Новости за 04.01.2021

Scientists have long been aware of the dangerous overuse of antibiotics and the increasing number of antibiotic-resistant microbes that have resulted. While over-prescription of antibiotics for medicinal use has unsettling implications for human health, so too does the increasing presence of antibiotics in the natural environment. The latter may stem from the improper disposal of medicines, but also from the biotechnology field, which has depended on antibiotics as a selection device in the lab.

They are as Seattle as the Space Needle. But Lake Washington sockeye, once the largest run of sockeye in the Lower 48, are failing.

A team working with Roland Fischer, Professor of Inorganic and Metal-Organic Chemistry at the Technical University Munich (TUM) has developed a highly efficient supercapacitor. The basis of the energy storage device is a novel, powerful and also sustainable graphene hybrid material that has comparable performance data to currently utilized batteries.

One invasive beetle is ready to devour just about every ash tree left in Minnesota's woods. A caterpillar has killed more than 200,000 acres worth of balsam fir trees in just the last year. Another beetle, a native in the midst of a population boom, has already destroyed about half of the state's tamaracks.

Researchers at Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) have developed a catalyst that is effective in negligible amounts. Due to its form and durability, the catalyst lasts much longer in reactions, saving a great deal of energy, preventing waste and reducing costs. The results have been published in Nature Communications.

Researchers demonstrate a new technique for suppressing back reflections of light—better signal quality for sensing and information technology.

Scientists have thought that global warming will increase the availability of surface water—freshwater resources generated by precipitation minus evapotranspiration—in wet regions, and decrease water availability in dry regions. This expectation is based primarily on atmospheric thermodynamic processes. As air temperatures rise, more water evaporates into the air from the ocean and land. Because warmer air can hold more water vapor than dry air, a more humid atmosphere is expected to amplify the existing pattern of water availability... Читать дальше...

Supersolids are materials that are fluid and solid at the same time. Physicists from Innsbruck and Geneva have for the first time investigated what happens when such a state is brought out of balance. They discovered a soft form of a solid of great interest for science. As the researchers led by Francesca Ferlaino and Thierry Giamarchi report in Nature Physics, they were also able to reverse the process and restore supersolidity.

Spintronics refers to a suite of physical systems which may one day replace many electronic systems. To realize this generational leap, material components that confine electrons in one dimension are highly sought after. For the first time, researchers have created such a material in the form of a special bismuth-based crystal known as a high-order topological insulator.

An international team of researchers has created a model that can be used to make estimates about the degree of subsidence risk for different parts of the world. In their paper published in the journal Science, the group describes the factors that went into creating their model, and what it showed.

Inasmuch as therapeutic options against coronavirus have been focused mainly on blocking the interaction between its spike protein and the ACE2 receptor on host cells, SARS-CoV-2 has several additional critical proteins that could potentially be targeted with drugs that have already been approved for use against other viruses. One of these viral proteins is the main protease (Mpro) that is needed to separate newly minted polypeptides into their functional component parts.

An international team of astronomers has investigated a nearby emission nebula and star-forming region dubbed the Cat's Paw Nebula as part of the B-field In STar-forming Region Observations (BISTRO) survey. Results of this study, presented in a paper published December 24 on arXiv.org, provide essential information about the structure of the object's complex magnetic field.

The number of wildfires in Brazil increased 12.7 percent last year to a decade-high, according to official figures likely to add to pressure on President Jair Bolsonaro's government over the destruction of the Amazon rainforest.