Tech
In an analysis of published research, investigators identified 565 mammalian species that have been used to source products used in traditional medicine around the world, especially in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. The analysis, which is published in Mammal Review, also found that 155 of these mammalian species are considered threatened (vulnerable, endangered, or critically endangered), and a further 46 are near threatened.
Compared to chimpanzees, our closest evolutionary cousins, humans are particularly prone to developing advanced carcinomas -- the type of tumors that include prostate, breast, lung and colorectal cancers -- even in the absence of known risk factors, such as genetic predisposition or tobacco use.
Drought stress has been a major roadblock in crop success, and this obstacle will not disappear anytime soon. Luckily, a dynamic duo like Batman and Robin, certain root-associated microbes and the plants they inhabit, are here to help.
Plants and animals have a close connection to the microbes like bacteria living on them. The microbes, the creatures they inhabit, and the environment they create all play a critical role for life on Earth.
Researchers at the RIKEN Center for Biosystems Dynamics Research (BDR) in Japan have completed a feasibility study indicating that electric rays and sting rays equipped with pingers will be able to map the seabed through natural exploration
Nairobi, 9 December 2020 - A green pandemic recovery could cut up to 25 per cent off predicted 2030 greenhouse gas emissions and bring the world closer to meeting the 2°C goal of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, a new UN Environment Programme (UNEP) report finds.
UNEP's annual Emissions Gap Report 2020 finds that, despite a dip in 2020 carbon dioxide emissions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the world is still heading for a temperature rise in excess of 3°C this century.
Researchers at Hiroshima University in Japan have blended together various polymer and molecular semiconductors as photo-absorbers to create a solar cell with increased power efficiencies and electricity generation. These types of solar cells, known as organic photovoltaics (OPV), are devices that generate electricity when light is incident upon their photo-absorbers. The efficiency of a solar cell is determined by comparing how much electricity is generated to how much light is incident upon the cell.
Researchers studying data from blood donors in Manaus, Brazil, who experienced high mortality from SARS-CoV-2, estimate that more than 70% of the population was infected approximately seven months after the virus first arrived in the city. "Manaus represents a 'sentinel' population, giving us a data-based indication of what may happen if SARS-CoV-2 is allowed to spread largely unmitigated," write Lewis Buss and colleagues. Brazil has experienced one of the world's most rapidly growing COVID-19 epidemics, with the Amazon being the worst hit region.
Contrary to previous assumptions, visual short-term memory is not merely based on one kind of information about an object, such as only its colour or only its name. Rather, several types of information can be retained simultaneously in short-term memory. Using complex EEG analyses and deep neural networks, researchers at Beijing Normal University and Ruhr-Universität Bochum have discovered that short-term memory is more complex than previously assumed.
Erosion of the frozen soil of Arctic regions, known as permafrost, is creating large areas of subsidence, which has catastrophic impact in these regions sensitive to climate change. As the mechanisms behind these geological events are poorly understood, researchers from the Géosciences Paris Sud (GEOPS) laboratory (CNRS / Université Paris-Saclay), in cooperation with the Melnikov Permafrost Institute in Yakutsk, Russia, conducted a cold room[1] simulation of landslides, or slumps, caused by accelerated breakdown of the permafrost.
The quest to discover pioneering new ways in which to manipulate how light travels through electromagnetic materials has taken a new, unusual twist.
An innovative research project, carried out by experts from the University of Exeter, has developed a new theoretical approach to force light to travel through electromagnetic materials without any reflection.
The discovery could pave the way for more efficient communications and wireless technology.
Particulate emissions from cooking stay in the atmosphere for longer than previously thought, making a prolonged contribution to poor air quality and human health, according to a new study.
Researchers at the University of Birmingham succeeded in demonstrating how cooking emissions - which account for up to 10 per cent of particulate pollution in the UK - are able to survive in the atmosphere over several days, rather than being broken up and dispersed.
ABERDEEN PROVING GROUND, Md. -- When an aircraft veers upwards too much, the decrease in lift and increase in drag may cause the vehicle to suddenly plummet. Known as a stall, this phenomenon has prompted many drone manufacturers to err on the side of extreme caution when they plan their vehicles' autonomous flight movements.
For vertical takeoff and landing tail-sitter drones, most manufacturers program the aircraft so that the vehicle body turns very slowly whenever it transitions from hover to forward flight and vice versa.
With their ability to harness the strange powers of quantum mechanics, qubits are the basis for potentially world-changing technologies--like powerful new types of computers or ultra-precise sensors.
In recent years, it has become possible to use laser beams and electron beams to "print" engineering objects with complex shapes that could not be achieved by conventional manufacturing. The additive manufacturing (AM) process, or 3D printing, for metallic materials involves melting and fusing fine-scale powder particles -- each about 10 times finer than a grain of beach sand -- in sub-millimeter-scale "pools" created by focusing a laser or electron beam on the material.
RICHLAND, Wash.--As wildfires burn more often across the Western United States, researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory are working to understand how extensively blazes burn. Their investigation, aided by machine learning techniques that sort fires by the conditions that precede them, not only reveals that the risk of wildfire is rising, but also spells out the role moisture plays in estimating fire risk.