The results of new research at the University of Illinois indicate that it is possible for producers to reduce feed costs if yellow dent corn, a staple of swine diets in the United States, is ground to a finer particle size. The smaller particle size allows pigs to derive more energy from the corn, which means producers can reduce the amount of fat added to diets (reducing their costs) without affecting the growth performance or carcass characteristics of pigs.
Heavens
An international team of astrophysicists led by Peter Garnavich, professor of astrophysics at the University of Notre Dame, has caught two supernovae in the act of exploding.
Using the Kepler Space Telescope, the team spent three years observing 50 trillion stars for the chance to watch as supersonic shockwaves reached their surfaces after explosions deep in the core. For the first time, a "shock breakout" in an exploding supergiant star was discovered at visible wavelengths.
CAMBRIDGE, MA -- Researchers at MIT and other institutions have found a new phenomenon in the behavior of a kind of quasiparticles called plasmons as they move along tiny ribbons of two-dimensional materials such as graphene and TMDs (transition metal dichalcogenides), which have a hexagonal structure resembling chicken wire. The team found that these plasmons can be separated into two different streams moving in opposite directions at the edges of the ribbons, like traffic on a two-lane highway, without the need for strong magnetic fields or other exotic conditions.
In 1880, the picturesque Swedish island of Stora Karlsö became a nature preserve and hunting park. To help fund the venture, owners of the island began organizing tours in the 1920s. Stora Karlsö remains a popular tourist destination, attracting about 10,000 visitors each year. And that means that the colony of seabirds living on the island has had its picture taken over and over again, for almost 100 years.
Pasadena, CA-- The lightest few elements in the periodic table formed minutes after the Big Bang. Heavier chemical elements are created by stars, either from nuclear fusion in their interiors or in catastrophic explosions. However, scientists have disagreed for nearly 60 years about how the heaviest elements, such as gold and lead, are manufactured. New observations of a tiny galaxy discovered last year show that these heavy elements are likely left over from rare collisions between two neutron stars. The work is published by Nature.
In quantum theory, interactions among particles create fascinating correlations known as entanglement that cannot be explained by any means known to the classical world. Entanglement is a consequence of the probabilistic rules of quantum mechanics and seems to permit a peculiar instantaneous connection between particles over long distances that defies the laws of our macroscopic world - a phenomenon that Einstein referred to as "spooky action at a distance."
Researchers have been mapping the centre of our galaxy in very-high-energy gamma rays using these telescopes - the most sensitive of their kind - for over 10 years. The results were published in the journal Nature on 16 March 2016.
For a long time, it was thought that the sole role of the immune system was to distinguish between friend and foe and to fend off pathogens. In fact, it is more like a microbial management system that is also involved in accommodating beneficial microorganisms in the plant when required. Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research in Cologne in collaboration with an international consortium of other laboratories discovered this relationship between the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana, or thale cress, and the fungus Colletotrichum tofieldiae.
TORONTO, March 21, 2016 - New research led by astrophysicists at York University has revealed the fastest winds ever seen at ultraviolet wavelengths near a supermassive black hole.
"We're talking wind speeds of 20 per cent the speed of light, which is more than 200 million kilometres an hour. That's equivalent to a category 77 hurricane," says Jesse Rogerson, who led the research as part of his PhD thesis in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at York U. "And we have reason to believe that there are quasar winds that are even faster."
Led by San Francisco State University astronomer Stephen Kane, a team of researchers has spotted an extrasolar planet about 117 light-years from earth that boasts the most eccentric orbit yet seen.
What's more, Kane and his colleagues were able to detect a signal of reflected light from the planet known as HD 20782 -- a "flash" of starlight bouncing off the eccentric planet's atmosphere as it made its closest orbital approach to its star. The discovery was announced online Feb. 28, 2016 in The Astrophysical Journal.
Buildings with storage tanks can face increased risks from chlorine-resistant bacteria in water, according to researchers at the University of Strathclyde.
A study examining more than 50 tap water samples found water had very few bacteria in buildings without cisterns but there was noticeable contamination in buildings where storage tanks were present or plumbing had been altered or otherwise disrupted.
The problem was likely to have been caused by the plumbing changes or improperly maintained cisterns, opening the risk of bacterial resistance to disinfectants.
Heavy rainfall was occurring Tropical Cyclone Emeraude when the Global Precipitation Measurement or GPM passed over the Southern Indian Ocean and measured the rainfall rate.
Tropical Cyclone Emeraude formed on March 15, 2016 from a tropical low pressure area and intensified rapidly. By March 16 it was a tropical storm and a hurricane on March 17.
The Lomonosov Moscow State University astronomers who created a global network of robotelescopes MASTER detected that a bright star TYC 2505-672-1 has actually faded significantly. That finding induced new questions: so, the scientists assume that TYC 2505-672-1 is actually a double star system, though a nature of its companion remains unknown. The article was accepted to publication in Astronomy & Astrophysics, and is accessible as a pre-print at http://arxiv.org/abs/1602.06010
Expanding the use of recycled water would reduce water and energy use, cut greenhouse gas emissions and benefit public health in California -- which is in the midst of a severe drought -- and around the world.
A new study by the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, published online March 17 in the American Journal of Public Health, found that recycled water has great potential for more efficient use in urban settings and to improve the overall resiliency of the water supply.
Gold mining in California in the 19th century was a boon for the state's economy but not so much for the environment. Mining left a protracted legacy that impacts the natural landscape even today. Mercury, used in the gold extraction process, has been detected throughout the Lower Yuba/Feather River system in the state's Central Valley, and its presence could prove dangerous to local wildlife.