Tech
UPTON, NY--For years physicists have been trying to decipher the electronic details of high-temperature superconductors. These materials could revolutionize energy transmission and electronics because of their ability to carry electric current with no energy loss when cooled below a certain temperature. Details of "high-Tc" superconductors' microscopic electronic structure could reveal how different phases (states of matter) compete or interact with superconductivity--a state in which like-charged electrons somehow overcome their repulsion to pair up and flow freely.
Researchers have found evidence of rainforests near the South Pole 90 million years ago, suggesting the climate was exceptionally warm at the time.
A team from the UK and Germany discovered forest soil from the Cretaceous period within 900 km of the South Pole. Their analysis of the preserved roots, pollen and spores shows that the world at that time was a lot warmer than previously thought.
In many regions of the world, farming must be done on areas of soil categorized as histosols. Histosols have a thick layer of rich organic matter, called peat.
Scientists are concerned, because farming can cause these soils to lose valuable carbon.
That's where Jacynthe Dessureault-Rompre? and her team at Laval University in Canada come in. She is trying to show that histosols can be sustainably used for farming.
An analysis based on mathematical statistics more precise than those previously carried out uncovered the reason why powdery mildew fungi on Åland are most abundant in roadsides and crossings. Identified as the specific cause was that traffic raises the spores found on roadsides efficiently into the air.
New statistical methods make it possible to identify complex mechanisms in nature that could potentially fundamentally alter our understanding of how diseases spread, among other things.
PITTSBURGH--Normally, it takes pricey equipment and expertise to create an accurate 3D reconstruction of someone's face that's realistic and doesn't look creepy. Now, Carnegie Mellon University researchers have pulled off the feat using video recorded on an ordinary smartphone.
Tokyo, Japan - Researchers at the Institute of Industrial Science, a part of The University of Tokyo, demonstrated a novel artificial intelligence system that can find and label 2D materials in microscope images in the blink of an eye. This work can help shorten the time required for 2D material-based electronics to be ready for consumer devices.
The only way to accurately measure pressure inside the skull is to insert a catheter or sensor inside. However, this is invasive and techniques with less risk are desired. Intracranial pressure (ICP) needs to be correctly accounted for in a variety of medical situations including neurosurgery, neurology and emergency medicine.
Movement breaks camouflage, making it risky for anything trying to hide. New research, published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B today [1 April] has shown that dynamic features common in many natural habitats, such as moving light patterns, can reduce being located when moving.
Dynamic illumination is particularly common in coral reefs, where patterns known as 'water caustics' play chaotically in the shallows. Researchers from the University of Bristol and the University of Queensland carried out behavioural experiments on the Great Barrier Reef, Australia.
The use of coercive measures in psychiatric care has decreased over the past years. However, a new study shows that coercive measures are still frequently used in Finland, and periods of both seclusion and mechanical restraint are long. According to root-level data collected from psychiatric wards, the use of coercive measures is considerably more common than could be concluded from the Care Register for Health Care. The results of the register-based study analysing the use of coercive measures were published in Nordic Journal of Psychiatry.
China's fast economic growth and accompanying rise in food demand are driving an increase in water use for agriculture and industry, thus threatening the country's water security. The findings of a new study underscore the value and potential of technological adoptions to help design targets and incentives for water scarcity mitigation measures.
Dropping Mentos® candies into a bottle of soda causes a foamy jet to erupt. Although science fair exhibitors can tell you that this geyser results from rapid degassing of the beverage induced by the candies, the precise means by which bubbles form hasn't been well characterized. Now, researchers reporting in ACS' Journal of Chemical Education used experiments in the lab and at various altitudes to probe the mechanism of bubble nucleation.
Meat is no ordinary solid. Made up of complex networks of moisture-saturated proteins, it displays some intriguing physical properties when it is cooked. Several studies in the past have attempted to recreate this behaviour in computer simulations, but because this demands so much computing power, they have only achieved simplified, one-dimensional recreations of the process, which aren't particularly accurate.
Researchers at Linköping University, working with colleagues in Great Britain, China and the Czech Republic, have developed a perovskite light-emitting diode (LED) with both high efficiency and long operational stability. The result has been published in Nature Communications.
"Light-emitting diodes based on perovskites are still not sufficiently stable for practical use, but we have brought them one step closer", says Professor Feng Gao, and head of research at the Division of Biomolecular and Organic Electronics, Linköping University.
Since Charles Darwin, biologists have been using the so-called "biotic interactions" hypothesis to explain, at least in part, why the tropics around the equator are so species rich. The hypothesis focuses on the importance of interactions between species for biodiversity. The geneal idea is that species interactions increase towards the species-rich equator. Such interactions may include interactions such as between parasites and host, or between a predator and its prey.
ITHACA, N.Y. - Daily life during a pandemic means social distancing and finding new ways to remotely connect with friends, family and co-workers. And as we communicate online and by text, artificial intelligence could play a role in keeping our conversations on track, according to new Cornell University research.