Tech
Evapotranspiration (ET), the phenomenon of the loss of water to the atmosphere from the land surface through evaporation and transpiration, is an important part of water and energy cycles. ET is a key variable used in applications such as drought monitoring, climate prediction, water resources management, and agricultural planning.
For decades, scientists have known that plants protect themselves from the devastation of hungry caterpillars and other plant-munching animals through sophisticated response systems, the product of millions of years of evolution.
Forest-dwelling bacteria known for forming slimy swarms that prey on other microbes can also cooperate to construct mushroom-like survival shelters known as fruiting bodies when food is scarce. Now a team at Princeton University has discovered the physics behind how these rod-shaped bacteria, which align in patterns like those on fingerprint whorls and liquid crystal displays, build the layers of these fruiting bodies. The study was published in Nature Physics.
WASHINGTON --- Immune-system T cells have been reprogrammed into regenerative stem cell-like memory (TSCM) cells that are long-lived, highly active "super immune cells" with strong antitumor activity, according to new research from Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center.
HOUSTON -- Researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center have developed a novel targeted therapy, called POMHEX, which blocks critical metabolic pathways in cancer cells with specific genetic defects. Preclinical studies found the small-molecule enolase inhibitor to be effective in killing brain cancer cells that were missing ENO1, one of two genes encoding the enolase enzyme.
HOUSTON - (Nov. 23, 2020) - Knowing precisely where proteins are frustrated could go a long way toward making better drugs.
That's one result of a new study by Rice University scientists looking for the mechanisms that stabilize or destabilize key sections of biomolecules.
A new approach to treating cancers and other diseases that uses a mechanically interlocked molecule as a 'magic bullet' has been designed by researchers at the University of Birmingham.
Oscillatory behaviors are ubiquitous in Nature, ranging from the orbits of planets to the periodic motion of a swing. In pure crystalline systems, presenting a perfect spatially-periodic structure, the fundamental laws of quantum physics predict a remarkable and counter-intuitive oscillatory behavior: when subjected to a weak electric force, the electrons in the material do not undergo a net drift, but rather oscillate in space, a phenomenon known as Bloch oscillations.
New research from the University of Stirling into the effectiveness of international conservation projects could help to save endangered species from extinction.
The research, led by Laura Thomas-Walters of the Faculty of Natural Sciences, has published in respected journal, People and Nature. It focussed on evaluating a conservation campaign in São Tomé and Principe, that aimed to persuade local people to stop eating sea turtle meat and eggs.
The Rappbode Reservoir in the Harz region is Germany's largest drinking water reservoir, supplying around one million people with drinking water in areas including the Halle region and the southern part of the state of Saxony-Anhalt. Water temperatures in the reservoir now have the potential to increase significantly due to climate change. If average global warming reaches between 4 and 6 degrees by the year 2100, as the current trend suggests, temperature conditions in the Rappbode Reservoir will become comparable to those in Lake Garda and other lakes south of the Alps.
Since the beginning of 2020, labs from all around the world are sequencing the material from positive tests of people affected by COVID-19 and then depositing sequences mostly to three points of collection: GenBank, COG-UK, and GISAID. A fast exploration of this huge amount of data is important for understanding how the genome of the virus is changing. For enabling fast "surfing" over this data, the research group of Politecnico di Milano led by Prof.
Shortly after the COVID-19 pandemic first broke out in Wuhan, China, in January, government-issued lockdowns and business restrictions were implemented across the country, affecting more than 1.2 billion people and all types of businesses. With social distancing mandates in full effect, the restaurant industry was particularly hard hit - forced to close dining rooms while pivoting to curbside or delivery services only.
Inspired by nature, researchers at The City College of New York (CCNY) can demonstrate a synthetic strategy to stabilize bio-inspired solar energy harvesting materials. Their findings, published in the latest issue of Nature Chemistry, could be a significant breakthrough in functionalizing molecular assemblies for future solar energy conversion technologies.
COLUMBUS, Ohio - An international consortium of scientists has created the first-ever common framework for increasing comparability of research findings on coral bleaching.
"Coral bleaching is a major crisis and we have to find a way to move the science forward faster," said Andréa Grottoli, a professor of earth sciences at The Ohio State University and lead author of a paper on guidelines published Saturday, Nov. 21 in the journal Ecological Applications.
Trace elements such as iron, manganese and zinc are an integral part of the biogeochemical processes on the Earth's surface. As micronutrients, they play an essential role for the growth of all kinds of organisms and thus the Earth's carbon cycle. Below ice sheets, which cover around ten percent of the Earth's land surface, larger quantities of these substances are mobilised than previously assumed.