Tech
July 15, 2020 - Smoking cessation initiatives notwithstanding, along with provocative public health campaigns and clinical guidance, quitting tobacco has remained elusive for many smokers. The American Thoracic Society's new clinical practice guideline on treatment for tobacco dependence in adults addresses how clinicians may deal with patients' reluctance to quit, one of a number of issues not previously assessed in the older guidelines.
Mobile phones and other electronic devices made from an organic material that is thin, bendable and more powerful are now a step closer thanks to new research led by scientists at The Australian University (ANU).
Lead researchers Dr Ankur Sharma and Associate Professor Larry Lu say it would help create the next generation of ultra-fast electronic chips, which promise to be much faster than current electronic chips we use.
"Conventional devices run on electricity - but this material allows us to use light or photons, which travels much faster," Dr Sharma said.
What would conversations with Alexa be like if she was a regular at The Second City?
Jonathan May, research lead at the USC Information Sciences Institute (ISI) and research assistant professor of computer science at USC's Viterbi School of Engineering, is exploring this question with Justin Cho, an ISI programmer analyst and prospective USC Viterbi Ph.D. student, through their Selected Pairs Of Learnable ImprovisatioN (SPOLIN) project. Their research incorporates improv dialogues into chatbots to produce more engaging interactions.
PITTSBURGH, July 15, 2020 - Blocking a newly identified "immune memory checkpoint" in immune cells could improve immunotherapy and help prevent cancers from recurring, according to new findings in mice and human samples by researchers at the UPMC Hillman Cancer Center and the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. The research was published this week in Nature Immunology.
Making the transition to a renewable energy future will have environmental and long-term economic benefits and is possible in terms of energy return on energy invested (EROI), UNSW Sydney researchers have found.
Their research, published in the international journal Ecological Economics recently, disproves the claim that a transition to large-scale renewable energy technologies and systems will damage the macro-economy by taking up too large a chunk of global energy generation.
Over the last decade, the field of condensed matter physics has experienced a golden age with the discovery of new materials and properties, and related technologies being developed at breakneck speed thanks to the arrival of topological physics. Topological physics took off in 2008 with the discovery of topological insulator, a type of material that is electrically insulating in the bulk but metallic on the surface.
For most of us, our closest encounter with the element fluorine is likely to be our toothpaste or a municipal water supply with added fluoride.
But excess fluorine can be a problem. For example, high levels of fluorine in the soil can hurt plants. Fluorine in soils may also affect microbes and other organisms higher along the food chain.
A new study explored whether soil fluorine levels in New Zealand are high enough to hurt a specific microbe called Rhizobium.
A Korean research team has developed a technology that enables the effective control of fine particulate matter and nanoplastics, which are major causes of human toxicity and ecosystem disturbances. This technology, which allows for real-time sorting, purification, and concentration of nanoparticles invisible to the human eye, has great potential application, not only for the removal of toxic particles from the natural environment, but also for removing viruses and detecting dementia-related proteins and cancer diagnostic markers.
Early life stress is associated with youth-onset depression for some types of stress but not others
Results support an association between eight different types of early life stress and the development of depression in youth
Cuba's successful containment of COVID-19 through door-to-door screening of every home in the country, shows how 'shoe-leather' epidemiology could have averted the dramatic failure of the UK's response to the pandemic. In Cuba there have been 2,173 confirmed cases and 83 deaths, with no reported deaths throughout the first week in June.
The term 'shoe leather' epidemiology, where much of the work is carried out on foot in the community, was first demonstrated during the Soho cholera epidemic in 1854.
An increase of 20 to 30 per cent of invasive non-native (alien) species would lead to dramatic future biodiversity loss worldwide. This is the conclusion of a study by an international team of researchers led by Franz Essl and Bernd Lenzner from the University of Vienna. It has been published in the journal Global Change Biology.
Human activities intentionally and unintentionally introduce more and more plant and animal species to new regions of the world - for example, via commodity transport or tourism.
An interdisciplinary team of scientists studying thousands of oyster shells along the Georgia coast, some as old as 4,500 years, has published new insights into how Native Americans sustained oyster harvests for thousands of years, observations that may lead to better management practices of oyster reefs today.
Their study, led by University of Georgia archaeologist Victor Thompson, was published July 10 in the journal Science Advances.
Aromatic esters are chemicals that contain an aromatic ring consisting of functional groups called esters. These organic compounds are widely used as chemical feedstock in industries like food and beverages, pharmaceuticals, and cosmetics. Thus, finding efficient reactions for their synthesis is an important area of research in organic chemistry.
Cell phone batteries often heat up and, at times, can burst into flames. In most cases, the culprit behind such incidents can be traced back to lithium batteries. Despite providing long-lasting electric currents that can keep devices powered up, lithium batteries can internally short circuit, heating up the device.
The Raspberry Pi Virtual Reality system (PiVR) is a versatile tool for presenting virtual reality environments to small, freely moving animals (such as flies and fish larvae), according to a study published July 14, 2020 in the open-access journal PLOS Biology by David Tadres and Matthieu Louis of the University of California, Santa Barbara. The use of PiVR, together with techniques like optogenetics, will facilitate the mapping and characterization of neural circuits involved in behavior.