Tech

Ice ages are not that easy to define. It may sound intuitive that an ice age represents a frozen planet, but the truth is often more nuanced than that.

An ice age has constant glaciations and deglaciations, with ice sheets pulsating with the rhythm of changing climate. These giants have been consistently waxing and waning, exerting, and lifting pressure from the ocean floor.

Obesity and a high-salt diet are both bad for our hearts but they are bigger, seemingly synergistic risks for females, scientists report.

A study by the Hydrology and Agricultural Hydraulics group at the University of Cordoba analyses the potential of rock in dehesas as a source of water for vegetation

Many meteorological satellite networks are constantly scanning Earth, providing vital research data and real-time life-saving weather information. Since China began its initial development in 1970, the Fengyun (FY) series of meteorological satellites have advanced considerably throughout more than 50 years. While FY satellites primarily focus on the atmosphere, they are capable of observing complex variables within the Earth-atmosphere system. Since the initial FY dispatch, China has successfully launched 17 FY satellites, seven of which are currently operating in orbit.

Claiming that something has a defect normally suggests an undesirable feature. That’s not the case in solid-state systems, such as the semiconductors at the heart of modern classical electronic devices. They work because of defects introduced into the rigidly ordered arrangement of atoms in crystalline materials like silicon. Surprisingly, in the quantum world, defects also play an important role.

A compound in avocados may ultimately offer a route to better leukemia treatment, says a new University of Guelph study.

The compound targets an enzyme that scientists have identified for the first time as being critical to cancer cell growth, said Dr. Paul Spagnuolo, Department of Food Science.

Published recently in the journal Blood, the study focused on acute myeloid leukemia (AML), which is the most devastating form of leukemia. Most cases occur in people over age 65, and fewer than 10 per cent of patients survive five years after diagnosis.

URBANA, Ill. - With threats of water scarcity complicating the need to feed a growing global population, it is more important than ever to get crop irrigation right. Overwatering can deplete local water supplies and lead to polluted runoff, while underwatering can lead to sub-optimal crop performance. Yet few farmers use science-based tools to help them decide when and how much to water their crops.

A new University of Illinois led study identifies obstacles and solutions to improve performance and adoption of irrigation decision support tools at the field scale.

Nearly half of adults in the United States have hypertension, a condition that raises the risk for heart disease and stroke, which are leading causes of death in the U. S.

At Baylor College of Medicine, Dr. David J. Durgan and his colleagues are dedicated to better understand hypertension, in particular the emerging evidence suggesting that disruption of the gut microbiota, known as gut dysbiosis, can have adverse effects on blood pressure.

Exploring extreme environments can put significant operational challenges on the engineering systems we depend upon to safely explore and at times operate within.

Within high-value and safety-critical applications, such as space exploration or sub-surface drilling, the extreme and at times dynamic operating conditions within the environment, can make it challenging to understand the life expectancy of critical components and sub-systems. Hence, it's a highly complex and at times impossible situation to accurately understand therefore predict.

HOUSTON - (April 29, 2021) - In one of the first studies of its kind, medical and engineering researchers have shown wearable devices that continuously monitor blood sugar provide new insights into the progression of Type 2 diabetes among at-risk Hispanic/Latino adults.

The findings by researchers from Sansum Diabetes Research Institute (SDRI) and Rice University are available online this week in EClinicalMedicine, an open-access clinical journal published by The Lancet.

Lightning bolts break apart nitrogen and oxygen molecules in the atmosphere and create reactive chemicals that affect greenhouse gases. Now, a team of atmospheric chemists and lightning scientists have found that lightning bolts and, surprisingly, subvisible discharges that cannot be seen by cameras or the naked eye produce extreme amounts of the hydroxyl radical -- OH -- and hydroperoxyl radical -- HO2.

CORVALLIS, Ore. - Land productivity could be greatly increased by combining sheep grazing and solar energy production on the same land, according to new research by Oregon State University scientists.

This is believed to be the first study to investigate livestock production under agrivoltaic systems, where solar energy production is combined with agricultural production, such as planting agricultural crops or grazing animals.

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope is giving astronomers a rare look at a Jupiter-sized, still-forming planet that is feeding off material surrounding a young star.

"We just don't know very much about how giant planets grow," said Brendan Bowler of the University of Texas at Austin. "This planetary system gives us the first opportunity to witness material falling onto a planet. Our results open up a new area for this research."

Researchers in the materials department in UC Santa Barbara's College of Engineering have uncovered a major cause of limitations to efficiency in a new generation of solar cells.

An international team led by Xiangming Xiao, George Lynn Cross Research Professor in the Department of Microbiology and Plant Biology, University of Oklahoma College of Arts and Sciences, published a paper in the April issue of the journal Nature Climate Change that has major implications on forest policies, conservation and management practices in the Brazilian Amazon. Xiao also is director of OU's Center for Earth Observation and Modeling.