Each year, the world loses about 10 million hectares of forest—an area about the size of Iceland—because of deforestation. At that rate, some scientists predict the world's forests could disappear in 100 to 200 years. [...]
While calcifying organisms like oysters and corals have difficulty forming their shells and skeletons in more acidic seawater, diatoms have been considered less susceptible to the effects of ocean acidification—a chemical change triggered by the uptake of carbon dioxide (CO2). The globally widespread tiny diatoms use silica, a compound of silicon, oxygen and hydrogen, as a building material for their shells. That diatoms are nevertheless under threat has now been demonstrated for the first time by researchers from GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel, the Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences Limited New Zealand and the University of Tasmania in a study published in Nature. For the study, researchers linked an overarching analysis of various data sources with Earth system modeling. The findings provide a new assessment of the global impact of ocean acidification. [...]
Traditional acousto-optic (AO) devices based on bulk crystal materials have weak energy confinement abilities for both photons and phonons, leading to a low AO interaction strength. Compared with bulk materials, photonic integrated circuits (PICs) allow surface acoustic waves (SAWs) to be well confined within the thin film used to disturb the guided light waves, exhibiting a high energy overlap within the wavelength scale. [...]
Humble potatoes are a rich source not only of dietary carbohydrates for humans, but also of starches for numerous industrial applications. Texas A&M AgriLife scientists are learning how to alter the ratio of potatoes' two starch molecules—amylose and amylopectin—to increase both culinary and industrial applications. [...]
Escaping imminent danger is essential for survival. Animals must learn a new environment fast enough for them to be able to choose the shortest route to safety. But how do they do this without ever having experienced threat in the new environment? [...]
Since NASA's Perseverance rover landed on Mars, its two microphones have recorded hours of audio that provide valuable information about the Martian atmosphere. [...]
In 2020, a commentary published in Cell urged the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to address long-standing funding disparities between Black and white researchers. According to a 2011 study, Black applicants were 10 percentage points less likely to receive NIH funding than white applicants. A feature article in Chemical & Engineering News, an independent news outlet of the American Chemical Society, explores why these racial disparities persist in NIH funding and outlines potential solutions. [...]
Over the past two decades, researchers have used big data and machine learning (ML) methods to provide insight relevant for equity valuation. Many of these studies either use or inform on accounting variables. In a paper published in KeAi's The Journal of Finance and Data Science, Doron Nissim, a Professor of Accounting at Columbia Business School in the U.S., has reviewed a selection of these studies and identified several crucial areas that have received relatively little research attention to date. In the review, Professor Nissim elaborates on two of these: (1) the use of big data and ML methods to measure intangible assets; and (2) the incorporation of economic, financial and accounting structure in implementing ML algorithms. [...]
A nanoparticle vaccine that combines two proteins that induce immune responses against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the virus that has caused the global pandemic, has the potential to be developed into broader and safe SARS-CoV-2 vaccines, according to researchers in the Institute for Biomedical Sciences at Georgia State University. [...]
When we look out into space, all of the astrophysical objects that we see are embedded in magnetic fields. This is true not only in the neighborhood of stars and planets, but also in the deep space between galaxies and galactic clusters. These fields are weak—typically much weaker than those of a refrigerator magnet—but they are dynamically significant in the sense that they have profound effects on the dynamics of the universe. Despite decades of intense interest and research, the origin of these cosmic magnetic fields remains one of the most profound mysteries in cosmology. [...]
A new study shows how the brains of Egyptian fruit bats are highly specialized for echolocation and flight, with motor areas of the cerebral cortex that are dedicated to sonar production and wing control. The work by researchers at UC Davis and UC Berkeley was published May 25 in Current Biology. [...]
Our family origins tend to shape our future in many ways. A Weizmann Institute of Science study, published today in Nature, found that the same holds true for blood vessels. The researchers discovered blood vessels forming from unexpected progenitors and went on to show that this unusual origin determines the vessels' future function. [...]
Most people carry the fungus Candida albicans on their bodies without it causing many problems. However, a systemic infection with this fungus is dangerous and difficult to treat. Few antimicrobials are effective, and drug resistance is increasing. An international group of scientists, including Albert Guskov, associate professor at the University of Groningen, have used single-particle cryogenic electron microscopy to determine the structure of the fungal ribosome. Their results, which were published in Science Advances on 25 May, reveal a potential target for new drugs. [...]
