Tech
ne of the most promising alternative energy sources is hydrogen, which can be extracted from water and air. A catalyst is needed for a chemical process that releases hydrogen from an H2O molecule. It can be made, for example, from platinum, or from molybdenum. But these are quite expensive materials. Therefore, the output energy is expensive too.
The group of Russian scientists have invented a new approach to solving this problem and published the thesis on this topic in the Nanomaterials Journal.
Winter associations predict social and extra-pair mating patterns in blue tits. Researchers of the Max Planck Institutes for Ornithology in Seewiesen and for Animal Behavior in Radolfzell show in their new study that blue tits that often foraged together during winter were more likely to end up as breeding pairs or as extra-pair partners, whereby bonds between future breeding partners seem to establish earlier in winter than those between future extra-pair partners.
There may be a solution on the horizon to combating superbug infections resistant to antibiotics. The tenacious bacteria and fungi sicken more than 2.8 million people and lead to more than 35,000 deaths in the United States each year.
A team of researchers has verified that it is possible to engineer two-layered nanofibers consisting of an ordered row of alternating peptides, and has also determined what makes these peptides automatically assemble into this pattern. The fundamental discovery raises the possibility of creating tailored "ABAB" peptide nanofibers with a variety of biomedical applications.
URBANA, Ill. - With some reports predicting the precision agriculture market will reach $12.9 billion by 2027, there is an increasing need to develop sophisticated data-analysis solutions that can guide management decisions in real time. A new study from an interdisciplinary research group at University of Illinois offers a promising approach to efficiently and accurately process precision ag data.
CLEVELAND--Glioblastoma is an aggressive, killer disease. While victims of this fast-moving brain tumor comprise only about 15% of all people with brain cancer, its victims rarely survive more than a few years after diagnosis.
But research scientists and doctors from the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, Case School of Engineering and Cleveland Clinic have blended two very different types of analysis to better understand and combat the brain cancer.
How an electron behaves in an atom, or how it moves in a solid, can be predicted precisely with the equations of quantum mechanics. These theoretical calculations agree fully with the results obtained from experiments. But complex quantum systems, which contain many electrons or elementary particles - such as molecules, solids or atomic nuclei - can currently not be described exactly, even with the most powerful computers available today. The underlying mathematical equations are too complex, and the computational requirements are too large.
To combat supply chain counterfeiting, which can cost companies billions of dollars annually, MIT researchers have invented a cryptographic ID tag that's small enough to fit on virtually any product and verify its authenticity.
A 2018 report from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development estimates about $2 trillion worth of counterfeit goods will be sold worldwide in 2020. That's bad news for consumers and companies that order parts from different sources worldwide to build products.
Conventional optics (e.g. lenses or mirrors) manipulate the phase via optical path difference by controlling thickness or refractive index of material. Recently, researchers reported that arbitrary wavefront of light can be achieved with flat optics by spatially varying anisotropy, using geometric or Pancharatnam-Berry phase. However, despite various methods employed for anisotropy patterning, producing spatially varying birefringence with low loss, high damage threshold and durability remains a challenge.
By watching videos of each other eating, blue tits and great tits can learn to avoid foods that taste disgusting and are potentially toxic, a new study has found. Seeing the 'disgust response' in others helps them recognise distasteful prey by their conspicuous markings without having to taste them, and this can potentially increase both the birds' and their prey's survival rate.
Millions of people might eventually be spared the embarrassment and extreme isolation caused by wetting themselves, thanks to new research.
One in every five people has a lower urinary tract disorder called overactive bladder which, for some, means not being able to hold in urine, needing to go to the toilet often, or waking in the night to empty their bladder.
Some wear sanitary towels or disposable underwear, while others worry that even with absorbent underwear, they'll smell of urine, so they choose instead to stay at home.
In the recent decade, various schemes of field recovery with direct detection have been investigated in short-reach optical communications. Since direct detection generally provides only intensity information, until now, signals have been mainly restricted to the single sideband (SSB) modulation format in various proposed intensity-only detection schemes. For such detection schemes, signal-signal beating interference (SSBI) is the dominant limitation.
PHILADELPHIA -- Researchers long thought that only one strand of a double-stranded microRNA can silence genes. Though recent evidence has challenged that dogma, it's unclear what the other strand does, and how the two may be involved in cancer. New research from Thomas Jefferson University has revealed that both strands of some microRNA coordinate to act on the same cancer pathways, across multiple cancers, to drive aggressiveness and growth - two hallmarks of poor prognosis for cancer patients.
Researchers described a new strategy of designing metamolecules that incorporates two independently controllable subwavelength meta-atoms. This two-parametric control of the metamolecule secures the complete control of both amplitude and the phase of light.
Researchers at Uppsala University and the University of Leeds presents a new mathematical model of patterns of diversity in the fossil record, which offers a solution to Darwin's "abominable mystery" and strengthens our understanding of how modern groups originate. The research is published in the journal Science Advances.