Traffic noise disrupts recognized benefits of birdsong and other sounds from nature, a new study from the University of Surrey reports. [...]
Researchers from Skoltech and their colleagues from Harbin Institute of Technology in China and ITMO University in Russia have devised a way to deposit elaborate geometric patterns of carbon nanotubes without wasting material. Such patterns are used in advanced optical devices and mechanical strain sensors for structural integrity monitoring. [...]
Texans often view prickly pear cactus as a nuisance, but researchers with Texas A&M AgriLife Research are seeking opportunity. Susanne Talcott, Ph.D., a molecular researcher and professor in the Texas A&M Department of Food Science and Technology, leads a multidisciplinary team studying how prickly pear cactus can serve as a source of biofuels and functional food ingredients. [...]
For the first time in Finland, population-level norm values have been established for estimating life expectancy adjusted for health-related functional capacity and productivity. The new study provides Finnish norm values for both everyday functioning and work ability, as well as for a newly developed measure, productivity-adjusted life expectancy. [...]
The European flat oyster (Ostrea edulis) was once widespread but has now become so scarce in the North Sea that it no longer forms ecologically functioning reefs. Along with the demise of the flat oyster, the three-dimensional structures that provide habitat for more than 100 marine species have disappeared. Restoration therefore focuses not only on the return of the European flat oyster itself but also on the reef and its associated biodiversity. [...]
Intelligent people tend to perform better at school and at work, as numerous studies have shown. But what happens in domains where incentives such as good grades or financial rewards don't apply and where socioeconomic status is not a significant factor? Wine knowledge is a case in point. Intelligence researcher Maximilian Krolo of Saarland University has investigated whether intelligence can predict the acquisition of deep knowledge in a specialized domain. The findings have now been published in the journal Intelligence & Cognitive Abilities in an article co-authored with Professor of Psychology Timothy C. Bates of the University of Edinburgh. [...]
Even as the scientific community has reached a broad consensus that infectious pathogens, such as viruses, can spread through virus-laden aerosols, one fundamental challenge remains: How can scientific evidence be transformed into public understanding—and ultimately into meaningful action for effective airborne disease control and prevention? [...]
ζ-Carotene, a key intermediate in lycopene biosynthesis, is widely found in plants and photosynthetic microorganisms, but its isomer-specific properties remain poorly understood due to isolation and purification challenges. Researchers have now developed a purification strategy to obtain high-purity geometric isomers and systematically characterized, for the first time, their isomer-specific spectral properties, photoisomerization behavior, UV-shielding capacity, antioxidant activity and skin-related biological activities—highlighting ζ-carotene's promise as a natural ingredient for skin health and photoprotection. [...]
A 30-year conservation effort has helped the critically endangered Galápagos snapdragon (Galvezia leucantha subsp. leucantha) recover from just six individuals to a small, carefully tended wild population. Following tireless conservation efforts and the planting of 94 nursery-propagated plants that were reintroduced to Playa Tortuga Negra and Caleta Tagus, the wild adult population has grown from six individuals in 2007 to 28 healthy adults today—20 at Playa Tortuga Negra and 8 at Tagus Cove. [...]
Researchers at the University of St Andrews have gained unprecedented insight into marine mammal behavior when they become tangled in fishing nets. In a paper published Aug. 26 in Royal Society Open Science, researchers from the Sea Mammal Research Unit and Scottish Oceans Institute at St Andrews discovered that their passive acoustic monitoring (PAM) systems, deployed on a gill net, had unintentionally recorded a bycatch event. This is thought to be the first time this kind of recording has taken place in such detail. [...]
In a new study in Environmental Research: Ecology, I analyzed how fires were able to burn into communities and how fire-resistant land uses could be combined with fuel treatments to reduce fires burning into communities. If government support could be quickly redirected to community protection, communities could have time to fix much of this problem in roughly a decade. [...]
Climate change is reshaping global livestock production systems and leading to increased research on the topic. However, science still faces the challenge of translating advances in knowledge into practical solutions for the field and public policy. This is one of the main conclusions of a study published in the journal Tropical Animal Health and Production by researchers from the Luiz de Queiroz College of Agriculture at the University of São Paulo (ESALQ-USP) in Brazil. [...]
With the invasive emerald ash borer beetle decimating black ash across North America, according to the U.S. Forest Service, a team led by researchers at Penn State conducted an expansive study of genetic diversity in black ash seeds collected across the tree's geographic range and stored in seed banks. The research was done with an eye toward someday reintroducing the ecologically and culturally important tree to U.S. and Canadian forests. As part of the research, the team established three large common gardens—experimental plantings—of black ash that someday may play a role in producing seeds needed to bring the species back. [...]
Social media used inside organizations may help engage employees and increase staff retention, according to a paper in the International Journal of Applied Systemic Studies that examined this phenomenon in China. Employee engagement refers to a worker's emotional and motivational connection with their organization, the team explains, while retention is the organization's ability to keep employees and reduce staff turnover rates. [...]
