Earth
When NASA's Aqua satellite passed over Tropical Storm Cristina in the Eastern Pacific Ocean on July 8, it gathered water vapor data that provided information about the intensity of the storm.
COLUMBUS, Ohio - Scientists have discovered that one of the good bacteria found in the human gut has a benefit that has remained unrecognized until now: the potential to reduce the risk for heart disease.
The bacteria's activity in the intestines reduces production of a chemical that has been linked to the development of clogged arteries. After it's manufactured in the gut, the chemical enters the bloodstream and travels to the liver, where it is converted into its most harmful form.
Researchers at Karolinska Institutet have developed a new method that can make it easier for public authorities to assess the health risks of hormone-disrupting chemicals in the environment. The method was used to evaluate the risk associated with exposure data from the population of Ronneby in Sweden where the drinking water had been contaminated with PFAS from fire-fighting foam.
Water is vital to the survival of life. However, water scarcity has become a major problem in modern society. Today, one-fifth of the world's population lives in water- deficient areas, especially in areas where there is no electricity. For people in such areas, access to clean drinking water is often a difficult task. Therefore, they urgently need an efficient, low-cost, sustainable, and easily accessible technologies and devices to generate clean water. Solar energy is one of the most abundant and widespread resources on earth.
Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE's) National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) have developed a novel machine learning approach to quickly enhance the resolution of wind velocity data by 50 times and solar irradiance data by 25 times--an enhancement that has never been achieved before with climate data.
Ten years ago, non-indigenous households from three communities in the Ucayali region in Peru regularly ate fish, wild fruits and other products collected from the Amazon forest. Combined with whatever they grew and harvested on their lands, this contributed to a relatively diverse diet. Today, the same households have changed their production strategy and how they get food on the table. Agricultural production, complemented by hunter-gatherer activities, aimed to satisfy both household consumption and income generation.
PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] -- Artisanal makers of mezcal have a tried and true way to tell when the drink has been distilled to the right alcohol level. They squirt some into a small container and look for little bubbles, known as pearls. If the alcohol content is too high or too low, the bubbles burst quickly. But if they linger for 30 seconds or so, the alcohol level is perfect and the mezcal is ready to drink.
In a recent study, breast feeding during infancy was associated with a lower risk of lower limb fractures when children reached young adulthood, while maternal smoking was associated with a higher risk of upper limb fractures. The findings are published in the Journal of Bone and Mineral Research.
Climate change and increased urban population are two major concerns for society. Moving towards more sustainable energy solutions in the urban context by integrating renewable energy technologies supports decarbonizing the energy sector and climate change mitigation. A successful energy transition is not possible without proper climate change adaptation and considering climate uncertainties and extremes. Failing in climate change adaptation lead to irreversible environmental conditions and heavy economic losses.
Exposure to iodine used for medical procedures in a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) may increase an infant's risk for congenital hypothyroidism (loss of thyroid function), suggests a study by researchers at the National Institutes of Health and other institutions. The authors found that infants diagnosed with congenital hypothyroidism following a NICU stay had higher blood iodine levels on average than infants who had a NICU stay but had normal thyroid function. Their study appears in the Journal of Nutrition.
Researchers in the Cava Group at the Princeton University Department of Chemistry have demystified the reasons for instability in an inorganic perovskite that has attracted wide attention for its potential in creating highly efficient solar cells.
Very recently, Chinese researchers had achieved site- and spatial- selective integration of earth-abundant metal ions (e.g., Fe2+, Co2+, Ni2+) in semiconductor quantum dots (QDs) for efficient and robust photocatalytic H2 evolution from water.
This research, published online in Matter, was conducted by a research team led by Prof. WU Lizhu and Dr. LI Xubing from the Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry (TIPC) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
New particle formation (NPF) is a key process for haze formation, leading to the deterioration of air quality. Chemical and photochemical processes have been intensively studied over the past decades to understand their roles in NPF, but the physical process has drawn much less attention.
Observational Evidence
A team from the Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute (IDIBELL) and the University of Barcelona (UB), in collaboration with a researcher from the Mayo Clinic and the University of Minnesota, have described that lysosomes and autophagy processes are active during mitosis and are necessary for a correct cell division. Lysosomes and autophagy eliminate and recycle damaged cellular components; thus, lysosomal activity sustains the correct cell function and its dysregulation is associated to several diseases including cancer, neurodegeneration, or disorders associated with aging.