Tech
More than half of America's national parks are facing a grave and immediate threat: the ongoing presence and spread of invasive animal species. The National Park Service has taken the first step in combatting this invasion by asking a group of experts to help chart a course that will ensure the survival of these national treasures.
Americans travel farther on average to their worship places than they did a decade ago. But while those who belong to a congregation in their neighborhood attend more often, "worshipping local" does not make them feel closer to their neighbors or more satisfied with the neighborhood, according to a new study by researchers at Baylor University and Calvin University.
Instead, frequent attendance -- whether "worshipping local" or traveling farther -- is associated with higher commitment to the neighborhood where the congregant lives.
How do human beings perceive their environment and take their decisions? To successfully interact with the immediate environment, for human beings it is not enough to have basic evidence of the world around them. This information by itself is insufficient because it is inherently ambiguous and requires integrating into a particular context to minimize the uncertainty of sensory perception. But, at the same time, the context is ambiguous. For example, am I in a safe or a dangerous place?
SAN ANTONIO -- December 2, 2019 -- Measurements taken by the Solar Wind Around Pluto (SWAP) instrument aboard NASA's New Horizons spacecraft are providing important new insights from some of the farthest reaches of space ever explored. In a paper recently published in the Astrophysical Journal, a team led by Southwest Research Institute shows how the solar wind -- the supersonic stream of charged particles blown out by the Sun -- evolves at increasing distances from the Sun.
Researchers from the School of Engineering in Trinity College Dublin have developed a new spatial index that measures the connections between poverty and poor accessibility.
The research, recently published in the Journal of Transport Geography, builds on previous work that shows how poor transportation availability can result in poor access to health care and employment, hence reinforcing the cycle of poverty in this area of rural Brazil.
Scientists from the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB) have implemented a novel pressure measurement method, quasi as a byproduct of the work on the "new" kelvin. In addition to being new, this procedure is a primary method, i.e. it only depends on natural constants. As an independent method, it can be used to check the most accurate pressure gauges, for which PTB is known as the world leader. Checking such instruments was formerly possible in the range of up to 100 000 pascals only; now 7 million pascals are feasible.
One of the main challenges in materials science research is to achieve high tunability of the optical properties of semiconductors at room temperature. These properties are governed by "excitons", which are bound pairs of negative electrons and positive holes in a semiconductor.
When Bruce Beutler won the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 2011, he reminisced about his grandmother, telling how she had once explained this distinguished award to him. Her grandson's Nobel Prize directed medical historians' attention to the Beutler family. The life of a Jewish pediatrician who emigrated from Nazi Germany to the United States in 1935 leads through a century of political turmoil, scientific progress, and prejudices.
Called the "second secret of life", allostery is one of the most fundamental processes of biology and has been a central focus among scientists across the life sciences spectrum, from fundamental biology to drug development.
But what is allostery? In the never-ending dance of regulation inside the cell, allostery is the process by which proteins - and other biological molecules - can indirectly regulate the activity of other biomolecules like receptors.
Imperial College London scientists have created a new type of membrane that could improve water purification and battery energy storage efforts.
The new approach to ion exchange membrane design, which is published today in Nature Materials, uses low-cost plastic membranes with many tiny hydrophilic ('water attracting') pores. They improve on current technology that is more expensive and difficult to apply practically.
Since 2015 Malaria has resurged and typical bednets treated with insecticide are losing their efficiency due to insecticide resistance in some mosquito species.
The bednets were previously crucial in reducing transmission and bites from mosquitoes in countries where Malaria is most common.
Physicists at the Center for Integrated Nanostructure Physics (CINAP), within the Institute for Basic Science (IBS, South Korea), have discovered an intriguing phenomenon, known as carrier multiplication (CM), in a class of semiconductors with incredible thinness, outstanding properties, and possible applications in electronics and optics. Published in Nature Communications, these new findings have the potential to boost the photovoltaics and photodetector fields, and could improve the efficiency of solar cells produced with these ultrathin materials to up to 46%.
Osaka, Japan - An Osaka University research team has introduced a new terahertz detector that allows extremely rapid wireless data communication and highly sensitive radar by using a frequency range that has previously been very difficult to work with. Their approach combined sensitive electronics and a novel method for handling high frequencies to achieve the long-sought goal of using terahertz radiation for sending and receiving wireless data.
Osaka, Japan - With more and more couples seeking assistance to conceive, the steps required for fertilization are being put under the microscope to identify factors that could enhance fertility. In a study published in the journal PNAS, a team led by researchers from Osaka University describe an exciting breakthrough that may aid in future fertility treatments.
Sweet potatoes (Ipomoea batatas) are becoming more and more popular: Whether in soup or as fries, they increasingly compete with "regular" potatoes which, surprisingly, are only distantly related. Although economically not as important as the potato world-wide, the sweet potato has a higher nutritional value and is richer in vitamins. Particularly in Asia, the crop is an important source of nutrients. As with potatoes, there are different cultivars of sweet potatoes available, all displaying their own characteristics.