Culture
The development of scanning probe microscopes in the early 1980s brought a breakthrough in imaging, throwing open a window into the world at the nanoscale. The key idea is to scan an extremely sharp tip over a substrate and to record at each location the strength of the interaction between tip and surface. In scanning force microscopy, this interaction is -- as the name implies -- the force between tip and structures on the surface. This force is typically determined by measuring how the dynamics of a vibrating tip changes as it scans over objects deposited on a substrate.
The modern world is powered by electrical circuitry on a "chip"--the semiconductor chip underpinning computers, cell phones, the internet, and other applications. In the year 2025, humans are expected to be creating 175 zettabytes (175trillion gigabytes) of new data. How can we ensure the security of sensitive data at such a high volume? And how can we address grand-challenge-like problems, from privacy and security to climate change, leveraging this data, especially given the limited capability of current computers?
To arrive at Nunavut, turn left at the Dakotas and head north. You can't miss it--the vast tundra territory covers almost a million square miles of northern Canada. Relatively few people call this lake-scattered landscape home, but the region plays a crucial role in understanding global climate change. New research from Soren Brothers, assistant professor in the Department of Watershed Sciences and Ecology Center, details how lakes in Nunavut could have a big impact on carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere, and it's not all bad news--at least for now.
A team of mathematicians from RUDN University found a way to reduce the size of a trained neural network six times without spending additional resources on re-training it. The approach is based on finding a correlation between the weights of neural connections in the initial system and its simplified version. The results of the work were published in the Optical Memory and Neural Networks journal.
NEW YORK, NY (Feb. 5, 2020)--Cells used to study the human blood brain barrier in the lab aren't what they seem, throwing nearly a decade's worth of research into question, a new study from scientists at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons and Weill Cornell Medicine suggests.
The team also discovered a possible way to correct the error, raising hopes of creating a more accurate model of the human blood-brain barrier for studying certain neurological diseases and developing drugs that can cross it.
Washington, DC, February 5, 2021 - A study in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (JAACAP), published by Elsevier, reports that in a diverse, cross-national sample of youth, physical discipline and cognitive deprivation had distinct associations with specific domains of developmental delay.
It's well understood that a difficult childhood can increase the likelihood of mental illness, but according to new research from the University of South Australia, a happy and secure childhood does not always protect a child from developing a mental illness later in life.
Conducted in partnership with the University of Canberra, the finding is part of a study published in Current Psychology, which examined how early childhood experiences relate to different developmental pathways, and how these might be associated with poor mental health.
In the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, there was an almost 80% decrease in primary care office visits in Ontario and a 56-fold increase in virtual visits, found new research in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal).
A new national survey of more than 2,000 Americans by The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center finds most plan to continue many of the pandemic precautions in the name of public health, even when the pandemic is over.
Researchers in South Korea have successfully developed a wearable sensor that can detect illegal drugs in sweat by using nanomaterials technology that amplify the optical signal of narcotics to a flexible, body-worn material. Led by Dr. Ho Sang Jung, the research unit is part of the Korea Institute of Materials Science(KIMS), a government-funded research institute under the Ministry of Science and ICT.
Online searches for mobile and isolated activities can help to predict later surges and declines in COVID-19 cases, a team of researchers has found. Its findings, based on a four-month analysis of online searches, offer a potential means to anticipate the pathways of the pandemic--before new infections are reported.
AUGUSTA, Ga (Feb. 8, 2021) - Starting with early childhood, otherwise healthy Black people show signs of slightly diminished heart muscle strength and a slightly higher blood pressure than their white counterparts, factors which may put them on a course for early development of congestive heart failure, researchers report.
Efforts to improve the social success of autistic adolescents and adults have often focused on teaching them ways to think and behave more like their non-autistic peers and to hide the characteristics that define them as autistic. Psychology researchers at The University of Texas at Dallas, however, have been focusing on another approach: promoting understanding and acceptance of autism among non-autistic people.
Beer-Sheva, Israel...February 8, 2021 - A new discovery by researchers from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) and its affiliated Soroka University Medical Center shows that medical cannabis may reduce blood pressure in older adults.
The study, published in the European Journal of Internal Medicine, is the first of its kind to focus on the effect of cannabis on blood pressure, heart rate and metabolic parameters in adults 60 and above with hypertension.
WOODS HOLE, Mass. -- Egg cells start out as round blobs. After fertilization, they begin transforming into people, dogs, fish, or other animals by orienting head to tail, back to belly, and left to right. Exactly what sets these body orientation directions has been guessed at but not seen. Now researchers at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) have imaged the very beginning of this cellular rearrangement, and their findings help answer a fundamental question.