Culture
Nitrogen is essential for all living things. Synthetic fertilizer, which contains rich reactive nitrogen, has sustained food production and thereby the global population, but the nitrogen it emits is also a burden to the environment--air pollution, soil acidification, water eutrophication, to name just some of the consequences.
WESTMINSTER, Colorado - MARCH 20, 2020 - Many millions of homeowners use feeders to attract birds. But a two-year study featured in the journal Invasive Plant Science and Management suggests there may be one unintended consequence to this popular hobby. Bird feed mixtures may be helping to spread troublesome weeds that threaten agricultural crops.
When researchers examined the contents of 98 commercially available bird feed mixes, they uncovered several significant findings:
Bats are famous for their sonar-based navigation. They use their extremely sensitive hearing for orientation, emitting ultrasound noises and receiving an image of their surroundings based on the echo. Seba's short-tailed bat (Carollia perspicillata), for example, finds the fruits that are its preferred food using this echolocation system. At the same time, bats also use their voices in a somewhat deeper frequency range to communicate with other members of their species.
About one in five Danes are affected by depression at some point in their lives. The severe depressions may be treated with the so-called 'tricyclic antidepressants', an antidepressant drug that is more effective than the drugs used for mild and moderate depressions.
But unfortunately, the tricyclic antidepressants also have a downside: significantly more and more serious side effects. So serious that many people stop taking the drug and thus receive no treatment for their depression.
The law on keeping dangerous snakes as pets should be tightened up, animal welfare experts demand in this week's issue of the Vet Record.
The call follows an investigation by the journal, showing that several species of venomous and potentially lethal snakes, such as cobras, vipers, and rattlesnakes, can easily be bought through pet shops in England, but that the licensing arrangements for ownership are somewhat lax.
The American Dust Bowl of the 1930s - captured by the novels of John Steinbeck - was an environmental and socio-economic disaster that worsened the Great Depression.
The Dust Bowl was an extreme event. But due to climate change, massive crop failures are more likely to happen again in the future. New research in Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems aimed to answer what these impacts may look like.
Growth ability at acidic conditions is important to bacteria. Enteric bacteria such as Escherichia coli and Salmonella can colonize and cause disease in the host's intestinal tract, but they have to combat acidic environments during the whole process of invading the host.
The stomach, with pH value as low as 1.5-2.5, is recognized as a natural antibiotic barrier. After entering into the small intestine, E. coli will encounter a less acidic environment (with pH value of 4-6), reproduce rapidly, and cause disease to the host ultimately.
Triglycerides, those fats that seem to be the bane of any diet, remain a mystery for many researchers. Plenty of them are in Big Macs, deep pan pizza and the like, but some are a necessity to fuel the body for daily activities.
Researchers Mark Castleberry, a doctoral student, and professor Sean Davidson, both in the UC College of Medicine, have found a way to produce in the laboratory a human protein produced in the liver known as Apolipoprotein A5 (APOA 5). It plays an important role in metabolizing and clearing excess levels of triglycerides from the bloodstream.
Chemists at Texas A&M University are taking a p[h]age from bacteria's playbook in order to beat viruses at their own game and develop new drugs to fight cancer and a host of other human diseases in the process.
Merging synthetic biology and materials science, researchers genetically coaxed specific populations of neurons to manufacture electronic-tissue "composites" within the cellular architecture of a living animal, a new proof-of-concept report reveals. The approach may enable the creation of diverse, complex and functional synthetic structures and materials within living systems.
Common assumption has long held that Ritalin, Adderall and similar drugs work by helping people focus.
Yet a new study from a team led in part by Brown University researchers shows that these medications -- usually prescribed to individuals diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, but often used by otherwise healthy people as a "study aid" -- actually work by directing the brain to fix its attention on the benefits, rather than the costs, of completing difficult tasks.
Using the unique capabilities of NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, a team of astronomers led by Virginia Tech's Nahum Arav has discovered the most energetic outflows ever witnessed in the universe.
DURHAM, N.C. -- Researchers at Duke University and Michigan State University have engineered a novel type of supercapacitor that remains fully functional even when stretched to eight times its original size. It does not exhibit any wear and tear from being stretched repeatedly and loses only a few percentage points of energy performance after 10,000 cycles of charging and discharging.
The researchers envision the supercapacitor being part of a power-independent, stretchable, flexible electronic system for applications such as wearable electronics or biomedical devices.
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- U.S. school districts may be flagged as over-identifying students of color as having disabilities when other factors, such as achievement gaps, may explain these disparities, according to new Penn State research published in Exceptional Children.
Simon Fraser University researchers will use their pioneering imaging technology--called Mango, for its bright colour-- to develop coronavirus testing kits. They're among a small set of Canadian researchers who responded to the rapid funding opportunity recently announced by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) to help address COVID-19.