Tall trees are generally associated with high-biomass forests. This is particularly true for forests dominated by Sequoia sempervirens (hereafter redwood), the world's tallest tree species. Extreme decay resistance, the ability to survive high-severity fires, shade tolerance and prolific trunk reiteration (resprouting) make the species unique, allowing tall redwood forests to accumulate more biomass and store more aboveground carbon than any other vegetation type. [...]
The most common scientific approach for thinking about how condensation, freezing and other phase transitions begin is based in classical nucleation theory, which was developed about a century ago. Thousands of experiments have supported a key equation describing how initial ordered seeds, called nuclei, form within disordered matter. [...]
Canada's 2023 wildfire season burned more than 18.5 million hectares (45.7 million acres), an area larger than Greece. As fires like these grow more frequent and unpredictable, a team of UBC Okanagan researchers has taken stock of two decades of work applying operations research to the problem and found a field that has matured quickly but still struggles to get its best ideas out of journals and into the field. [...]
Planets form from disks of gas and dust around young stars, but the gas needed for growth does not last forever. New observations from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) now offer a new view of how this gas escapes and how the process changes as young planetary systems develop. [...]
While extreme weather and habitat changes can spell doom for many native animals, including insects, a different picture has emerged from a new study led by Flinders University. Long-running investigations into Fiji's native bee populations indicate several species of lowland sweat bees (genus Lasioglossum) have evolved and used their individual traits to resist human-driven environmental changes, allowing them to survive and thrive. [...]
Pure water freezes only at around -38°C (-36°F). Tiny mineral dust particles act as so-called ice nucleators—crystallization seeds on which ice crystals form. A research team at Bielefeld University and the University of Vienna, in cooperation with researchers at the University of Helsinki, has now demonstrated for the first time at the molecular scale why the mineral microcline is particularly effective at forming ice in clouds. The study, published in published in the journal Nature Communications, provides a new explanation for processes that influence climate and precipitation worldwide. [...]
Scientists have recently reconstructed the ancestral karyotype of the banana family, revealing how chromosome numbers decreased stepwise from 17 to 9–11 over evolutionary time. [...]
Researchers have identified a broad range of biological properties of pomegranate with potential medical applications, including antimicrobial, antiparasitic, antioxidant, immunomodulatory, antidiabetic, anti-inflammatory, liver-supporting and wound-healing effects. [...]
Selma Sarı and an international group of colleagues investigated the TOL-1 section in the Mut Basin (southern Türkiye), while documenting the world's highest known Late Middle Pleistocene (MIS 7) marine deposits, preserved at 1,177 m (3,860 feet) above mean sea level on the southern margin of the Central Anatolian Plateau. [...]
Researchers at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) have demonstrated a promising new way to protect fragile quantum information using nothing but mechanical vibrations—essentially extremely small sound waves. The breakthrough, which comes from the lab of Marko Lončar, Tiantsai Lin Professor of Electrical Engineering, paves a path toward compact, sound-based quantum networks on chips, as well as hybrid quantum systems that combine many different types of quantum bits, or qubits. [...]
Weill Cornell Medicine investigators have developed a set of molecular tools to regulate the activity of specific genes in one of the most common classes of intestinal bacteria. The ability to genetically manipulate these microbes could lead to a better understanding of the role they play in human physiology and disease. [...]
New research from QUT challenges a common assumption in social media marketing: For fast-food brands, social media posts that signal expertise and competence are shared more often than those focused on warmth and friendliness. [...]
As part of its efforts to map out Europe's science-policy interface for biodiversity, a paper on the correlation between governance objectives for safeguarding the biosphere and on-the-ground realities for select species groups has been published. The work is in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution. [...]
In a study recently published in Nature Communications, researchers from Berlin, Potsdam, and Jena present a new method for analyzing the epigenome. The machine-learning method identifies differentially methylated DNA regions without sample labels—a prerequisite for many existing algorithms. This makes it possible to identify previously hidden biological patterns as well as new subgroups of cells or diseases. [...]
"Buy now, pay later" plans—which allow consumers to split purchases into a handful of interest-free installments—have become a common way for Americans to pay for everything from furniture to groceries. New research from Olin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis suggests the increasingly popular payment option can have consequences beyond the checkout screen—influencing retail prices, inventory decisions and the financial burden on consumers. [...]
Researchers are gauging the effectiveness of electron beams in the fight against foodborne pathogens in poultry. "Impact of Electron Beam (eBeam) Treatment on Meat Quality and Sensory Attributes of Ground Chicken and Turkey" is published in the journal Poultry Science. At the heart of the study is eBeam, a nonthermal technology that uses high-energy electron beams to cause irreparable damage to pathogen DNA. [...]