. [...]
The tragic events in the Bay of Plenty this week are a stark reminder that landslides remain the deadliest of the many natural hazards New Zealand faces. A large landslide swept through the Mount Maunganui Beachside Holiday Park at the base of Mauao, triggering a major rescue and recovery operation that will continue through the weekend. [...]
Deep-ultraviolet (DUV, λ < 200 nm) all-solid-state lasers, essential to modern scientific research and industrial manufacturing, are widely applied in fields from material analysis to lithography. Their commercialization depends heavily on high-performance nonlinear optical (NLO) crystals, but developing such crystals is hampered by strict requirements: They must simultaneously possess large second harmonic generation (SHG) responses, moderate birefringence, and wide bandgaps. [...]
In recent years, revelations of unethical horse handling at elite levels of horsesport have drawn attention to an uncomfortable question: Do we really understand how our horses are feeling? According to Norwegian and Swedish researchers in the project HorseVoice, the answer is often no. [...]
Air pollution is now recognized as one of the greatest threats to human health, contributing to an estimated 4.2 million premature deaths in 2019, according to the World Health Organization. [...]
Soybean farmers around the world face a persistent and costly enemy hidden beneath the soil: soybean cyst nematode (SCN), a microscopic roundworm that attacks plant roots and drains yields. SCN is one of the most damaging pests affecting soybean production globally, resulting in significant losses every year. [...]
What do Thomas Edison and 2010 Nobel Prize in physics winners Konstantin Novoselov and Andre Geim have in common? According to a recent publication from the lab of Rice University's James Tour in ACS Nano, it could be graphene—an answer that might have confused Edison, who died almost 20 years before physicist P.R. Wallace proposed such a substance could exist and nearly 80 years before Novoselov and Geim were awarded a Nobel Prize for isolating and characterizing it. [...]
Over Christmas, vegetables, bananas and insulation foam washed up on beaches along England's southeast coast. They were from 16 containers spilled by the cargo ship Baltic Klipper in rough seas. In the new year, a further 24 containers fell from two vessels during Storm Goretti, with chips and onions among the goods appearing on the Sussex shoreline. [...]
Researchers investigating the effectiveness of outdoor ads promoting climate change awareness and action found that a general message of climate emergency awareness received more QR code scans compared to a more-specific campaign focusing on sustainable fashion, according to a study published in PLOS Climate by Maxwell Boykoff from the University of Colorado Boulder, U.S., and colleagues. [...]
What kinds of marketing messages are effective—and what makes people believe certain political slogans more than others? New research from the University of California San Diego Rady School of Management explores how people constantly evaluate whether messages are true or false and finds that a surprisingly small ingredient—whether a word has an easy opposite—can shape how confident people feel when deciding whether a message is true. [...]
A newly published Perspective article in Nature Nanotechnology details groundbreaking nanoparticle technology to eliminate harmful, disease-causing proteins in the body. The technology marks a transformative leap in the potential to drug "undruggable" proteins, to treat diseases such as dementia and brain cancer. [...]
Life in the ocean runs on light. It fuels photosynthesis, shapes food webs and determines where many marine species can live. [...]
The atmosphere is an important transport medium that carries microplastics to even the most remote parts of the world. These microplastics can be inhaled and pose a health risk to humans and animals. They can also settle out of the atmosphere and contaminate oceans and soils worldwide. [...]
A study by CUNY SPH researchers suggests that U.S. high school students who are bullied at school have substantially higher odds of attempting suicide than peers who are not bullied, with bullied girls facing the greatest risk. [...]
Plastic pollution is one of those problems everyone can see, yet few know how to tackle it effectively. I grew up walking the beaches around Tramore in County Waterford, Ireland, where plastic debris has always been part of the coastline, including bottles, fragments of fishing gear and food packaging. [...]
When we think of the world's oldest art, Europe usually comes to mind, with famous cave paintings in France and Spain often seen as evidence this was the birthplace of symbolic human culture. But new evidence from Indonesia dramatically reshapes this picture. [...]
Information that we select for ourselves, such as things we click online, has a stronger impact than passively acquired information on our perception of truth and falsehood. [...]
In the modern workplace, flexible arrangements can be as important as salary for some. For many employees, flexibility is no longer a nice-to-have luxury. It has become a fundamental requirement for staying in the workforce, especially after COVID. [...]
A unique study exploring popular ways to "self‑gift" has found that ordering a takeout meal is a preferred treat regardless of whether people have had a good or a bad day at work. [...]
In a new study Indiana University researchers observed episodic memory in rats to a degree never documented before, suggesting that rats can serve as a model for complex cognitive processes often considered exclusively human. Unlike semantic memory, which involves isolated facts, episodic memory involves replaying events in the order and context in which they occurred. [...]
A new three-way bond-breaking and making mechanism makes the synthesis of five-membered rings easier than before. [...]
Organic chemistry is packed with rules about structure and reactivity, especially when it comes to making and breaking chemical bonds. The rules governing how these bonds, which hold atoms together in molecules, form and the shapes they give molecules are often thought to be absolute, but UCLA organic chemists are pushing the boundaries of the possible. [...]
Skoltech researchers and their colleagues from Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Germany, Nanjing University of China, and the National Institute for Materials Science of Japan have developed a method for depositing organic molecules on a two-dimensional semiconductor in a highly controlled manner. In this proof-of-concept study, the technique uses self-assembled DNA origami nanostructures to carry organic dye molecules in a predefined pattern covered by a 2D semiconductor. [...]
Ancient pine trees growing in the Iberian mountains of eastern Spain have quietly recorded more than five centuries of Mediterranean weather. Now, by reading the annual growth rings preserved in their wood, scientists have uncovered a striking message: today's storms and droughts are becoming more intense and more frequent than almost anything the region has experienced since the early 1500s. [...]
Predicting the duration of a Central Pacific El Niño event has long frustrated climate scientists and forecasters. Now, a new study reveals that Central Pacific El Niños follow two fundamentally different life cycles—and the difference is determined months before they peak. [...]
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