Tech
Bacteria can actively move towards a nutrient source--a phenomenon known as chemotaxis--and they can move collectively in a process known as swarming. Chinese scientists have redesigned collective chemotaxis by creating artificial model nanoswimmers from chemically and biochemically modified gold nanoparticles. The model could help understand the dynamics of chemotactic motility in a bacterial swarm, concludes the study published in the journal Angewandte Chemie.
Los Alamos National Laboratory scientists have developed a new quantum computing algorithm that offers a clearer understanding of the quantum-to-classical transition, which could help model systems on the cusp of quantum and classical worlds, such as biological proteins, and also resolve questions about how quantum mechanics applies to large-scale objects.
Tropical Storm Wipha formed quickly in the South China Sea. It was affecting Hainan Island, China when NASA's Aqua satellite passed overhead on July 31.
NASA's Aqua satellite used infrared light to analyze the strength of storms and found the bulk of them in the southern quadrant. Infrared data provides temperature information, and the strongest thunderstorms that reach high into the atmosphere have the coldest cloud top temperatures.
New research mining data from a catalog of more than 1.8 million southern California earthquakes found that nearly three-fourths of the time, foreshocks signalled a quake's readiness to strike from days to weeks before the the mainshock hit, a revelation that could advance earthquake forecasting.
NASA provided forecasters with a look at Hurricane Erick's rainfall rates and cloud temperatures with data from the GPM and Aqua satellites, as the storm headed to Hawaii.
Erick is a major hurricane in the Eastern Pacific Ocean and is a category 3 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale.
Scientists from Northwestern University and Caltech have produced electricity by simply flowing water over extremely thin layers of inexpensive metals, including iron, that have oxidized. These films represent an entirely new way of generating electricity and could be used to develop new forms of sustainable power production.
NASA's Aqua and Terra satellites provided infrared views of Flossie before and after it became a hurricane while moving through the Eastern Pacific Ocean. Both satellites analyzed Flossie's cloud top temperatures and structure as the storm strengthened.
If the sight of a skittering bug makes you squirm, you may want to look away -- a new insect-sized robot created by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, can scurry across the floor at nearly the speed of a darting cockroach.
And it's nearly as hardy as a cockroach, too. Try to squash this robot under your foot, and more than likely, it will just keep going.
While artificial leaves hold promise as a way to take carbon dioxide -- a potent greenhouse gas -- out of the atmosphere, there is a "dark side to artificial leaves that has gone overlooked for more than a decade," according to Meenesh Singh, assistant professor of chemical engineering in the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Engineering.
If city planners want more people to visit community greenspaces, they should focus on "putting humans in the equation," according to a new study from University of Arizona researchers.
The main finding, lead researcher Adriana Zuniga-Teran says, is simple: the easier and safer it is to get to a park, the more likely people are to visit the park frequently.
The paper is available online and set for publication in October in Landscape and Urban Planning.
First observation of excitonic insulator
New exotic state was first predicted in 1960s
A University of Wollongong / Monash University collaboration has found evidence of a new phase of matter predicted in the 1960s: the excitonic insulator.
The unique signatures of an excitonic insulating phase were observed in antimony Sb(110) nanoflakes.
Plastic waste that finds its way into oceans and rivers poses a global environmental threat with damaging health consequences for animals, humans, and ecosystems. Now, using tiny coil-shaped carbon-based magnets, researchers in Australia have developed a new approach to purging water sources of the microplastics that pollute them without harming nearby microorganisms. Their work appears July 31 in the journal Matter.
Researchers have found that anti-inflammatory biologic therapies used to treat moderate to severe psoriasis can significantly reduce coronary inflammation in patients with the chronic skin condition. Scientists said the findings are particularly notable because of the use of a novel imaging biomarker, the perivascular fat attenuation index (FAI), that was able to measure the effect of the therapy in reducing the inflammation.
Bottom Line: The incidence of colorectal cancer among younger adults increased in recent years in this analysis of data from Canadian national cancer registries that included about 688,000 new colorectal cancers diagnosed over more than 40 years. Among men younger than 50, there was an average annual percentage change of 3.47% from 2006 to 2015. Among women younger than 50, there was an average annual percentage change of 4.45% from 2010 to 2015.
Insights into how minute, yet powerful, bubbles form and collapse on underwater surfaces could help make industrial structures such as ship propellers more hardwearing, research suggests.
Supercomputer calculations have revealed details of the growth of so-called nanobubbles, which are tens of thousands of times smaller than a pin head.
The findings could lend valuable insight into damage caused on industrial structures, such as pump components, when these bubbles burst to release tiny but powerful jets of liquid.