Ribonucleic acids (RNA) ensure that the blueprint in the cell nucleus is translated into vital proteins and that cell functions are regulated. However, little is known about the structure and function of particularly long RNAs, which consist of hundreds or thousands of building blocks. Chemists at the University of Bonn have now developed a new method for this purpose: They mark the complex molecules with tiny "flags" and measure the distances between them with a "molecular ruler".
In physics, there are very different types of particles: Elementary particles are the fundamental building blocks of matter. Other particles, such as atoms, are bound states consisting of several smaller constituents. And then there are so-called "quasi-particles" - excitations in a system that consists of many particles, which in many ways behave just like a particle themselves.
New research from the University of Notre Dame is shedding light on the unexpected effects climate change could have on regional instability and violent conflict.
Previous studies have linked drought to instances of intense conflict. As climate change is expected to bring hotter, dryer conditions to certain regions around the world, with it has come the expectation that conflict, too, will rise.
But this notion is more nuanced, according to the Notre Dame study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Matching behavior with the way you feel - in other words, not faking it - is more productive at work and leads to other benefits, according to a new study co-authored by Chris Rosen, management professor in the Sam M. Walton College of Business at the University of Arkansas.
Rosen helped design and write a study led by Allison Gabriel, associate professor of management and organizations at the University of Arizona. They published their findings in the Journal of Applied Psychology.
URBANA, Ill. - Urban areas face increasing problems with stormwater management. Impervious surfaces on roads and buildings cause flooding, which impacts the water quality of streams, rivers and lakes. Green infrastructure, including features such as rain barrels, green roofs, rain gardens, and on-site water treatment, can provide affordable and environmentally sound ways to manage precipitation.
Becoming a fossil is the ultimate game of chance.
From the manner of death, to the place where the corpse is buried, to the transformational events that follow, it's a rare occurrence for a specimen to hit a combo that will get it into the fossil record. And only the luckiest of fossils become part of a scientific collection you would see in a museum.
DURHAM, N.H.-- Scientists at the University of New Hampshire have unlocked one of the mysteries of how particles from flares on the sun accumulate at early stages in the energization of hazardous radiation that is harmful to astronauts, satellites and electronic equipment in space. Using data obtained by NASA's Parker Solar Probe (PSP), researchers observed one of the largest events so far during the mission.
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - People with chronic kidney disease have a higher risk for heart disease and heart-disease death. Now, for the first time in humans, research led by Navkaranbir Bajaj, M.D., of the University of Alabama at Birmingham, has identified a pathological change that appears to link kidney disease to progressive heart disease.
HOUSTON - (Feb. 3, 2020) - New simulations by Rice University scientists tell a tale of two taus and how they relate to neurological disease.
Their work suggests tau proteins take either of two paths to form aggregates suspected of promoting, and perhaps causing, Alzheimer's and Pick's (aka frontotemporal dementia) diseases. Precisely why remains a mystery, but figuring it out offers the possibility of controlling their fates.
An international team of researchers has discovered the hydrogen atoms in a metal hydride material are much more tightly spaced than had been predicted for decades--a feature that could possibly facilitate superconductivity at or near room temperature and pressure.
Such a superconducting material, carrying electricity without any energy loss due to resistance, would revolutionize energy efficiency in a broad range of consumer and industrial applications.