Tech
DURHAM, N.C. - A group of researchers have discovered the detailed inner workings of the molecular motor that packages genetic material into double-stranded DNA viruses. The advance provides insight into a critical step in the reproduction cycle of viruses such as pox- herpes- and adeno-viruses. It could also give inspiration to researchers creating microscopic machines based on naturally occurring biomotors.
When bringing technologies into the workplace, it pays to be realistic. Often, for instance, bringing new digital technology into an organization does not radically improve a firm's operations. Despite high-level planning, a more frequent result is the messy process of frontline employees figuring out how they can get tech tools to help them to some degree.
At the upcoming Conference of the Parties (COP26) in November, ample discussion is likely to focus on how the world is not on track to meet the Paris Agreement's goals of stopping warming at well below 2°C. According to a new University of California San Diego article published in Nature Energy, world diplomats will, however, find encouraging signs in emerging clean energy technology "niches"--countries, states or corporations--that are pioneering decarbonization.
The pros make it look easy, but making a movie with a drone can be anything but.
First, it takes skill to fly the often expensive pieces of equipment smoothly and without crashing. And once you've mastered flying, there are camera angles, panning speeds, trajectories and flight paths to plan.
With all the sensors and processing power onboard a drone and embedded in its camera, there must be a better way to capture the perfect shot.
North Carolina State University researchers have developed a computer simulation tool to predict when and where pests and diseases will attack crops or forests, and also test when to apply pesticides or other management strategies to contain them.
"It's like having a bunch of different Earths to experiment on to test how something will work before spending the time, money and effort to do it," said the study's lead author Chris Jones, research scholar at North Carolina State University's Center for Geospatial Analytics.
UPTON, NY--A team of researchers led by chemists at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory has studied an elusive property in cathode materials, called a valence gradient, to understand its effect on battery performance. The findings, published in Nature Communications, demonstrated that the valence gradient can serve as a new approach for stabilizing the structure of high-nickel-content cathodes against degradation and safety issues.
The South Pole and the rest of East Antarctica is cold now and was even more frigid during the most recent ice age around 20,000 years ago -- but not quite as cold as previously believed.
University of Washington glaciologists are co-authors on two papers that analyzed Antarctic ice cores to understand the continent's air temperatures during the most recent glacial period. The results help understand how the region behaves during a major climate transition.
Lauren Dreier was paging through a 19th century book by the German architect Gottfried Semper when she spotted some intriguing patterns inspired by lace. A professional artist and designer who often incorporates technology into her work, Dreier, who is also a doctoral student at the School of Architecture at Princeton University, decided to recreate the printed illustrations in 3D.
If you have ever tried to chip a mussel off a seawall or a barnacle off the bottom of a boat, you will understand that we could learn a great deal from nature about how to make powerful adhesives. Engineers at Tufts University have taken note, and today report a new type of glue inspired by those stubbornly adherent crustaceans in the journal Advanced Science.
Durham, NC -- Type 2 diabetes patients who are not overweight and who have had the disorder for less than a decade can benefit from stromal stem cells transplanted from their own bone marrow, according to a study published today in STEM CELLS Translational Medicine.
A new study in the journal Sleep finds that increased evening screen time during the Covid-19 lockdown negatively affects sleep quality.
A study published in the journal Pediatrics shows the combination of two early reading programs had positive effects on preschool students entering kindergarten in Cincinnati Public Schools over a three-year period.
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- Many species of ground-dwelling beetles, ladybugs, hoverflies, damsel bugs, spiders and parasitic wasps kill and eat pest species that routinely plague farmers, including aphids and corn rootworm larvae and adults. But the beneficial arthropods that live in or near cropped lands also are susceptible to insecticides and other farming practices that erase biodiversity on the landscape.
A team of scientists led by Nanyang Technological University (NTU Singapore) and Rice University in the US, has uncovered the key to the outstanding toughness of hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN). h-BN can withstand ten times the amount of force that graphene can, which is known as one of the toughest materials on Earth.
A two-dimensional (2D) material, h-BN has a thickness of just one atom. First used in cosmetics in the 1940s, it was soon abandoned due to its high price, making a resurgence in the late 1990s after technology made its production cheaper.
Mangrove vegetation, which grows naturally in subtropical shorelines, provides a wide range of ecosystem functions such as reducing coastal erosion, promoting biodiversity, and removing nitrogen, phosphorus and carbon dioxide. These vital ecological functions are influenced by the water flow around the intricate mangrove roots, which create a complex energetic process that mixes up sediments and generates a depositional region behind the roots. How these mangrove roots interact with water flow is believed to be a key element in mitigating coastal erosion.