2020 could well be the year that the cryptocurrency dream dies. This is not to say that cryptocurrencies will die altogether – far from it. But to all the financial romantics who have cheered the rise of bitcoin and other digital currencies over the past decade, there is a reckoning coming. Like it or not, the vision of a world in which these currencies liberate money from the clutches of central banks and other corporate giants is fading rapidly.
Tech
Nearly a decade after the nuclear accident in Fukushima, Japan, researchers from the University of Georgia have found that wildlife populations are abundant in areas void of human life.
The camera study, published in the Journal of Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, reports that over 267,000 wildlife photos recorded more than 20 species, including wild boar, Japanese hare, macaques, pheasant, fox and the raccoon dog--a relative of the fox--in various areas of the landscape.
As the effects of climate change are increasingly felt around the world, possible solutions, from reducing fossil fuel emissions to capturing carbon, have come to dominate policy discussions. Planting new forests and restoring existing ones have emerged as some of the best ways to capture CO2, since trees pull carbon out of the air during photosynthesis, then store it in their trunks and roots.
This majestic spiral galaxy might earn the nickname the "Godzilla galaxy" because it may be the largest known in the local universe. The galaxy, UGC 2885, is 2.5 times wider than our Milky Way and contains 10 times as many stars.
A treatment involving electrical nerve stimulation helped women with fibromyalgia in a recent clinical trial. The findings are published in Arthritis & Rheumatology.
Fibromyalgia is characterized by pain and fatigue, particularly during physical activity. Transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS) delivers electrical currents through the skin to activate nerve pathways in the body that inhibit pain.
In Southern states that expanded their Medicaid programs under the Affordable Care Act, adults experienced lower rates of decline in both physical and mental health, according to research published this month in the journal Health Affairs.
An international team of astronomers funded in part by NASA has found the farthest galaxy group identified to date. Called EGS77, the trio of galaxies dates to a time when the universe was only 680 million years old, or less than 5% of its current age of 13.8 billion years.
West Texas cotton growers face many environmental challenges, including rising temperatures, higher temperature extremes, less rainfall, and a decline in groundwater supplies. While generations of growers have accumulated considerable knowledge about addressing these and other challenges, they can benefit from learning the scientific perspective. Natasja van Gestel provides that perspective through the Grower Citizen Science Project. The primary goal of the project to identify practices that increase soil health.
JUUL delivers substantially more nicotine to the blood per puff than cigarettes or previous-generation e-cigarettes (e-cigs) and impairs blood vessel function comparable to cigarette smoke, according to a new study by researchers at UC San Francisco.
CINCINNATI -- A new study provides hope that the number of children dying on the transplantation list while waiting for a new heart could potentially be reduced dramatically.
The study, published online in the Annals of Thoracic Surgery, demonstrates that many of the donor hearts deemed "high-risk" can be transplanted with the same survival rates as "low-risk" donor hearts.
The decommissioning of coal-fired power plants in the continental United States has reduced nearby pollution and its negative impacts on human health and crop yields, according to a new University of California San Diego study.
Evaporation ponds, which are commonly used in many industries to manage wastewater, can span acres, occupying a large footprint and often posing risks to birds and other wildlife. Yet they're an economical way to deal with contaminated water because they take advantage of natural evaporation under sunlight to reduce large volumes of dirty water to much smaller volumes of solid waste.
LOS ANGELES (Jan. 6, 2020) -- A new Cedars-Sinai study reveals how memory and abnormal brain activity are linked in patients with epilepsy who often report problems with memory. The data show that abnormal electrical pulses from specific brain cells in these patients are associated with a temporary kind of memory disruption called transient cognitive impairment.
Understanding this process has the potential to lead to improvements in treating epilepsy patients, as well as contribute to knowledge of how memory works.
It's no secret that many insects are struggling worldwide. But we could fix these insects' problems, according to more than 70 scientists from 21 countries. Their road map to insect conservation and recovery is published in Nature Ecology & Evolution this week. From urgent 'no-regret' solutions to long-term global comparisons.
Wearable electronics could be perpetually powered by stretchy, self-mending materials that use body heat to generate electricity. Three carefully curated organic compounds have been combined to develop a prototype thermoelectric material that is both stretchy and self-healing, can generate its own electricity, and is robust enough to withstand the stresses and strains of daily life.