Tech
In 29 new scientific papers, the Dark Energy Survey examines the largest-ever maps of galaxy distribution and shapes, extending more than 7 billion light-years across the Universe. The extraordinarily precise analysis, which includes data from the survey's first three years, contributes to the most powerful test of the current best model of the Universe, the standard cosmological model. However, hints remain from earlier DES data and other experiments that matter in the Universe today is a few percent less clumpy than predicted.
Researchers at the University of Adelaide are concerned video sharing platforms such as YouTube could be contributing to the normalisation of exotic pets and encouraging the exotic pet trade.
In a study, published in PLOS ONE, researchers analysed the reactions of people to videos on YouTube involving human interactions with exotic animals and found those reactions to be overwhelmingly positive.
Much of human invention and innovation has been the result of our discovery and replication of natural phenomena, from birds serving to inspire human flight, to whales allowing us to dive deep into the ocean with submarines. For the first time ever, researchers have captured at the nanometer level the gliding machinery of the bacterium Mycoplasma mobile. Their findings were published in mBio.
(Bethesda, MD - May 25, 2021) A new study published in Nature Scientific Reports has found that Methylene Blue, a century old medicine, has the potential to be a highly effective, broad-spectrum UV irradiation protector that absorbs UVA and UVB, repairs ROS and UV irradiation induced DNA damages, and is safe for coral reefs. The study suggests that Methylene Blue could become an alternative sunscreen ingredient that supports the environment and protects human skin health.
Plastic pollution has been found in seawater, on beaches and inside marine animals at the Galapagos Islands.
A new study - by the University of Exeter, Galapagos Conservation Trust (GCT) and the Galapagos Science Center - found plastic in all marine habitats at the island of San Cristobal, where Charles Darwin first landed in Galapagos.
At the worst "hotspots" - including a beach used by the rare "Godzilla" marine iguana - more than 400 plastic particles were found per square metre of beach.
People who tend to go to bed and wake up earlier have significantly lower risk of major depression, according to a sweeping new genetic study published May 26 in the journal JAMA Psychiatry.
The study examined data from more than of 840,000 people, and was conducted by researchers at University of Colorado Boulder and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. It represents some of the strongest evidence yet that chronotype—a person’s propensity to sleep at a certain time —influences depression risk.
Until now, competing types of robotic hand designs offered a trade-off between strength and durability. One commonly used design, employing a rigid pin joint that mimics the mechanism in human finger joints, can lift heavy payloads, but is easily damaged in collisions, particularly if hit from the side. Meanwhile, fully compliant hands, typically made of molded silicone, are more flexible, harder to break, and better at grasping objects of various shapes, but they fall short on lifting power.
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- The microscopic algae that live inside and provide nutrients to their reef-building coral hosts may be evolving in tandem with the corals they inhabit, so each partner is fine-tuned to meet one another's needs. A new study by Penn State biologists reveals that genetic differences within a species of these microalgal symbionts correspond to the coral species they inhabit, a discovery that could have implications for the conservation of these endangered corals.
New research has discovered that monkeys will use the "accent" of another species when they enter its territory to help them better understand one another and potentially avoid conflict.
Published in the journal Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, the study is the first to show asymmetric call convergence in primates, meaning that one species chooses to adopt another species' call patterns to communicate.
Half a billion tonnes of carbon emissions could be cut from Earth's atmosphere by improved management of peatlands, according to research partly undertaken at the University of Leicester.
A team of scientists, led by the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (UKCEH), estimated the potential reduction of around 500 million tonnes in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by restoring all global agricultural peatlands.
Like a good story, feeding has a beginning, a middle and an end. It begins with appetite prompting the search for food, continues with eating the food and it ends when satiation hits and the consumption of food is stopped.
At Baylor College of Medicine, Dr. Qi Wu, Dr. Yong Han and their colleagues have uncovered new aspects of the last part of this story that relate to the little-known neural circuits and neurotransmitters involved in ending food consumption.
The province of Quebec is one of only a few jurisdictions to enshrine sustainable development into law. In 2006 the then-Liberal government of Jean Charest adopted the Sustainable Development Act, creating a framework for Quebec's public bodies to follow in order to achieve a better integration of sustainable development in its operations.
The carefully orchestrated dance between the immune system and the viral proteins that induce immunity against COVID-19 may be more complex than previously thought. A new study by investigators at Brigham and Women's Hospital used an ultrasensitive, single-molecule array (Simoa) assay to detect extremely low levels of molecules in the blood and measured how these levels change over the days and weeks following vaccination.
ITHACA, N.Y. - Soil carbon storage, carbon capture and storage, biochar - mention these terms to most people, and a blank stare might be the response.
But frame these climate change mitigation strategies as being clean and green approaches to reversing the dangerous warming of our planet, and people might be more inclined to at least listen - and even to back these efforts.
Modern-day agriculture faces two major dilemmas: how to produce enough food to feed the growing human population and how to minimize environmental damage associated with intensive agriculture. Keeping more nitrogen in soil as ammonium may be one key way to address both challenges, according to a new paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).