A study by an international team, including the University of Southampton, has shown population maps based on anonymous mobile phone call record data can be as accurate as those based on censuses.
Their findings show maps made using mobile records are detailed, reliable and flexible enough to help inform infrastructure and emergency planners; particularly in low income countries, where recent population density information is often scarce.
Boston, MA — People who swap 5% of the calories they consume from saturated fat sources such as red meat and butter with foods containing linoleic acid—the main polyunsaturated fat found in vegetable oil, nuts, and seeds—lowered their risk of coronary heart disease (CHD) events by 9% and their risk of death from CHD by 13%, according to a new study led by Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) researchers. Substitution of 5% of calories from carbohydrate with linoleic acid was associated with similar reductions in risk of heart disease.
Antibiotic-producing bacteria in soil are the source of many antibiotics used to combat diseases in humans and plants. But, surprisingly little is known about how these microbes impact tropical plant communities and ecosystems, where plant diversity, competition, and pathogen pressures are high.
Every day for more than 20 years, an average of 2,000 hectares of irrigated land in arid and semi-arid areas across 75 countries have been degraded by salt, according to a study by UN University's Canadian-based Institute for Water, Environment and Health, published Oct. 28.
Today an area the size of France is affected -- about 62 million hectares (20%) of the world's irrigated lands, up from 45 million hectares in the early 1990s.
Due to its unprecedented scope, the damage assessment caused by the 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico has been a challenge. One unsolved puzzle is the location of 2 million barrels of submerged oil thought to be trapped in the deep ocean.
UC Santa Barbara's David Valentine and colleagues from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute (WHOI) and UC Irvine have been able to describe the path the oil followed to create a footprint on the deep ocean floor. The findings appear today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Where's the remaining oil from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico?
The location of 2 million barrels of oil thought to be trapped in the deep ocean has remained a mystery. Until now.
Scientist David Valentine of the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) and colleagues from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and the University of California, Irvine, have discovered the path the oil followed to its resting place on the Gulf of Mexico sea floor.
When the former Hurricane Sandy struck New York City in late October 2012, the Manhattan-media-named "superstorm" led to traffic annoyances in New York City for more than five days, but evacuation proceeded efficiently with only minor delays, according to transportation researchers at the University of Illinois.
In the on-going effort to develop advanced biofuels as a clean, green and sustainable source of liquid transportation fuels, researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI) have identified microbial genes that can improve both the tolerance and the production of biogasoline in engineered strains of Escherichia coli.
New York | Heidelberg, 27 October 2014 Thermodiffusion, also called the Soret effect, is a mechanism by which an imposed temperature difference establishes a concentration difference within a mixture. Two studies1,2 by Belgian scientists from the Free University of Brussels, recently published in EPJE, provide a better understanding of such effects. They build on recent experimental results from the IVIDIL (Influence Vibration on Diffusion in Liquids) research project performed on the International Space Station under microgravity to avoid motion in the liquids.
Lasers – devices that deliver beams of highly organized light – are so deeply integrated into modern technology that their basic operations would seem well understood. CD players, medical diagnostics and military surveillance all depend on lasers.
Metamaterials, a hot area of research today, are artificial materials engineered with resonant elements to display properties that are not found in natural materials. By organizing materials in a specific way, scientists can build materials with a negative refractivity, for example, which refract light at a reverse angle from normal materials. However, metamaterials up to now have harbored a significant downside. Unlike natural materials, they are two-dimensional and inherently anisotropic, meaning that they are designed to act in a certain direction.
An unprecedented boom in hydropower dam construction is underway, primarily in developing countries and emerging economies. While this is expected to double the global electricity production from hydropower, it could reduce the number of our last remaining large free-flowing rivers by about 20% and pose a serious threat to freshwater biodiversity. A new database has been developed to support decision making on sustainable modes of electricity production. It is presented today at the international congress Global Challenges: Achieving Sustainability hosted by the University of Copenhagen.
When a solid material is immersed in a liquid, the liquid immediately next to its surface differs from that of the bulk liquid at the molecular level. This interfacial layer is critical to our understanding of a diverse set of phenomena from biology to materials science. When the solid surface is charged, just like an electrode in a working battery, it can drive further changes in the interfacial liquid. However, elucidating the molecular structure at the solid-liquid interface under these conditions has proven difficult.
SUMMERLAND, BRITISH COLUMBIA - A new study says that cherry producers need to understand new intricacies of the production-harvest-marketing continuum in order to successfully move sweet cherries from growers to end consumers. For example, the Canadian sweet cherry industry has had to modify logistics strategies--from shorter truck or air shipping to long-distance containerized shipping--to accommodate burgeoning export markets. Keeping cherries fresh and consumer-ready during long ocean crossings challenges producers to find new ways to retain fruit quality for weeks. Peter M.A.
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — A new study finds that most U.S. adults fail to meet recommended daily levels of 10 key nutrients, and those with disabilities have even worse nutrition than average.