Culture
Despite virtual reality (VR) technology being more affordable than ever, developers have yet to achieve a sense of full immersion in a digital world. Among the greatest challenges is making the user feel as if they are walking.
Marine ecosystems are in the midst of a conservation crisis, with coral reefs in particular facing numerous challenges as a result of climate change. In an effort to better understand these environments and the threats they face, researchers collect huge image libraries of these underwater environments, using 3D imagery collected from divers and snorkelers, as well as 2D images collected from satellites. These approaches provide researchers with huge amounts of data, but to extract value from these libraries requires a method to quickly analyze for patterns or 'classifications'.
Humans and animals have a preferred walking speed. This is, in part, influenced by the amount of energy required: they prefer to walk at the speed at which they use the lowest possible amount of energy. One of the ways to achieve this is using something called resonance.
Listening to music before going to be can improve sleep quality among older adults, according to an analysis of all relevant published clinical trials.
Shift-work and irregular work schedules can cause several health-related issues and affect our defence against infection, according to new research from the University of Waterloo.
These health-related issues occur because the body's natural clock, called the circadian clock, can be disrupted by inconsistent changes in the sleep-wake schedule and feeding patterns often caused by shift work. To study this, researchers at Waterloo developed a mathematical model to look at how a disruption in the circadian clock affects the immune system in fighting off illness.
The Endangered dryas monkey (Cercopithecus dryas), endemic to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, is one of Africa's most mysterious primates. The discovery of the dryas monkey killed by a hunter in the buffer zone of Lomami National Park in 2014 has prompted field research of this small species (5-7 pounds). However, they are difficult to detect because they live in dense vegetation in secondary forest thickets.
Protons are the next big thing when it comes to fuel cell technology. The subatomic exchange produces power on a scale that challenges contemporary solid-state fuel cell technology, used to help power space shuttles. To realize the proton-based technology sooner, an international team of researchers have developed a hybrid material that effectively transports protons at high temperatures and humidity -- two major challenges in past attempts.
The results were published on April 19 in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, a journal of the American Chemical Society.
A new Portland State study challenges the idea that youth with cognitive disabilities are unable or lack potential to pursue a career in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
In a study using national data on more than 15,000 adolescents, the researchers found that undergraduates with medicated ADHD or autism appear to be more likely to major in STEM than youth without cognitive disabilities, and youth with autism have the most positive STEM attitudes.
Osaka, Japan - Catalysts lie at the heart of a greener and more sustainable future for chemical production. However, many of the catalysts currently in widespread use have limitations that affect their efficiency. Researchers from Osaka University have reported a stable and reusable nickel phosphide nanoalloy catalyst for the hydrogenation of maltose to maltitol that outperforms conventional catalysts. Their findings are published in ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering.
A first-of-its-kind study led by The University of Texas at Austin has found that rock weathering and water storage appear to follow a similar pattern across undulating landscapes where hills rise and fall for miles.
The findings are important because they suggest that these patterns could improve predictions of wildfire and landslide risk and how droughts will affect the landscape, since weathering and water storage influence how water and nutrients flow throughout landscapes.
The fact that the human body is made up of cells is a basic, well-understood concept. Yet amazingly, scientists are still trying to determine the various types of cells that make up our organs and contribute to our health.
A relatively recent technique called single-cell sequencing is enabling researchers to recognize and categorize cell types by characteristics such as which genes they express. But this type of research generates enormous amounts of data, with datasets of hundreds of thousands to millions of cells.
One of the marks of a successful idea in science is how quickly it can develop and evolve. In the case of the Anthropocene, the conceptual evolution has taken place with extraordinary speed. The strikingly influential hypothesis launched by the late Nobel laureate Paul Crutzen (Obituary, 24th Feb 2021) in 2000, was that the actions of an industrialised humanity has impacted the Earth so greatly as to trigger a new geological epoch.
April 19, 2021 -- Ensuring COVID-19 vaccine access for refugee and displaced populations, and addressing health inequities, is vital for an effective pandemic response. Yet, vaccine allocation and distribution has been neither equitable nor inclusive, despite that global leaders have stressed this as a critical aspect to globally overcoming the pandemic, according to a paper published by Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. Read "Leave No-one Behind: Ensuring Access to COVID-19 vaccines for Refugee and Displaced Populations" in the journal Nature Medicine.
Tools that allow neuroscientists to record and quantify functional activity within the living brain are in great demand. Traditionally, researchers have used techniques such as functional magnetic resonance imaging, but this method cannot record neural activity with high spatial resolution or in moving subjects. In recent years, a technology called optogenetics has shown considerable success in recording neural activity from animals in real time with single neuron resolution.
Below please find link(s) to new coronavirus-related content published today in Annals of Internal Medicine. All coronavirus-related content published in Annals of Internal Medicine is free to the public. A complete collection is available at https://annals.org/aim/pages/coronavirus-content.
1. Liver transplant recipient reinfected with SARS-CoV-2 infection 3 months after initial diagnosis
Viral genomic sequencing used to distinguish between relapse and reinfection