Tech
Products we commonly buy at the supermarket, such as tortillas and corn chips, are made from food grade corn. The corn is grown, harvested, bought by a food company, turned into masa (dough from ground corn) through a chemical process, and then made into our favorite products.
Each of these important steps has implications for the next -- and some scientists are calling for more research to make each step better to benefit both companies and consumers.
Carbon materials such as nanotubes, graphene, activated carbon and graphite are in high demand. Demands are thought to continue to increase because carbon materials have many beneficial uses and new applications are being discovered. They are essential to air and water purification, electrodes in metal refining, manufacturing pencils and lubricants. The carbon source quality (coal tar pitch), temperature, atmosphere, and preparation methods have great impact on the properties of carbon materials.
In the opinion of the study's main author, Hugo Viciana, a researcher at the Social Sciences Research Institute (in the Spanish acronym: IESA) - a joint centre of the Spanish National Research Council (in the Spanish acronym: CSIC) and the Junta de Andalucía (Regional Government of Andalusia) - during the study and currently associated with the Universidad de Málaga, "the partisanship of political life permeates everyday life and encourages discrimination based on political sympathies."
Science often reflects the priorities of dominant industries and ignores the needs of disenfranchised communities, resulting in the perpetuation of historical injustices. One team of scientists in Northern California studying sudden oak death, which poses a threat to the longstanding cultural heritage of several indigenous tribes, sought to chip away at this cycle through a new collaboration with these communities.
Is the brain capable of distinguishing a voice from the specific sounds it utters? In an attempt to answer this question, researchers from the University of Geneva (UNIGE), Switzerland, - in collaboration with the University of Maastricht, the Netherlands - devised pseudo-words (words without meaning) spoken by three voices with different pitches. Their aim? To observe how the brain processes this information when it focuses either on the voice or on speech sounds (i.e. phonemes).
Deep in the heart of a protected area like Doñana National Park, it is supposedly clean and free from pollution compared to other kinds of areas such as a big city's downtown area. However, it does not always work out that way, since natural environments get a growing number of pollutants. In the specific case of Doñana, we suspect this is due to its geographical location, as it is close to Huelva's chemical park and surrounded by areas with a great amount of agricultural activity.
Financial incentives work to help people stop smoking and remain smoke free - according to research led by the University of East Anglia (UEA).
Evidence published today in the Cochrane Library provides strong evidence that financial incentives helped people to stop smoking, and stay stopped long term.
The review also found that incentives helped pregnant women stop smoking.
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. -- Quantum information processing promises to be much faster and more secure than what today's supercomputers can achieve, but doesn't exist yet because its building blocks, qubits, are notoriously unstable.
Are cats getting fatter?
Until now, pet owners and veterinarians didn't know for sure. Now University of Guelph researchers have become the first to access data on more than 19 million cats to get a picture of typical weight gain and loss over their lifetimes.
The researchers at U of G's Ontario Veterinary College (OVC) discovered most cats continue to put on weight as they age, and their average weight is on the rise.
COLUMBUS, Ohio--When NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite launched into space in April 2018, it did so with a specific goal: to search the universe for new planets.
But in recently published research, a team of astronomers at The Ohio State University showed that the survey, nicknamed TESS, could also be used to monitor a particular type of supernova, giving scientists more clues about what causes white dwarf stars to explode--and about the elements those explosions leave behind.
They are added to a large number of foods to perform various technological functions, e.g. as acidity regulators. These include soft drinks, especially cola beverages, whipped cream and cream products, milk drinks, milk powder and coffee whitener, as well as meat products.
Quantum computers promise to perform operations of great importance believed to be impossible for our technology today. Current computers process information via transistors carrying one of two units of information, either a 1 or a 0. Quantum computing is based on the quantum mechanical behavior of the logic unit. Each quantum unit, or "qubit," can exist in a quantum superposition rather than taking discrete values.
This indicator should give information on total intake of plant protection product residues from food. The three categories of low, moderate and high intake to which the active substances in the plant protection products can then be allocated are essential here. "Consumer safety is strengthened by these valuable indicators for risk identification," says BfR President Professor Dr. Dr. Andreas Hensel. "Politics benefits from this too, because it is then easier to take specific measures to protect the population".
After Barry made landfall as a Category 1 hurricane, NASA's GPM core satellite analyzed the rate in which rain was falling throughout the storm. Now that Barry is a post-tropical cyclone moving through the mid-Mississippi Valley and toward the Ohio Valley, it is bringing some of that rainfall with it.
NASA Analyzes Barry's Rain Rates
CHICAGO--Hybrid unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs, are drones that combine the advantages of multi-copters and fixed-wing planes. These drones are equipped to vertically take off and land like multi-copters, yet also have the strong aerodynamic performance and energy-saving capabilities of traditional planes. As hybrid UAVs continue to evolve, however, controlling them remotely still remains a challenge.