Tech
The number of hydropower dams has increased dramatically in the last 100 years for energy supply, climate change mitigation, and economic development. However, recent studies have overwhelmingly stressed the negative consequences of dam construction. Notably, it is commonly assumed that reservoirs retain nutrients, and this nutrient reduction significantly reduces primary productivity, fishery catches and food security downstream.
Many proteins produced by the cells are decorated with sugars and delivered out of the cells. In this secretory pathway, MCFD2 sorts and transports blood coagulation factors V and VIII as special cargos. The impairment of MCFD2 function results in a deficiency of these coagulation factors.
Visualizing the structure of viruses, proteins and other small biomolecules can help scientists gain deeper insights into how these molecules function, potentially leading to new treatments for disease. In recent years, a powerful technology called cryogenic electron microscopy (cryo-EM), where flash-frozen samples are embedded in glass-like ice and probed by an electron beam, has revolutionized biomolecule imaging. However, the microscopes that the technique relies upon are prohibitively expensive and complicated to use, making them inaccessible to many researchers.
The crystal structure at the surface of semiconductor materials can make them behave like metals and even like superconductors, a joint Swansea/Rostock research team has shown. The discovery potentially opens the door to advances like more energy-efficient electronic devices.
Semiconductors are the active parts of transistors, integrated circuits, sensors, and LEDs. These materials, mostly based on silicon, are at the heart of today's electronics industry.
Even a limited nuclear war could have dangerous effects far beyond the region that is fatally hit. It would result in global cooling that substantially reduces agricultural production in the world's main breadbasket regions, from the US, to Europe, Russia, and China. The particular effect on food security worldwide including trade responses has now for the first time been revealed by an international team of scientists in a study based on advanced computer simulations. The sudden temperature reduction would lead to a food system shock unprecedented in documented history.
The concept of nuclear winter--a years-long planetary freeze brought on by airborne soot generated by nuclear bombs--has been around for decades. But such speculations have been based largely on back-of-the-envelope calculations involving a total war between Russia and the United States. Now, a new multinational study incorporating the latest models of global climate, crop production and trade examines the possible effects of a less gargantuan but perhaps more likely exchange between two longtime nuclear-armed enemies: India and Pakistan.
A component of breast milk may help protect premature babies from developing sepsis, a fast-moving, life-threatening condition triggered by infection. Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., have found -- in newborn mice -- that a molecule called epidermal growth factor in breast milk activates receptors on intestinal cells to keep dangerous gut bacteria from migrating into the bloodstream, where such microbes can prompt sepsis.
The strength of alpha brain waves reveals if you are about to make a biased decision, according to research recently published in JNeurosci.
Everyone has bias, and neuroscientists can see what happens inside your brain as you succumb to it. The clue comes from alpha brain waves -- a pattern of activity when the neurons in the front of your brain fire in rhythm together. Alpha brain waves pop up when people make decisions, but it remains unclear what their role is.
Models and algorithms for analyzing complex networks are widely used in research and affect society at large through their applications in online social networks, search engines, and recommender systems. According to a new study, however, one widely used algorithmic approach for modeling these networks is fundamentally flawed, failing to capture important properties of real-world complex networks.
WASHINGTON -- A new camera-based method for measuring building deformations can detect small displacements from 10 meters away. The method could be useful for continuously detecting fast deformations in high-rise buildings, bridges and other large structures with the aim of adapting these structures to external forces.
The fact that the Universe has more matter than antimatter is often referred to as "baryon asymmetry." The theoretical process behind this imbalance is "baryogenesis" and supposedly took place during the early cosmos. Now, a new paper postulates a mechanism called "axiogenesis," which suggests that the excess of matter over antimatter comes from a rotation of the axion field. Raymond Co and Keisuke Harigaya used a model to explore the physics behind the rotation of the quantum chromodynamics axion, a hypothetical particle that is also a dark matter candidate.
OAK BROOK, Ill. (March 16, 2020) - Today, the journal Radiology published the policies and recommendations of a panel of experts on radiology preparedness during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) public health crisis. The article outlines priorities for handling COVID-19 cases and suggests strategies that radiology departments can implement to contain further infection spread and protect hospital staff and other patients.
What The Study Did: Data from Sweden were used to compare 115,933 pairs of children who did or didn't use proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) to examine the association between PPI use and risk of fracture in children.
Author: Yun-Han Wang, M.Sc., B.Pharm., of the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden, is the corresponding author.
To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/
(doi:10.1001/jamapediatrics.2020.0007)
Irvine, Calif. – Farmers in California’s Central Valley are not known for their love of government regulations, but those same growers have seen a boost in the productivity of their high-value crops – and greater earnings – as a result of the Golden State’s strict air pollution controls.
On March 11, 2011, a magnitude 9 earthquake struck under the seabed off Japan--the most powerful quake to hit the country in modern times, and the fourth most powerful in the world since modern record keeping began. It generated a series of tsunami waves that reached an extraordinary 125 to 130 feet high in places. The waves devastated much of Japan's populous coastline, caused three nuclear reactors to melt down, and killed close to 20,000 people.