Tech
Scientists have provided new insights on the relationship between plant diversity in forests and the diversity of organisms involved in their decay, such as bacteria and fungi.
Scientists have found that disruptions to the metabolism of lipids occur after childbirth in women with gestational diabetes who go on to develop type 2 diabetes.
Tropical Storm Isaias made landfall late on Aug. 3 and by today, Aug. 4, the huge storm stretched from Virginia to Maine. NASA satellites have been providing forecasters with rainfall rates, cloud top temperatures, storm extent and strength as Isaias batters the U.S. East Coast.
Warnings and Watches for Tuesday, August 4, 2020
NOAA's National Hurricane Center (NHC) posted many warnings and watches on Aug. 4. Storm Surge Warning is in effect for the Pamlico and Albemarle Sounds, Ocracoke Inlet, North Carolina to the North Carolina/Virginia border.
Transportation - Gauging pandemic impact
Oak Ridge National Laboratory researchers have developed a machine learning model that could help predict the impact pandemics such as COVID-19 have on fuel demand in the United States.
Called the Pandemic Oil Demand Analysis, or PODA, this model compared mobility patterns before and during the COVID-19 pandemic, analyzing historical weekly motor travel trends and projecting future usage.
Resistance to artemisinin, the main component of the current antimalarial treatments recommended by WHO, is already widespread in South-East Asia, but it had not previously been described in Africa. Scientists from the Institut Pasteur, in collaboration with the National Malaria Control Program in Rwanda (Rwanda Biomedical Center), the World Health Organization (WHO), Cochin Hospital and Columbia University (New York, USA), recently detected the emergence and spread of malaria parasites capable of resisting artemisinin derivatives for the first time in Rwanda.
Ankylosing spondylitis (AS) is a complex chronic inflammatory disease of the spine with involvement of the sacroiliac joints. Over the course of the disease, the joints and adjacent tissues ossify, which results in a partial or complete stiffening of the spine. Many patients complain of pain in the spine, lower back, buttocks and hips, which can be particularly severe in the morning. Pain in the second half of the night often wakes up AS patients and they need to do some exercise to relieve it. The disease most commonly presents in the twenties and thirties.
Climate change has increased the productivity of forests, according to a new study that synthesizes hundreds of thousands of carbon observations collected over the last quarter century at the Harvard Forest Long-Term Ecological Research site, one of the most intensively studied forests in the world.
Real-time measurements captured by researchers at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory provide missing insight into chemical separations to recover cobalt, a critical raw material used to make batteries and magnets for modern technologies.
Results published in ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces, track the dynamics of molecules designed to grab cobalt from solutions containing a mixture of similar species.
When humans bring a non-native herbivore to an isolated island, the native trees do not possess traits to craft an operative defense to the new threat, and the results can be devastating. A long-term study on cycads in Guam has revealed how rapidly invasive species devastated the native Cycas micronesica species and the key factors that have influenced the plant's mortality.
Scientists at Tokyo Institute of Technology and Socionext Inc. have developed a novel transceiver for enabling seamless communication between earth ground platforms and satellites in the low, middle, and geostationary earth orbits. Among other things, this transceiver could bring Internet to people in remote rural areas and at sea.
As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to spread, scientists and health care providers are seeking ways to keep the coronavirus from infecting tissues once they're exposed. A new study suggests luring the virus with a decoy - an engineered, free-floating receptor protein - binds the virus and blocks infection.
Erik Procko, a professor of biochemistry at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, led the study, published in the journal Science.
By exploring variants of a soluble version of the receptor that SARS-CoV-2 uses to binds human cells - which are being considered as therapeutic candidates that neutralize COVID-19 infection by acting as a decoy - researchers identified one that binds the virus's spike protein tightly enough to compete with spike binding by monoclonal antibodies. Its similarity to the natural receptor on human cells may limit the possibility for the virus to "escape" it, as it would when under pressure from antibodies.
Oliver Hofmann and his research group at the Institute of Solid State Physics at TU Graz are working on the optimization of modern electronics. A key role in their research is played by interface properties of hybrid materials consisting of organic and inorganic components, which are used, for example, in OLED displays or organic solar cells. The team simulates these interface properties with machine-learning-based methods. The results are used in the development of new materials to improve the efficiency of electronic components.
C1 polymerization is a useful technique for preparing polymers with a carbon-carbon main chain. This technique constructs a polymer backbone from "one carbon unit", in contrast to conventional vinyl polymerization, which produces polymers from a "two carbon unit" derived from vinyl groups. The representative characteristic of C1 polymerization is that it can yield carbon-carbon main polymers having a substituent on each main chain carbon atom [poly(substituted methylene)s].
Finding out if the food and water we consume are safe from toxic and carcinogenic metals can now be much faster and simpler. Researchers at the University Johannesburg developed an efficient and more sensitive method to test for dangerous levels of heavy metals, like arsenic, cadmium and chromium in vegetables and water. The method can be used to test other foods also. It is possible to test for several metals at the same time and automation can be added. The method can be used to test other foods. The instrumentation used is readily available in laboratories in developing countries.