Tech
Some intriguing physics can be found at the interfaces between fluids, particularly if they are straddled by particles like proteins or dust grains. When placed between un-mixable fluids such as oil and water, a variety of processes, including inter-molecular interactions, will cause the particles to move around. These motions are characterised by the drag force experienced by the particles, which is itself thought to depend on the extent to which they distort fluid interfaces.
The environmental effects of agriculture and food are hotly debated. But the most widely used method of analysis often tends to overlook vital factors, such as biodiversity, soil quality, pesticide impacts and societal shifts, and these oversights can lead to wrong conclusions on the merits of intensive and organic agriculture. This is according to a trio of researchers writing in the journal Nature Sustainability.
Showy peacock feathers, extravagant elk antlers and powerful crayfish claws are just a few examples of the ostentatious animal extremes used to compete for and attract mates, a process called sexual selection.
Now, thanks to Arizona State University researcher Zackary Graham and his colleagues, we can add the "unicorn of the seas," the narwhal, to the list.
An independent investigative agency as well as an international offender database are needed to tackle allegations of abuse in elite youth sport properly, urges an expert, in an editorial published online in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.
Much is being done to protect young athletes, but "there are still significant gaps," contends Dr Margo Mountjoy, of McMaster University, Canada, and member of the International Olympic Committee Working Group on the Prevention of Harassment and Abuse in Sport.
The observed 'gateway' effect of e-cigarette use among teens is "likely to be small," with only a tiny proportion of experimental vapers going on to smoke regular cigarettes, suggests research published online in the journal Tobacco Control.
If anything, young vapers are less likely to go on to smoke regular cigarettes than their peers who try out other tobacco products first, the findings indicate.
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- Pesticide-coated seeds -- such as neonicotinoids, many of which are highly toxic to both pest and beneficial insects -- are increasingly used in the major field crops, but are underreported, in part, because farmers often do not know what pesticides are on their seeds, according to an international team of researchers. The lack of data may complicate efforts to evaluate the value of different pest management strategies, while also protecting human health and the environment.
Scientists have proved one of Charles Darwin's theories of evolution for the first time - nearly 140 years after his death.
Laura van Holstein, a PhD student in Biological Anthropology at St John's College, University of Cambridge, and lead author of the research published today (March 18) in Proceedings of the Royal Society, discovered mammal subspecies play a more important role in evolution than previously thought.
Her research could now be used to predict which species conservationists should focus on protecting to stop them becoming endangered or extinct.
Weight loss was maintained better after gastric bypass than after sleeve gastrectomy in large study of diverse patients in Washington and California.
SEATTLE -- People with severe obesity who underwent bariatric surgery maintained significantly more weight loss at 5 years than those who did not have surgery according to a Kaiser Permanente study published March 16 in Annals of Surgery. Although some weight regain was common after surgery, regain to within 5% of baseline was rare, especially in patients who had gastric bypass instead of sleeve gastrectomy.
Perovskite solar cells have developed quickly in the past decade. But like silicon solar cells, the efficiency of perovskite solar cells is highly dependent upon the quality of the perovskite layer, which is related to its crystallinity.
Unfortunately, the aging process of the perovskite solution used to fabricate solar cells makes the solution unstable, thus leading to poor efficiency and poor reproducibility of the devices. Reactants and preparation conditions also contribute to poor quality.
WASHINGTON, March 17, 2020 -- Proteins are the building blocks of life, and consequently, scientists have long studied how they can improve proteins and design completely new proteins that perform new functions and processes.
Traditionally, new proteins are created by either mimicking existing proteins or manually editing the amino acids that make up the proteins. This process, however, is time-consuming, and it is difficult to predict the impact of changing any one of the amino acid components of a given protein.
In 2016, scientists at MIT and elsewhere observed the first signs of healing in the Antarctic ozone layer. This environmental milestone was the result of decades of concerted effort by nearly every country in the world, which collectively signed on to the Montreal Protocol. These countries pledged to protect the ozone layer by phasing out production of ozone-depleting chlorofluorocarbons, which are also potent greenhouse gases.
WASHINGTON -- An academic-industrial team in Japan has connected three laboratories in a 100-kilometer region with an optical telecommunications fiber network stable enough to remotely interrogate optical atomic clocks. This type of fiber link is poised to expand the use of these extremely precise timekeepers by creating an infrastructure that could be used in a wide range of applications such as communication and navigation systems.
The key to effective cures for cancers is to find weak points of cancer cells that are not found in non-cancer cells. Researchers at the Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Medical Science found that cancerous and non-cancerous cells depend on different factors for survival when their DNA replication is blocked. Drugs that inhibited the survival factor required by cancer cells would selectively make cancer cells more vulnerable to replication inhibition.
In a report published in NANO, scientists from the Jiangxi University of Science and Technology, Guangdong University of Petrochemical technology, Gannan Medical University and Nanchang Hangkong University in China underline the importance of defect engineering to promote catalytic performance by providing a simple and efficient way for modifying and optimizing metal-free semiconductor photocatal
A study by the research team of Prof. Geert van Loo (VIB-UGent Center for Inflammation Research) has unraveled a critical molecular mechanism behind autoimmune and inflammatory diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, Crohn's disease, and psoriasis. They discovered how the protein A20 prevents inflammation and autoimmunity, not through its enzymatic activities as has been proposed, but through a non-enzymatic mechanism. These findings open up new possibilities for the treatment of inflammatory diseases.