The study of superconductivity is littered with disappointments, dead ends, and serendipitous discoveries, according to Antia Botana, professor of physics at Arizona State University. [...]
In a paper recently published in Methods in Ecology and Evolution, researchers in the Conservation Forensics Lab at The University of Hong Kong have outlined a powerful new tool for monitoring trade of rare and endangered fish species in Hong Kong wet markets. Using environmental DNA (eDNA) present in the drain runoff water of fish markets, researchers were able to extract and sequence enough DNA to identify over 100 species of fish that had passed through the market. [...]
Climate change gives rise to more unstable weather, local droughts and extreme temperature records, but a coherent theory relating local and global climate is still under active development. Now a Danish astrophysics student at the Niels Bohr Institute used a mathematical approach to unveil how global temperature increase engenders locally unstable weather on Earth. [...]
A new communication system has been developed to exchange symmetric keys between parties in order to encrypt messages so that they cannot be read by third parties. In cooperation with Deutsche Telekom, researchers led by physics professor Thomas Walther succeeded in operating a quantum network that is scalable in terms of the number of users and at the same time robust without the need for trusted nodes. In the future, such systems could protect critical infrastructure from the growing danger of cyberattacks. In addition, tap-proof connections could be installed between different government sites in larger cities. [...]
A healthy coral reef is loud. Like a busy city, the infrastructure leads to more organisms and activity, and more background noise. Every time an invertebrate drags their hard shell over the coral, or a fish takes a bite of its food, they add to the soundscape. [...]
Infrasound waves can probe some of the most complex weather patterns hidden to normal observations, but finding a powerful enough source of infrasound waves can be a challenge unless there is a munitions factory nearby. [...]
Smallholders are the main body of China's agricultural producers, numbering about 203 million, accounting for 98% of all kinds of agricultural production enterprises. They often invest excess resources in the production process, and the efficiency of their resource utilization is low, resulting in serious environmental impacts, such as air pollution, soil degradation, eutrophication, and resource scarcity. [...]
The thymus is a crucial organ of the immune system. In the thymus, the well-known T cells mature: As killer cells, they recognize and destroy virus-infected or malignant cells, and as so-called helper T cells they assist the body in antibody formation. In the last decades, Thomas Boehm's research group at the Max Planck Institute of Immunobiology and Epigenetics in Freiburg has identified the genetic switches required for T cell maturation in the thymus. [...]
About 29 percent of the United States' population live in coastline counties—more than 41 million are in Atlantic counties. This high population density poses a critical challenge to sustainable developments in coastal areas. [...]
Alleviating the urban heat-island effect through regulating urban landscape can improve human thermal comfort and living environment in urban residential areas. However, most previous studies focused on the single environmental factor of temperature, ignoring the actual human feeling of thermal comfort, which is affected not only by temperature, but also by humidity, wind speed, and radiation, etc. [...]
In the cold, choppy waters of Alaska's Resurrection Bay, all eyes were on the gray water, looking for one thing only. [...]
Wildlife officials working to prevent threatened Florida manatees from starving to death say they're encouraged that some of the marine mammals' favorite food is growing naturally in a key area. [...]
Drones spraying pesticide, sensors taking soil readings, sprinklers that squirt fertiliser at the touch of a button—a Malaysian plantation is using high-tech methods to boost its crop of pungent durians. [...]
Boeing's Starliner capsule headed back to Earth Wednesday in the final step of a key test flight to prove itself worthy of providing rides for NASA astronauts to the International Space Station. [...]
A research team at the Institute of Modern Physics (IMP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), together with their collaborators, has recently synthesized a new isotope thorium-207, and discovered a regular and distinct odd-even staggering (OES) in α-decay energies for nuclei with Z>82 and N [...]
A team led by Professor of Biology, Senior Vice Provost of Research at NYU Abu Dhabi, and UAE national Sehamuddin Galadari, has discovered a novel structural modification in AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) during anticancer therapy that could pave the way for the development of more effective cancer treatments. [...]
In modern computers, errors during processing and storage of information have become a rarity due to high-quality fabrication. However, for critical applications, where even single errors can have serious effects, error correction mechanisms based on redundancy of the processed data are still used. [...]