Tech
Changes in fire activity are putting at risk more than 4,400 species across the globe, says a new paper led by the University of Melbourne, involving 27 international researchers.
"Those species include 19 per cent of birds, 16 per cent of mammals, 17 per cent of dragonflies and 19 per cent of legumes that are classified as critically endangered, endangered or vulnerable," said lead author, Dr Luke Kelly, a Senior Lecturer in Ecology and Centenary Research Fellow.
"That's a massive number of plants and animals facing threats associated with fire."
Researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden have studied the incidence and regional distribution of Alzheimer's disease biomarkers in the brains of people with Down's syndrome. The results can bring new possibilities for earlier diagnosis and preventive treatment of dementia. The study is published in Molecular Neurodegeneration.
While medical advances and improvements of life quality have increased the life expectancy of people with Down's syndrome to an average of 60 years, up to 90 percent develop Alzheimer's disease if they live long enough.
ANN ARBOR, Mich. - For some families, one of the most difficult steps in reducing COVID-19 risks has been keeping children apart from grandparents and other extended family members.
And that may be especially true during the holiday season, as novel coronavirus cases rapidly accelerate across the nation and public health officials discourage gatherings to help slow the spread of the deadly virus.
Still, some parents may prioritize continuing Thanksgiving Day traditions with their children over reducing transmission risks, a new national poll suggests.
MADISON, Wis. -- Multilayer plastic materials are ubiquitous in food and medical supply packaging, particularly since layering polymers can give those films specific properties, like heat resistance or oxygen and moisture control. But despite their utility, those ever-present plastics are impossible to recycle using conventional methods.
True random numbers are required in fields as diverse as slot machines and data encryption. These numbers need to be truly random, such that they cannot even be predicted by people with detailed knowledge of the method used to generate them.
As a rule, they are generated using physical methods. For instance, thanks to the tiniest high-frequency electron movements, the electrical resistance of a wire is not constant but instead fluctuates slightly in an unpredictable way. That means measurements of this background noise can be used to generate true random numbers.
Whether in solar cells, in photosynthesis or in the human eye: when light falls on the material, a green leaf or the retina, certain molecules transport energy and charge. This ultimately leads to the separation of charges and the generation of electricity. Molecular funnels, so-called conical intersections, ensure that this transport is highly efficient and directed.
Scientists are working on new materials to create neuromorphic computers, with a design based on the human brain. A crucial component is a memristive device, the resistance of which depends on the history of the device - just like the response of our neurons depends on previous input. Materials scientists from the University of Groningen analysed the behaviour of strontium titanium oxide, a platform material for memristor research and used the 2D material graphene to probe it. On 11 November 2020, the results were published in the journal ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces.
Drones are a powerful tool for conservation - but they should only be used after careful consideration and planning, according to a new report.
The report, commissioned by the global conservation organisation WWF, outlines "best practices" for using drones effectively and safely, while minimising impacts on wildlife. This is the 5th issue in a series on Conservation Technologies and Methodologies.
The lead authors are Dr Karen Anderson and Dr James Duffy, of the Environment and Sustainability Institute at the University of Exeter.
Ribosomes synthesize all the proteins in cells. Studies mainly done on yeast have revealed much about how ribosomes are put together, but an Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet (LMU) in Munich team now reports that ribosome assembly in human cells requires factors that have no counterparts in simpler model organisms.
Testing half the population weekly with inexpensive, rapid-turnaround COVID-19 tests would drive the virus toward elimination within weeks-- even if those tests are significantly less sensitive than gold-standard clinical tests, according to a new study published today by University of Colorado Boulder and Harvard University researchers.
Such a strategy could lead to "personalized stay-at-home orders" without shutting down restaurants, bars, retail stores and schools, the authors said.
The rise of online hate speech is a disturbing, growing trend in countries around the world, with serious psychological consequences and the potential to impact, and even contribute to, real-world violence. Citizen-generated counter speech may help discourage hateful online rhetoric, but it has been difficult to quantify and study. Until recently, studies have been limited to small-scale, hand-labeled endeavors.
Molecules that are made up of multiple repeating subunits, known as monomers, which may vary or not in their chemical structure, are classified as macromolecules or polymers. Examples exist in nature, including proteins and nucleic acids, which are at the heart of all biological systems. Proteins not only form the basis of structural elements in cells, they also serve as enzymes - which catalyze essentially all of the myriad of chemical transformations that take place in living systems. In contrast, nucleic acids such as DNA and RNA serve as informational macromolecules.
Pay-to-stay, the practice of charging people to pay for their own jail or prison confinement, is being enforced unfairly by using criminal, civil and administrative law, according to a new Rutgers University-New Brunswick led study.
Tokyo, Japan - Researchers from Tokyo Metropolitan University have realized high-throughput production of thin, ordered through-hole membranes of titanium dioxide. Titania layers were grown using anodization on mask-etched titanium before being crystallized. Applying a second anodization, they converted part of the layer back to an amorphous state. The amorphous portion was then selectively dissolved to free the film while leaving the template intact. This paves the way for industrial production of ordered titania membranes for photonics.
Osaka City University scientists and colleagues in Japan have found a way to control an interaction between quantum dots that could greatly improve charge transport, leading to more efficient solar cells. Their findings were published in the journal Nature Communications.
Nanomaterials engineer DaeGwi Kim led a team of scientists at Osaka City University, RIKEN Center for Emergent Matter Science and Kyoto University to investigate ways to control a property called quantum resonance in layered structures of quantum dots called superlattices.