Tech

Biodiversity is increasingly ruined by humanity's many impacts, a major aspect of which is biological invasion. Although there are a lot of studies reporting that invasive predators decrease the population size of native species, only a few studies have reported impact on phenotypic traits such as morphology and performance of native species. Particularly island ecosystem is very sensitive to invasive predators because strong predators such as mammalian predators are not in such environment.

Anemia, a condition characterized by the lack of healthy red blood cells in the body, is common in patients with chronic kidney disease who need to undergo routine hemodialysis (a process that helps to "clean" the blood when the kidneys don't function well). Thus, red blood cell-stimulating agents (called "erythropoiesis-stimulating agents" or ESAs) and iron supplements (ISs) are administered as part of this process. But, complications can arise if the patients have an altered iron metabolism or poor response to medications.

When the COVID-19 pandemic forced medical students out of classrooms and clinical rotations this time last year, the state of Georgia's only public medical school had to quickly rethink its traditional curriculum.

Faculty and staff at the Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University were able to quickly adapt and provide an online platform for learning about the pandemic and initiating student-led service projects to aid frontline workers and help educate the public, MCG faculty and students write in a review article in the journal Medical Science Educator.

Every year 600-900 million tons of carbon flow through rivers to the ocean either as particles or in dissolved form. Researchers have known for a long time that this does not represent the total amount of carbon that gets transported from the land to the ocean. But the remaining contributors mostly from coastal ecosystems, such as carbon-rich mangrove forests, and from groundwater discharge into the ocean have been notoriously difficult to measure.

Statisticians have calculated the probability of ships of different Polar Ship Categories becoming beset in ice along the Northern Sea Route. Their data will help assess the risks of maritime traffic in the Arctic.

Shipping provides the very foundation for world trade, by moving an estimated 11 billion tonnes of goods a year from where they are produced to where they will be used. From TVs to toasters, soap to sugar -- much of it moves over the waves.

Yet for ships plying the open ocean and for offshore industries, waves present an enormous challenge --because they can increase operational risks, reduce operating efficiency, and be dangerous if large enough and not handled well -- and they can be difficult to predict.

Undocumented women in Finland access pregnancy care later than others. Yet, screening of infectious diseases at the early stages of pregnancy would be particularly important to these women, a new study carried out in Helsinki, Finland, shows. Conducted by the University of Eastern Finland and the University of Helsinki, the study on undocumented women's pregnancy care and childbirth was published in BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth.

Study finds that children who experienced housing loss in the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake are more inclined to opt for short-term gratification

Tokyo - Living through a tragic event might make us more inclined to live for the moment, but not always in a good way. Research is looking into the psychological after-effects among children who survived the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, and a recent study may have made a connection: the children may forgo greater long-term reward for short-term pleasure.

A Delphi survey carried out by Dr Lyn Robinson, Head of Department and Reader in Library and Information Science at City, University of London, and Dr David Haynes, former Visiting Lecturer and Post-Doctoral Fellow in City's Department of Library and Information Science, has revealed priorities for protecting personal privacy online.

Millimetre and terahertz wave detectors have a wide range of applications in areas such as communications, security, biological diagnosis, spectroscopy, and remote sensing. They are the components that can transform light information loaded by long-wavelength millimetre and terahertz waves into electrical signals. High-performance room-temperature detectors with high sensitivity, fast response, broad spectral bandwidth, and possibility to be extended to large format arrays are always pursued.

A recent study shows that lettuce can be grown in greenhouses that filter out wavelengths of light used to generate solar power, demonstrating the feasibility of using see-through solar panels in greenhouses to generate electricity.

"We were a little surprised - there was no real reduction in plant growth or health," says Heike Sederoff, co-corresponding author of the study and a professor of plant biology at North Carolina State University. "It means the idea of integrating transparent solar cells into greenhouses can be done."

Many athletes, from football players to equestrians, rely on helmets to protect their heads from impacts or falls. However, a loose or improperly fitted helmet could leave them vulnerable to traumatic brain injuries (TBIs), a leading cause of death or disability in the U.S. Now, researchers reporting in ACS Sensors have developed a highly sensitive pressure sensor cap that, when worn under a helmet, could help reveal whether the headgear is a perfect fit.

AUSTRALIAN - LED INTERNATIONAL RESEARCH TEAM GENERATES THE FIRST MODEL OF EARLY HUMAN EMBRYOS FROM SKIN CELLS

In a discovery that will revolutionize research into the causes of early miscarriage, infertility and the study of early human development - an international team of scientists led by Monash University in Melbourne, Australia has generated a model of a human embryo from skin cells.

Scientists in Japan have observed, and interfered with, the ultrafast motion of electron movement inside of a Xenon atom using the coherent pairs of short light waves in synchrotron radiation. Xenon, consisting of a nucleus surrounded by five nested shells containing a total of 54 electrons, is used in flash lamps, and it burns bright and fast. The luminescent electrons move there on a time scale of one billionth of a second. The fast electron movement is however six orders of magnitude slower than that the scientists observed.

Cancer develops when changes occur with one or more genes in our cells. A change in a gene is called a fault or a mutation.

The inherited gene mutations found in this study, are passed from parent to child and are common in the population. However, each one individually does not significantly raise cancer risk.

Instead, these mutations collectively act to raise the risk of cancer developing. They do not directly cause cancer, instead they most likely interact with many other risk factors or random mutations that accumulate over a person's lifetime.