Tech

Eating 2.5 grams of pure natural cocoa powder serves to improve visual acuity in healthy young adults and in daylight conditions, according to research by the Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM) and the ICTAN (Institute of Food and Nutrition Science and Technology) of the CSIC.

The study, published in the Journal of Functional Foods, analyse the effects of two dietary polyphenols: cocoa flavanols and red berry anthocyanins.

Children who were exposed to higher levels of trace minerals manganese and selenium during their mothers' pregnancy had a lower risk of high blood pressure in childhood, according to a study led by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

A new study from archaeologists at University of Sydney and Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, has provided important new evidence to answer the question "Who exactly were the Anglo-Saxons?"

New findings based on studying skeletal remains clearly indicates the Anglo-Saxons were a melting pot of people from both migrant and local cultural groups and not one homogenous group from Western Europe.

Over recent years, the retina has established its position as one of the most promising biomarkers for the early diagnosis of Alzheimer's. Moving on from the debate as to the retina becoming thinner or thicker, researchers from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid and Hospital Clínico San Carlos are focusing their attention on the roughness of the ten retinal layers.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, cloth face masks became a way to help protect yourself and others from the virus. And for some people, they became a fashion statement, with many fabric choices available. But just how effective are they, especially in containing a sneeze? Now, researchers reporting in ACS Biomaterials Science & Engineering used high-speed videos of a person sneezing to identify the optimal cloth mask design. Watch a video of the sneeze cam here.

A new study published in the Journal of the Association for Consumer Research posits that increased accessibility to anthropomorphized luck (i.e., "lady luck") can lead consumers to be more likely to pursue higher-risk financial behavior.

How many tree species are there in the forest? How are the trees scattered throughout? How high are the individual tree crowns? Are there fallen trees or hollowed-out tree trunks? Forest scientists characterize forests according to structural factors. "Structural richness is very important for biodiversity in forests. But forests used for forestry are generally poor in terms of structure," says Tristan Eckerter from the Chair of Nature Conservation and Landscape Ecology at the University of Freiburg.

Most survivors of squamous cell head and neck cancers report that their sense of taste is dulled, changed or lost during radiation treatment, causing them to lose interest in eating and diminishing their quality of life.

In a study of taste and smell dysfunction with 40 cancer survivors, scientists at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign found that the tips of these individuals' tongues were significantly less sensitive to bitter, salty or sweet tastes than peers in the control group who had never been diagnosed with cancer.

In New England, constraints in the supply of natural gas have led to nearly a quarter of all unscheduled power plant outages. In a new study, researchers used data from power plant failures in the 2010s to develop a supply curve of the costs required for generators to mitigate fuel shortages in the region. The study found that storing both oil and gas on-site could reduce dependence by power plants on gas grids in geographic areas with few pipelines.

BROOKLYN, New York, Wednesday, June 23, 2021 -- Owing to their tunable properties, hydrogels comprising stimuli-sensitive polymers are among the most appealing molecular scaffolds because their versatility allows for applications in tissue engineering, drug delivery and other biomedical fields.

Hospitalizations to treat pediatric gun injuries are expensive, and U.S. taxpayers and the poor are bearing the price, according to a new study from the Stanford University School of Medicine.

The study, which published online June 23 in PLOS ONE, found that the average cost of an initial hospitalization for a pediatric firearm injury is around $13,000. A total of about $109 million is spent on such hospitalizations in the country each year. The figures do not capture the total costs of rehabilitating young gunshot victims, which can be much higher.

New York, NY--June 23, 2021--A challenging frontier in science and engineering is controlling matter outside of thermodynamic equilibrium to build material systems with capabilities that rival those of living organisms. Research on active colloids aims to create micro- and nanoscale "particles" that swim through viscous fluids like primitive microorganisms. When these self-propelled particles come together, they can organize and move like schools of fish to perform robotic functions, such as navigating complex environments and delivering "cargo" to targeted locations.

A new study published in Nature Communications finds that piles of sand grains, even when undisturbed, are in constant motion. Using highly-sensitive optical interference data, researchers from the University of Pennsylvania and Vanderbilt University present results that challenge existing theories in both geology and physics about how soils and other types of disordered materials behave.

Warm mix asphalt (WMA) is gaining attention in the asphalt industry as an eco-friendly and sustainable technology. WMA reduces energy consumption while simultaneously minimizing vapors and greenhouse gas emissions during the production of asphalt mixtures in comparison to conventional asphalt. However, high moisture susceptibility and ageing of asphalt make WMA less durable on the roads.

Lifestyle changes for demand-side climate change mitigation is gaining more and more importance and attention. A new IIASA-led study set out to understand the full potential of behavior change and what drives such changes in people's choices across the world using data from almost two billion Facebook profiles.