Brain
With 2020 hijacked by COVID-19, a team of QUT researchers in Brisbane, Australia, say social media analytics can capture the attitudes and perceptions of the public during a pandemic. They also suggest social media is now the best way to encourage people to follow measures and restrictions.
The Falkland Islands are a South Atlantic refuge for some of the world's most important seabird species, including five species of penguins, Great Shearwaters, and White-chinned Petrels. In recent years, their breeding grounds in the coastal tussac (Poa flabellata) grasslands have come under increasing pressure from sheep grazing and erosion. And unlike other regions of the globe, there has been no long-term monitoring of the responses of these burrowing and ground nesting seabirds to climate change.
Bonfire Night celebrations contaminate our air with hugely elevated amounts of soot, scientists have found.
Researchers from the University of Leeds were monitoring air quality to determine whether soot created by fires and fireworks, known as black carbon, could help to create ice in clouds.
They found soot in the atmosphere around Guy Fawkes Night events was around 100 times its normal level.
Metal pollution from historic mining appears to be weakening scallop shells and threatening marine ecosystems in an area off the coast of the Isle of Man, a major new study suggests.
The research, led by an interdisciplinary team at the University of York, suggests that the contamination of seabed sediments with zinc, lead and copper from the mining of these metals, which peaked on the island in the late 19th century, is causing the shells of king scallops to become significantly more brittle.
Tokyo, Japan - Researchers from the Institute of Industrial Science, the University of Tokyo (UTokyo-IIS) have designed novel linear nanomotors that can be moved in controlled directions using light. This work opens the way for new microfluidics, including lab-on-a-chip systems with optically actuated pumps and valves.
The membranes surrounding our brains are in a never-ending battle against deadly infections, as germs constantly try to elude watchful immune cells and sneak past a special protective barrier called the meninges. In a study involving mice and human autopsy tissue, researchers at the National Institutes of Health and Cambridge University have shown that some of these immune cells are trained to fight these infections by first spending time in the gut.
Kanazawa, Japan - Researchers at Kanazawa University monitored the emission of blue-green light from water-soluble tetraphenylethene molecules adsorbed at a phospholipid-adsorbed liquid-liquid interface made to resemble a biomembrane. They found that the process could be reversibly controlled by an externally applied potential (voltage), which opens the possibility for a new class of molecular probes and targeted drug delivery systems.
ITHACA, N.Y. - Scientists and graduate students with minority identities who conduct fieldwork report being stalked, followed, sexually assaulted, harassed, threatened, having guns pulled on them and police called on them.
These issues threaten minority-identity researchers' physical health and safety during fieldwork, while also affecting their mental health, productivity and professional development.
The black rats weren't supposed to be there, on Palmyra Atoll. Likely arriving at the remote Pacific islet network as stowaways with the U.S. Navy during World War II, the rodents, with no natural predators, simply took over. Omnivorous eating machines, they dined on seabird eggs, native crabs and whatever seed and seedling they could find.
Groping around in your bag for your keys can be a daily ordeal. I'm not going to list the catalogue of junk in my bag, but I can distinguish every article by touch. Our fingertips are exquisitely engineered, deftly detecting the differences between surfaces and shapes, but we are not the only animals that touch objects.
Systems which can emit a stream of single photons, referred to as quantum light sources, are critical hardware components for emerging technologies such as quantum computing, the quantum internet, and quantum communications.
In many cases the ability to generate quantum light on-demand requires the manipulation and control of single atoms or molecules, pushing the limit of modern fabrication techniques, and making the development of these systems a cross-disciplinary challenge.
(Carlisle, Pa.) - Does a well-dressed president make for a better president? Yes, says political scientist David O'Connell. According to new research published in the journal White House Studies, O'Connell, an associate professor of political science at Dickinson College who studies American politics with a focus on religion and pop culture, argues style plays an underappreciated role in presidential politics and has meaningful consequences for presidential power.
Downy mildew is the biggest threat to spinach production around the world. While the pathogen has a short life cycle (approximately a week), it can produce millions of spores during the spinach growing season. Overhead sprinkler irrigation systems and dew formation on cool nights leads to more moisture, which enables these spores to infect the spinach.
BOSTON - An evolving understanding of cancer that incorporates the physical properties of tumors and their surrounding tissues into existing biologic and genetic models can direct cancer researchers down previously uncharted avenues, potentially leading to new drugs and new treatment strategies, say investigators from Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), Harvard Medical School (HMS) and the Ludwig Center at HMS.
A chemist from RUDN University suggested an eco-friendly method for the synthesis of dapsone, a substance that inhibits the growth of malaria and leprosy agents. The main component of the new reaction is hydrogen peroxide that does not form environmentally destructive compounds, and the only by-product is simple water. Unlike other technologies, this method includes only one stage of dapsone production and does not require high temperatures. The catalyst of the reaction can be reused without any loss of efficiency.