Tech
Farmers could soon be growing tomatoes bunched like grapes in a storage unit, on the roof of a skyscraper, or even in space. That's if a clutch of new gene-edited crops prove as fruitful as the first batch.
The primary goal of this new research is to engineer a wider variety of crops that can be grown in urban environments or other places not suitable for plant growth, said Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Professor and HHMI Investigator Zach Lippman, who leads the lab that designed the 'urban agriculture tomatoes.'
Holidays are a time for family. Festive gatherings with parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles create memories that last a lifetime. But when a loved one has Alzheimer's disease (AD), holidays often become painful reminders of loss and deterioration. Currently, Alzheimer's affects one-in-ten adults over the age of 65--a number that is expected to triple by 2030. The need to find a cure is great.
When electrons collide with positrons, their antimatter counterparts, unstable pairs can form in which both types of particle orbit around each other. Named 'positronium', physicists have now produced this intriguing structure using a diverse range of positron targets - from atomic gases to metal films. However, they have yet to achieve the same result from vapours of nanoparticles, whose unique properties are influenced by the 'gases' of free electrons they contain in well-defined, nanoscopic regions.
In Europe, transport is responsible for nearly 30% of the total CO2 emissions, of which 72% comes from road transportation*. While the use of electric vehicles for personal transportation could help lower that number, reducing emissions from commercial transport - such as trucks or buses - is a much greater challenge.
A collaboration led by scientists at Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology (TUAT), Japan, has discovered that daily energy balance of Asian black bears (Ursus thibetanus) exhibited seasonal change with a twin-peak pattern: up in spring, down to the lowest point in summer, and up again in autumn. From spring to summer, the energy balance is surprisingly negative. Interestingly, bears obtain about 80% of the energy they need in a year by eating acorns in autumn.
BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Scientists have created thin films made from barium zirconium sulfide (BaZrS3) and confirmed that the materials have alluring electronic and optical properties predicted by theorists.
The films combine exceptionally strong light absorption with good charge transport -- two qualities that make them ideal for applications such as photovoltaics and light-emitting diodes (LEDs).
Princeton researchers have uncovered new rules governing how objects absorb and emit light, fine-tuning scientists' control over light and boosting research into next-generation solar and optical devices.
The discovery solves a longstanding problem of scale, where light's behavior when interacting with tiny objects violates well-established physical constraints observed at larger scales.
Spintronics or spin electronics in contrast to conventional electronics uses the spin of electrons for sensing, information storage, transport, and processing. Potential advantages are nonvolatility, increased data processing speed, decreased electric power consumption, and higher integration densities compared to conventional semiconductor devices. Molecular spintronics aims for the ultimate step towards miniaturization of spintronics by striving to actively control the spin states of individual molecules.
New species was named Buccinatormyia gangnami, after a famous hit by a South Korean singer PSY. It was described based on six impression fossils found near Jinju city in South Korea. On average, members of this species were twice larger than the common house fly, with a proboscis length up to 5 mm. Their darkish abdomenon were embellished with four pairs of light spots, very similar to yellowjacket patterns which typically displayed by hoverflies and other extant flower-loving Diptera active during the day.
Crystalline silicon solar panels could be just as effective when incorporated into stretchy wearable electronics or flexible robot skin as they are when used as rigid rooftop panels. KAUST researchers have devised a way to turn rigid silicon into solar cells that can be stretched by a record-breaking 95 percent, while retaining high solar energy capture efficiency of 19 percent.
For the first time, LEGO ® has been cooled to the lowest temperature possible in an experiment which reveals a new use for the popular toy.
Its special properties mean it could be useful in the development of quantum computing.
A world leading team of ultra-low temperature physicists at Lancaster University decided to place a LEGO ® figure and four LEGO ® blocks inside their record-breaking dilution refrigerator.
NIMS and AIST developed a liquid electret material capable of semi-permanently retaining static electricity. They subsequently combined this material with soft electrodes to create the first bendable, stretchable vibration-powered device in the world. Because this device is highly deformable and capable of converting very subtle vibrations into electrical signals, it may be applicable to the development of healthcare-devices, such as self-powered heartbeat and pulse sensors.
A new study published in Science Advances found that certain types of materials have a "memory" of how they were processed, stored, and manipulated. Researchers were then able to use this memory to control how a material ages and to encode specific properties that allow it to perform new functions. This creative approach for designing materials was the result of a collaboration between Penn's Andrea Liu and Sidney R. Nagel, Nidhi Pashine, and Daniel Hexner from the University of Chicago.
Sediment flux (SF) in the Tuotuo River on the central Tibetan Plateau (TP), considered the main headwater of the Yangtze River, has significantly increased over the past three decades, according to new research by scientists from the Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (ITPCAS), China Agricultural University, National University of Singapore, and Utrecht University.
Families with higher carbon footprints are likely to consume more confectionary, alcohol, and restaurant food, according to a new study by Japanese and European researchers published in One Earth.