Culture
There are things in life that can be predicted reasonably well. The tides rise and fall. The moon waxes and wanes. A billiard ball bounces around a table according to orderly geometry.
And then there are things that defy easy prediction: The hurricane that changes direction without warning. The splashing of water in a fountain. The graceful disorder of branches growing from a tree.
These phenomena and others like them can be described as chaotic systems, and are notable for exhibiting behavior that is predictable at first, but grows increasingly random with time.
Honey bee health has been on the decline for two decades, with U.S. and Canadian beekeepers now losing about 25 to 40% of their colonies annually. And queen bees are failing faster than they have in the past in their ability to reproduce. The reason has been a mystery, but researchers at North Carolina State University and the University of British Columbia are finding answers.
Pulsed ultraviolet light can be an effective alternative to some of the antimicrobial technologies now used by the poultry industry to kill pathogens on eggshells, according to Penn State researchers, who simulated production conditions to test the technology.
Researcher Paul Patterson, professor of poultry science, College of Agricultural Sciences, suggests the technology has merit for commercial application in the egg industry.
Most consumers of drinking water in the United States know that chemicals are used in the treatment processes to ensure the water is safe to drink. But they might not know that the use of some of these chemicals, such as chlorine, can also lead to the formation of unregulated toxic byproducts.
Johns Hopkins Environmental Health and Engineering Prof. Carsten Prasse proposes a new approach to assessing drinking water quality that could result in cleaner, safer taps.
During a typical year, over a million people visit Yellowstone National Park, where the Old Faithful geyser regularly blasts a jet of boiling water high in the air. Now, an international team of astronomers has discovered a cosmic equivalent, a distant galaxy that erupts roughly every 114 days.
Organizations seeking to fill internal roles traditionally have two options: promote from within or hire externally. Internal promotions benefit from being vetted talent who possess firm-specific skills while outside hires harbor external knowledge that can infuse an organization with new energy. Though this dichotomy is often accepted as unavoidable, there is a third option: boomerang employees.
BOSTON - While investigating the underlying causes of a rare skin disorder, a researcher at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) discovered a previously unknown mechanism in the kidneys that is important for regulating levels of magnesium and calcium in the blood.
You've heard of Old Faithful, the Yellowstone National Park geyser that erupts every hour or two, a geological phenomenon on a nearly predictable schedule.
Now, an international group of scientists who study space have discovered an astronomical "Old Faithful" - an eruption of light flashing about once every 114 days on a nearly predictable schedule. The researchers believe it is a tidal disruption event, a phenomenon that happens when a star gets so close to a black hole that the black hole "rips" away pieces of the star, causing the flare.
Researchers have found a simple way to eliminate almost all sequencing errors produced by a widely used portable DNA sequencer, potentially enabling scientists working outside the lab to study and track microorganisms like the SARS-CoV-2 virus more efficiently.
Using special molecular tags, the team was able to reduce the five-to-15 per cent error rate of Oxford Nanopore Technologies' MinION device to less than 0.005 per cent -- even when sequencing many long stretches of DNA at a time.
Scientists have used gene-editing advances to achieve a tenfold increase in the production of super-bug targeting formicamycin antibiotics.
The John Innes Centre researchers used the technology to create a new strain of Streptomyces formicae bacteria which over-produces the medically promising molecules.
Discovered within the last ten years, formicamycins have great potential because, under laboratory conditions, superbugs like MRSA do not become resistant to them.
ITHACA, NY - Invasive round goby fish have impacted fisheries in the Great Lakes and the Finger Lakes by competing with native species and eating the eggs of some species of game fish.
But the camouflaged bottom dwellers can be difficult to find and collect - especially when they first enter a new body of water and their numbers are low and they might be easier to remove.
In a large population-based family study, family history of kidney disease was strongly associated with increased risk of chronic kidney disease.
Acknowledging that COVID-19 may be here to stay, Oregon Health & Science University has laid out a series of steps to prepare patients for elective surgery following their illness.
The evaluation, outlined in a commentary published in the journal Perioperative Medicine, is believed to be the first published protocol laying out a COVID-era path forward in American medicine.
Study published in the American Journal of Kidney Diseases (AJKD) projects that prevalence of patients receiving dialysis in China will increase from 384.4 patients per million (PPM) in 2017 to 629.7 PMP in 2025 with a predicted 874,373 patients receiving dialysis in 2025.
Researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine, in collaboration with Dutch scientists, have found that certain metabolites -- small molecules produced by the process of metabolism -- may be predictive indicators for persons at risk for recurrent major depressive disorder.
The findings were published in the January 11, 2021 online issue of Translational Psychiatry.