Culture
Humans have drawn technological inspiration from fish scales going back to ancient times: Romans, Egyptians, and other civilizations would dress their warriors in scale armor, providing both protection and mobility. Now, using advanced X-ray imaging techniques, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) scientists have characterized carp scales down to the nanoscale, enabling them to understand how the material is resistant to penetration while retaining flexibility.
Researchers at the University of California San Diego have developed a test that uses children's ability to assemble LEGO pieces to assess their spatial visualization ability. Spatial visualization is the ability to visualize 3D shapes in one's mind, which is tied to increased GPAs and graduation rates in STEM college students.
One tool to increase spatial visualization skills among college students is a mobile app, called Spatial Vis, which allows students to sketch 2D and 3D shapes on a touchscreen and was developed based on research at UC San Diego.
A new study of the microbial settlers on old paintings, sculptures, and other forms of art charts a potential path for preserving, restoring, and confirming the geographic origin of some of humanity's greatest treasures.
Sleeping less than normal impacts how we feel the next morning.
"Not in the sense that we have more negative feelings, like being down or depressed. But participants in our study experienced a flattening of emotions when they slept less than normal. They felt less joy, enthusiasm, attention and fulfilment," says Associate Professor Ingvild Saksvik-Lehouillier at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology's (NTNU) Department of Psychology.
This release has been removed upon request of the submitting institution. Please contact Nancy Bazilchuk at nancy.bazilchuk@ntnu.no for more information.
Journal
Psychological Science
DOI
Last year, the Advanced LIGO-VIRGO gravitational-wave detector network recorded data from 35 merging black holes and neutron stars. A great result - but what did they miss? According to Dr Rory Smith from the ARC Centre of Excellence in Gravitational Wave Discovery at Monash University in Australia - it's likely there are another 2 million gravitational wave events from merging black holes, "a pair of merging black holes every 200 seconds and a pair of merging neutron stars every 15 seconds" that scientists are not picking up.
A new study suggests that denser places, assumed by many to be more conducive to the spread of the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, are not linked to higher infection rates. The study, led by a researcher at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, also found that dense areas were associated with lower COVID-19 death rates.
The study was published online June 18 in the Journal of the American Planning Association.
Two mutations identified in individuals with developmental and epileptic brain disease can be traced back to the same ion channel. Researchers have now elucidated how both independent mutations affect the channel's function: by making it overly active and highly sensitive to stimulation. The findings are an important step towards unraveling what causes the patients' symptoms.
Our planet exists within the vicinity of thousands of Near-Earth Objects (NEOs), some of which - ?Potentially Hazardous Asteroids (PHAs)? - ?carry the risk of impacting Earth causing major damage to infrastructure and loss of life. Methods to mitigate such a collision are highly desirable. A new paper published in EPJ Special Topics, authored by Flaviane Venditti, Planetary Radar Department, Arecibo Observatory, University of Central Florida, Arecibo, suggests the use of a tether assisted system to prevent PHA impact.
Plasma astrophysicists at KU Leuven have created the first self-consistent simulation of the physical processes that occur during a solar flare. The researchers used Flemish supercomputers and a new combination of physical models.
Lobachevsky University scientists together with foreign colleagues for the first time theoretically substantiated the existence of concept cells. These are individual neurons, and each of them is responsible for its own abstract concept, such as the musical note «A». Researchers have shown how these cells work using the example of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.
PHILADELPHIA -- Patients who are homeless are far more likely than housed individuals to be readmitted to a hospital within 30 or 90 days of their discharge, according to a new multi-center analysis of inpatient data from Florida, Massachusetts and New York. The team of researchers, led by experts in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, found the most glaring disparity in Florida, where the 30-day readmission rate among homeless patients was 11 percentage points higher than the rate among housed individuals.
A collaborative program developed at UVA Health to work with local long-term care facilities control COVID-19 is saving lives and offers a model for communities across the country, a new scientific paper reports.
The program has helped prevent COVID-19 infections and reduced mortality when outbreaks occur, its creators say. Of the first two facility outbreaks that the team has worked with, there were lower mortality rates than seen in previous outbreaks - 12% and 19%. That's compared with a 28% mortality rate reported at a long-term care facility in Washington state.
Like a scene out of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers," a virus infects a host and converts it into a factory for making more copies of itself. Now researchers have shown that a large group of viruses, including the influenza viruses and other serious pathogens, steal genetic signals from their hosts to expand their own genomes.
ORLANDO, Fla. - Fireworks are a time-honored tradition of July Fourth celebrations and a signature sound of summer in America, but many public displays are being cancelled this year amid COVID-19 social distancing. Health experts worry this could lead to an increase in fireworks-related injuries as more people attempt to put on their own displays, a concern validated by a new national survey by Orlando Health.