Earth
Humans rely on nature extensively for everything from food production to coastal protection, but those contributions might be more threatened than previously thought, according to new findings from the University of Colorado Boulder.
This research, out today in Nature Communications, looked at three different coastal food webs that include those services provided to humans, or ecosystem services, and found that even if the services themselves aren't directly threatened, they can become threatened when other species around them go extinct--often called secondary extinctions.
New research led by the University of Cambridge has found rare evidence - preserved in the chemistry of ancient rocks from Greenland - which tells of a time when Earth was almost entirely molten.
The study, published in the journal Science Advances, yields information on a important period in our planet's formation, when a deep sea of incandescent magma stretched across Earth's surface and extended hundreds of kilometres into its interior.
What The Study Did: Researchers compared rates of psychotropic drug prescriptions during adolescence and young adulthood between individuals born preterm and at term.
Authors: Christine S. Bachmann, M.D., of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim, Norway, is the corresponding author.
To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/
(doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2021.1420)
Proteins are the key component in all modern forms of life. Haemoglobin, for example, transports the oxygen in our blood; photosynthesis proteins in the leaves of plants convert sunlight into energy; and fungal enzymes help us to brew beer and bake bread. Researchers have long been examining the question of how proteins mutate or come into existence in the course of millennia.
The researchers say this is a big step in tackling smouldering peat fires, which are the largest fires on Earth. They ignite very easily, are notoriously difficult to put out, and release up to 100 times more carbon into the atmosphere than flaming fires, contributing to climate change.
The fires, known as 'zombie fires' for their ability to hide and smoulder underground and then reanimate as new flames days or weeks after the wildfire had been extinguished, are prevalent in regions like Southeast Asia, North America, and Siberia.
If you were given "ultrasound" in a word association game, "sound wave" might easily come to mind. But in recent years, a new term has surfaced: bubbles. Those ephemeral, globular shapes are proving useful in improving medical imaging, disease detection and targeted drug delivery. There's just one glitch: bubbles fizzle out soon after injection into the bloodstream.
How much did SARS-CoV-2 need to change in order to adapt to its new human host? In a research article published in the open access journal PLOS Biology Oscar MacLean, Spyros Lytras at the University of Glasgow, and colleagues, show that since December 2019 and for the first 11 months of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic there has been very little 'important' genetic change observed in the hundreds of thousands of sequenced virus genomes.
Orono, Maine -- The origins of ice age climate changes may lie in the Southern Hemisphere, where interactions among the westerly wind system, the Southern Ocean and the tropical Pacific can trigger rapid, global changes in atmospheric temperature, according to an international research team led by the University of Maine.
Sound sleep plays a critical role in healing traumatic brain injury, a new study of military veterans suggests.
The study, published in the Journal of Neurotrauma, used a new technique involving magnetic resonance imaging developed at Oregon Health & Science University. Researchers used MRI to evaluate the enlargement of perivascular spaces that surround blood vessels in the brain. Enlargement of these spaces occurs in aging and is associated with the development of dementia.
PHILADELPHIA -- (March 12, 2021) -- Scientists at The Wistar Institute identified a new function of ADAR1, a protein responsible for RNA editing, discovering that the ADAR1p110 isoform regulates genome stability at chromosome ends and is required for continued proliferation of cancer cells. These findings, reported in Nature Communications, reveal an additional oncogenic function of ADAR1 and reaffirm its potential as a therapeutic target in cancer.
During 1995-2015, fullerene derivatives had been the dominating electron acceptors in organic solar cells (OSCs) owing to their performance superior to other acceptors. However, the drawbacks of fullerenes, such as weak visible absorption, limited tunability of electronic properties and morphological instability, restrict further development of OSCs toward higher efficiencies and practical applications. Therefore, the development of new acceptors beyond fullerenes is urgent in the field of OSCs.
New bioarchaeological research shows malaria has threatened human communities for more than 7000 years, earlier than when the onset of farming was thought to have sparked its devastating arrival.
Lead author Dr Melandri Vlok from the Department of Anatomy, University of Otago, says this ground-breaking research, published today in Scientific Reports, changes the entire understanding of the relationship humans have had with malaria, still one of the deadliest diseases in the world.
Contains updated information not available in the abstract.
Polarization control is essential for tailoring light-matter interactions and is the foundation for many applications such as polarization imaging, nonlinear optics, data storage, and information multiplexing. A linear polarizer, which is a polarization optical element that filters a specific linear polarization from unpolarized light, plays an important role in both polarization generation and manipulation.
In contemporary society, the demand for high-bandwidth optical communication, including mobile high-definition videos, autonomous vehicles, remote surgery, telepresence, and interactive 3D virtual reality gaming, is sharply increasing. The electro-optical modulator is the key component for optical fiber communication, which modulates the light signal for loading information through electricity. Lithium niobate (LiNbO3, LN) exhibits a high-performance electro-optic effect and high optical transparency.