Новости за 03.03.2021

A large international team of scientists from various research organizations, including the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory, has developed a method that dramatically improves the already ultrafast time resolution achievable with X-ray free-electron lasers (XFELs). It could lead to breakthroughs on how to design new materials and more efficient chemical processes.

An international research team has taken a seat on the backs of wild bats to experience their world through echoes recorded by 3-gram computers.

In business, as in life, it is important to make a good first impression and according to research at the University of New Hampshire a positive initial trust interaction can be helpful in building a lasting trust relationship. Researchers found that trusting a person early on can have benefits over the life of the relationship, even after a violation of that trust.

Highlighting the second dry winter in a row, the Sierra Nevada snowpack on Tuesday was just 61% of its historical average for this date, the latest signal that California appears headed toward summer drought conditions, with water restrictions possible in some areas for the first time in five years.

Gas around black holes and interstellar medium distribution are key factors in understanding the growth of supermassive black holes and the evolution of their host galaxies. However, as a crucial parameter, gas density is hard to determine reliably, because the general method is not applicable to all quasars.

Recently, a research team led by academician Guo Guangcan from CAS Key Laboratory of Quantum Information of the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) of CAS, has made important progress in quantum information theory. Prof. Li Chuanfeng and Prof. Xiang Guoyong from the team collaborated with Dr. Strelstov from University of Warsaw to investigate the imaginary part of quantum theory as a resource, and several important results have been obtained. Relevant results are now jointly published... Читать дальше...

Humans have made a remarkable impact on the planet, from clearing forests for agriculture and urbanization to altering the chemistry of the atmosphere with fossil fuels. Now, a new study in the journal Nature reveals for the first time the extent of human impact on the global water cycle.

New research shows 64 countries cut their fossil CO2 emissions during 2016-2019, but the rate of reduction needs to increase tenfold to meet the Paris Agreement aims to tackle climate change.

A team from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Cardiff University say they have found the strongest evidence yet of a "migration gene" in birds.

Researchers from Bremen, together with their colleagues from the Max Planck Genome Center in Cologne and the aquatic research institute Eawag from Switzerland, have discovered a unique bacterium that lives inside a unicellular eukaryote and provides it with energy. Unlike mitochondria, this so-called endosymbiont derives energy from the respiration of nitrate, not oxygen. "Such partnership is completely new," says Jana Milucka, the senior author on the Nature. "A symbiosis that is based on respiration... Читать дальше...

It is millions of trillions of times brighter than sunlight and a whopping 1,000 trillionth of a second, appropriately called 'instantaneous light'—the X-ray Free Electron Laser (XFEL) light that opens a new scientific paradigm. Combining it with AI, an international research team has succeeded in filming and restoring the 3-D structure of nanoparticles that share structural similarities with viruses. With the fear of a new pandemic growing around the world due to COVID-19, this discovery is attracting... Читать дальше...

A research team of pharmacists at the University of Bonn has discovered two families of active substances that can block the replication of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus. The drug candidates are able to switch off the the key enzyme of the virus, the so-called main protease. The study is based on laboratory experiments. Extensive clinical trials are still required for their further development as therapeutic drugs. The results have now been published in the journal Angewandte Chemie.

On July 20, 1969, Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin stepped out a lunar lander onto the surface of the moon. The landscape in front of him, which was made up of stark blacks and grays, resembled what he later called "magnificent desolation."

Measuring the size of atomic nuclei has sometimes been useful to probe aspects of nucleon-nucleon interaction and the bulk properties of nuclear matter. The charge radius of atomic nuclei, which can be extracted using laser spectroscopy techniques, is sensitive to both the bulk properties of nuclear matter and particularly subtle details of the interactions between protons and neutrons.

Healthy human bodies are good at regulating: Our temperatures remain around 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit, no matter how hot or cold the temperature around us. The sugar levels in our blood remain fairly constant, even when we down a glass of juice. We keep the right amount of calcium in our bones and out of the rest of our bodies.

As odd as it sounds, many scientists have attempted to place extremely small diamonds inside living cells. Why? Because nanodiamonds are consistently bright and can give us unique knowledge about the inner life of cells over a long time. Now physics researchers at Lund University in Sweden have succeeded in injecting a large number of nanodiamonds directly to the cell interior.

In the first all-sky survey by the eROSITA X-ray telescope onboard SRG, astronomers at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics have identified a previously unknown supernova remnant, dubbed "Hoinga." The finding was confirmed in archival radio data and marks the first discovery of a joint Australian-eROSITA partnership established to explore our Galaxy using multiple wavelengths, from low-frequency radio waves to energetic X-rays. The Hoinga supernova remnant is very large and located... Читать дальше...

Scientists from the Skoltech Center for Design, Manufacturing and Materials (CDMM) and the Institute for Metals Superplasticity Problems (IMSP RAS) have studied the fatigue behavior of additive-manufactured high-entropy alloys (HEA). The research was published in the Journal of Alloys and Compounds.

Previously thought of as heavy, slow and sluggish, the 260-million-year-old predator, Anteosaurus, was a ferocious hunter-killer.

Later this year, virtually all the countries on Earth are due to meet in China under the Convention on Biological Diversity to agree global conservation targets for 2030. Virtually may be the operative word, if COVID-19 precludes member states from meeting face to face in Kunming. Whatever the format, conservationists fervently hope that global leaders will agree to set aside 30% of the world's land and sea for nature by the end of the decade. But is that enough?

NUS biologists have discovered that Hox genes are essential for the development of eyespot patterns on the wings of Bicyclus anynana butterflies.

Boron, a metalloid element that sits next to carbon in the periodic table, has many traits that make it potentially useful as a drug component. Nonetheless, only five FDA-approved drugs contain boron, largely because molecules that contain boron are unstable in the presence of molecular oxygen.

Using the Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE), astronomers have performed observations of an old globular cluster known as Messier 15. The observational campaign delivered essential information about stellar kinematics of the central region of this cluster. The results were published February 24 on arXiv.org.

We all know it's wrong to toss your rubbish into the ocean or another natural place. But it might surprise you to learn some plastic waste ends up in the environment, even when we thought it was being recycled.

Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, university faculty across Canada have been looking for ways to keep doing high-quality research and adapt to online teaching. The uncertainty of what a new normal will resemble, and the restrictions it imposes, underscore the importance of data to inform university responses.