Tech
Materials scientists at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU) have achieved a new record in the performance of organic non-fullerene based single-junction solar cells. Using a series of complex optimisations, they achieved certified power conversion efficiency of 12.25 percent on a surface area measuring one square centimetre. This standardised surface area is the preliminary stage for prototype manufacture.
A new study has identified a novel molecular driver of lethal prostate cancer, along with a molecule that could be used to attack it. The findings were made in laboratory mice. If confirmed in humans, they could lead to more effective ways to control certain aggressive types of prostate cancer, the second-leading cause of cancer death for men in the U.S.
Complex systems theory is usually used to study things like the immune system, global climate, ecosystems, transportation or communications systems.
But with global politics becoming more unpredictable - highlighted by the UK's vote for Brexit and the presidential elections of Donald Trump in the USA and Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil - it is being used to examine the stability of democracies.
The structures of flowers and other plant parts represent a rich and complex source of botanical information with great potential to answer a variety of taxonomic, evolutionary, and ecological questions. As computational approaches become ever more central to biological research, there is a pressing need to translate this information into tractable digital data for analysis.
CHICAGO - Researchers are using artificial intelligence to reduce the dose of a contrast agent that may be left behind in the body after MRI exams, according to a study being presented today at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA).
Scientists have shown that the social insect Lasius niger (or black garden ant) changes its behavior following exposure to a fungus, a strategy that protects the most vulnerable and important members of the colony from infection. Their findings, which have been difficult for researchers to measure tangibly, provide the first evidence that animal social networks can adapt to decrease the spread of disease.
A program to reduce Earth's heat capture by injecting aerosols into the atmosphere from high-altitude aircraft is possible, but unreasonably costly with current technology, and would be unlikely to remain secret.
Those are the key findings of new research published today in Environmental Research Letters, which looked at the capabilities and costs of various methods of delivering sulphates into the lower stratosphere, known as stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI).
Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) delivered by respiratory nurses is cost-effective and reduces anxiety symptoms in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) patients, according to research published in ERJ Open Research [1].
While probiotics are often used to treat acute gastroenteritis (also known as infectious diarrhea) in children, the latest evidence shows no significant differences in outcomes, compared to a placebo. These results come from the large, double-blind, randomized controlled trial conducted at 10 geographically diverse U.S. pediatric emergency departments, including Kenneth & Anne Griffin Emergency Care Center at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago. Findings were published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
The findings suggest that fruit and other foods containing fructose seem to have no harmful effect on blood glucose levels, while sweetened drinks and some other foods that add excess "nutrient poor" energy to diets may have harmful effects.
The availability of a key prey for seabirds has changed dramatically over the past three decades, particularly in winter, with possible consequences for their population numbers, a new study has found.
In the first long-term study of its kind, led by the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, researchers looking at the diet of a North Sea seabird, the European shag, found that the birds' food source has altered substantially throughout the year.
Colorectal cancer is the third most common form of cancer in the world. Every year in Finland, approximately 3,000 new cases are diagnosed, and roughly 1,200 patients die of it. Between 2004 and 2016, an extensive screening programme was conducted in Finland, intending to study the potential benefits and downsides of a nation-wide screening for colorectal cancer.
The lucrative truffle industry is set to disappear within a generation due to climate change, according to new research by a University of Stirling academic.
A warmer and drier climate will be responsible for the decline - which will have a "huge economic, ecological and social impact" - and could be accelerated by other factors, such as heatwave events, forest fires, pests and diseases.
Rodent mothers produce more offspring after smelling odors produced by frightened males. This is reported by a team of biologists from Finland and the Netherlands and bring new information the proximate and ultimate explanations of small mammal behavioral responses.
Fear of being eaten has the power to shape populations and drive evolution. The effect the authors report is large: exposed mothers produce litters with about fifty percent more pups compared to unexposed control mothers.
In the era of personalized medicine, scientists are using new genetic and genomic insights to help them determine the best treatment for a given patient. In the case of cancer, the first step toward these treatments is an investigation into how tumor cells behave in an effort to figure out the best drugs to use to attack them.