Content

Whether birds can taste sweet was previously unclear. An international team of researchers has now shown that songbirds, a group containing over 4,000 species, can sense sweetness regardless of their primary diets. The study highlights a specific event in the songbird ancestors that allowed their umami (savoury) taste receptor to recognise sugar. This ability has been conserved in the songbird lineage, influencing the diet of nearly half of all birds living today.

Sussex mathematicians have created a new modelling toolkit which predicts the impact of COVID-19 at a local level with unprecedented accuracy.

Forest clearance in Southeast Asia is accelerating, leading to unprecedented increases in carbon emissions, according to new research.The findings, revealed by a research team including University of Leeds academics, show that forests are being cut down at increasingly higher altitudes and on steeper slopes in order to make way for agricultural intensification.

Despite legislation to prevent the marketing of tobacco products to children, tobacco companies have shrewdly adapted their advertising tactics to circumvent the ban and maintain their access to this impressionable--and growing--market share.

Machine learning accelerates the search for promising Moon sites for energy and mineral resources.

Plant material that lies to rot in soil isn't just valuable as compost. In fact, agricultural crop residue plays a crucial role in sequestering carbon, which is vital for reducing global CO2 emissions. This, according to a new study by researchers at the University of Copenhagen, among others.

Researchers have developed a sensor that can be implanted anywhere in the body, for example under the tip of a severed finger; the sensor connects to another nerve that functions properly and restores tactile sensation to the injured nerve.This unique development is biocompatible ("human-body friendly") and does not require electricity, wires, or batteries.

RUDN and Shahid Beheshti University (SBU) chemist proposed a protocol for converting cellulose into a catalyst for the synthesis of oxadiazoles. The new approach makes the catalyst 3 times more stable compared to the same catalyst obtained by the traditional method.

Photosynthesis is at the core of all life. But what lies at the crux of photosynthesis?Scientists have long known of the specific components of the cell where photosynthesisoccurs, but the precise mechanisms by which these components are maintained remainunknown. Now, the possibility of unprecedented high?resolution visualization using cryoelectronmicroscopy has allowed a team of scientists to reveal how the structural integrityof the site of one half of the photosynthesis process is maintained.

RUDN University mathematicians have developed a model for calculating the density of 5G stations needed to achieve the required network parameters.

A special issue highlights the Fengyun satellites' data applications and encourages further research among domestic and international collaborators

For 30 years, University of Tokyo Associate Professor Hisayoshi Nozaki has visited the Sagami River to collect algal samples to understand how living things evolved different sexes. The threes sexes of the Pleodorina starrii algae are male, female, and a third sex called bisexual in reference to the fact that it can produce both male and female sex cells in a single genotype and exists due to normal expression of the species' genes.

Children living in urban areas with high levels of air pollution, noise and traffic may be at higher risk of childhood obesity, according to a study by the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal)--a centre supported by the "la Caixa" Foundation--and the University Institute for Primary Care Research Jordi Gol (IDIAP Jordi Gol). The study was funded by the La Marató de TV3 Foundation.

The UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) Secretariat today released the first official draft of a new Global Biodiversity Framework to guide actions worldwide through 2030 to preserve and protect Nature and its essential services to people.

Scientists identified hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) subtypes with distinctive metabolic phenotypes through bioinformatics and machine learning methods, and elucidated the potential mechanisms based on a metabolite-protein interaction network and multi-omics data.

Co-authors Bulat Galimzyanov and Anatolii Mokshin (Department of Computational Physics) have developed a unique model that allows for a universal interpretation of experimental data on viscosity for systems of different types, while also proposing an alternative method for classifying materials based on a unified temperature scale.

Photoelectrochemical water splitting allows us to produce pure hydrogen from water using solar energy. However, available photocatalyst materials offer low conversion efficiency and insufficient durability. Addressing this problem, scientists from Nagoya Institute of Technology, Japan, combine TiO2 and 3C-SiC, two promising photocatalysts, in a tandem structure, allowing their water splitting system to achieve a state-of-the-art efficiency and high durability. These findings could pave the way for sustainable hydrogen societies.

Human Usher syndrome is the most common form of hereditary deaf-blindness. Researchers have now identified a novel pathomechanism leading to Usher syndrome. They have discovered that the Usher syndrome type 1G protein SANS plays a crucial role in regulating splicing process. Furthermore, they have been able to demonstrate that defects in the SANS protein can lead to errors in the splicing of genes related to the Usher syndrome, which may provoke the disease.

If we pay closer attention to how birds, rabbits and termites transform their local living spaces in response to varying climate conditions, we could become much better at predicting what impact climate change will have on them in future.This is according researchers* from the Universities of Montana and Wyoming (USA), Tours (France) and Stellenbosch (South Africa). They examined how animals' ability to respond to climate change likely depends on how well they modify their habitats, such as the way they build nests and burrows.

After cutbacks and layoffs, remaining employees were more likely to feel they were treated fairly if the companies invested in them - and morale was less likely to plunge, according to new research. Those investments can include training for workers, team-building exercises or improving company culture. Even keeping workloads manageable after layoffs can help employees' job attitudes, according to the study.