Tech
Irrigation agriculture not only requires a large amount of water but it also uses a significant amount of energy, which in addition to affecting the environment, constitutes a major financial burden for the agricultural sector. According to a study by the Hydraulics and Irrigation research team at the University of Cordoba and Trinity College Dublin, recovering energy in water distribution networks for irrigation could mean a 12.8% savings of energy each year.
Chimpanzee lip-smacks exhibit a speech-like rhythm, a group of researchers led by the University of Warwick have found.
They found chimpanzees produce lip-smacks at a speech-like rhythm of open-close mouth cycles close to 5Hz (i.e. 5 open-close cycles per second), confirming that speech-rhythm was built upon existing primate signal systems.
Similarly to chimpanzees, fast-paced mouth signals with a speech-like rhythm have now been described in orangutans and several monkey species, confirming altogether that speech has ancient roots within primate communication.
A major UK government-funded research study suggests particles released from vehicle tyres could be a significant and previously largely unrecorded source of microplastics in the marine environment.
The study is one of the first worldwide to identify tyre particles as a major and additional source of microplastics. Scientists have previously discovered microplastics, originating from microbeads in cosmetics and the degradation of larger items such as carrier bags and plastic bottles, in marine environments globally - from the deep seas to the Arctic.
BINGHAMTON, N.Y. - Using advanced machine learning, drones could be used to detect dangerous "butterfly" landmines in remote regions of post-conflict countries, according to research from Binghamton University, State University at New York.
Hundreds of people die at sea every year due to vessel and airplane accidents. Emergency teams have little time to rescue those in the water because the probability of finding a person alive plummets after six hours. Beyond tides and challenging weather conditions, unsteady coastal currents often make search and rescue operations exceedingly difficult.
Researchers from North Carolina State University and Elon University have made artificial cilia, or hair-like structures, that can bend into new shapes in response to a magnetic field, then return to their original shape when exposed to the proper light source.
One in three women in Europe inherited the receptor for progesterone from Neandertals - a gene variant associated with increased fertility, fewer bleedings during early pregnancy and fewer miscarriages. This is according to a study published in Molecular Biology and Evolution by researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany and Karolinska Institutet in Sweden.
Scientists find a unique knotted structure — one that repeats itself throughout nature — in a ferroelectric nanoparticle, a material with promising applications in microelectronics and computing.
Just as a literature buff might explore a novel for recurring themes, physicists and mathematicians search for repeating structures present throughout nature.
An international team of scientists uncovered exotic quantum properties hidden in magnetite, the oldest magnetic material known to mankind. The study reveals the existence of low-energy waves that indicate the important role of electronic interactions with the crystal lattice. This is another step to fully understand the metal-insulator phase transition mechanism in magnetite, and in particular to learn about the dynamical properties and critical behavior of this material in the vicinity of the transition temperature.
Astronomers have found two objects that, added to a strange object discovered in 2018, constitute a new class of cosmic explosions. The new type of explosion shares some characteristics with supernova explosions of massive stars and with the explosions that generate gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), but still has distinctive differences from each.
New research from the University of Virginia School of Medicine is shedding light on the biological architecture that lets us hear - and on a genetic disorder that causes both deafness and blindness.
Sihan Li, a graduate student in the lab of Jung-Bum Shin, PhD, of UVA's Department of Neuroscience, has made a surprising discovery about how the hearing organ in mammals achieves its extraordinary sensitivity.
Biophysicists from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology and Vladimirsky Moscow Regional Clinical Research Institute have determined the optimal age of reprogrammed stem cells suitable for restoring heart tissue. It spans the period roughly from day 15 until day 28 of maturation. The research findings were published in Scientific Reports.
Giant planets in our solar system and circling other stars have exotic clouds unlike anything on Earth, and the gas giants orbiting close to their stars -- so-called hot Jupiters -- boast the most extreme.
A team of astronomers from the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom have now come up with a model that predicts which of the many types of proposed clouds, from sapphire to smoggy methane haze, to expect on hot Jupiters of different temperatures, up to thousands of degrees Kelvin.
A national program that offers financial incentives so that low-income consumers can purchase more fruits and vegetables has shown great success in Oregon, according to a recent Oregon State University study.
DURHAM, N.C. -- Electrolysis, passing a current through water to break it into gaseous hydrogen and oxygen, could be a handy way to store excess energy from wind or solar power. The hydrogen can be stored and used as fuel later, when the sun is down or the winds are calm.
Unfortunately, without some kind of affordable energy storage like this, billions of watts of renewable energy are wasted each year.