Новости за 18.03.2021

Researchers at the University of Ottawa have debunked the decade-old myth of metals being useless in photonics—the science and technology of light—with their findings, recently published in Nature Communications, expected to lead to many applications in the field of nanophotonics.

A new study in the journal Conservation Science and Practice finds that restaurants in urban areas in Central Africa play a key role in whether protected wildlife winds up on the menu.

Smart glass can change its color quickly through electricity. A new material developed by chemists of Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität (LMU) in Munich has now set a speed record for such a change.

Like millions of people around the world, David Shuster and his 7-year-old daughter cheered wildly as the Perseverance rover was lowered by sky crane to the Martian surface on Feb. 18 to start years of exploration. But for him and a subset of the Mars 2020 science team, true gratification will be delayed.

Flies have developed excellent flying skills thanks to a set of complicated interactions between numerous genes influencing wing shape, muscle function, and nervous system development, as well as the regulation of gene expression during development. Adam Spierer and David Rand in collaboration with colleagues at Brown University identified these interactions, which they report March 18th in the journal PLOS Genetics.

One of great mysteries of human biology is how a single cell can give rise to the 37 trillion cells contained in the average body, each with its own specialized role. Researchers at Yale University and the Mayo Clinic have devised a way to recreate the earliest stages of cellular development that gives rise to such an amazing diversity of cell types.

As one of the founding members of the International Rye Genome Sequencing Group (IRGSG), the University of Maryland (UMD) co-published the first full reference genome sequence for rye in Nature Genetics. UMD and international collaborators saw the need for a reference genome of this robust small grain to allow for the tracking of its useful genes and fulfill its potential for crop improvement across all major varieties of small grains, including wheat, barley, triticale (a cross between wheat and rye that is gaining popularity), and rye. Читать дальше...

Ticket inspection on public transport can prompt law-abiding people to behave dishonestly once they have gotten off the bus, according to a study published in The Economic Journal. The study was written by three experimental economists: Fabio Galeotti and Marie Claire Villeval of The French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) in the Groupe d'Analyse et de Théorie Economique Lyon St-Etienne (GATE), and Valeria Maggian from Ca' Foscari University of Venice.

It is as if China is two completely different countries, if we look at how they appear in two such different cases as Africa and the Arctic, says Christer Henrik Pursiainen, a professor at the Department of Technology and Security at UiT The Arctic University of Norway.

The increasing frequency and severity of natural disasters ranging from massive fires to locust invasions is putting food production systems at risk, the UN warned Thursday.

Due to their tissue-like mechanical properties, hydrogels are being increasingly used for biomedical applications; a well-known example are soft contact lenses. These gel-like polymers consist of 90 percent water, are elastic and particularly biocompatible. Hydrogels that are also electrically conductive allow additional fields of application, for example in the transmission of electrical signals in the body or as sensors. An interdisciplinary research team of the Research Training Group (RTG) 2154... Читать дальше...

The immense diversity in the living world and how it came into being has always been a subject of human enquiry. After centuries of playing detective in search of the basis of the parities and disparities that we see among living beings around us, the past century stood witness to some marvelous discoveries in biology and today the Central Dogma of life has been disclosed to us: DNA makes RNA and RNA makes protein (a facile view of a much more complex sequence of events). Together with contributing environmental factors... Читать дальше...

Researchers have successfully grown model versions of early human embryos by "reprogramming" cells from human skin. The breakthrough potentially opens up new ways to study the earliest phases of human development, learn more about developmental disorders, infertility and genetic diseases, and perhaps even improve the success of IVF treatment.

Millions of people in Africa's cities rely on public transport to get around. Minibuses are especially common, whether you're in Accra, Dar es Salaam, Lagos or Nairobi. In Accra, the ubiquitous minibuses are known as tro-tro, in Dar es Salaam as daladalas, in Lagos as danfos and in Nairobi as matatus.

Clouds form when water vapor in moist packets of air condenses onto atmospheric aerosols, such as particles of dust. The transition from dry particle to liquid water droplet is known as activation. The threshold for activation is a function of an aerosol's size and chemical composition, as well as of the relative humidity of the local air. As a given particle's size and composition are fixed, activation occurs principally when a packet of air crosses a water saturation level called critical supersaturation.

New research from the University of California, Berkeley has the potential to shift the public debate around police reform, and to reimagine public safety models that rely on policing to reduce gun violence in America's urban cities.

A team led by researchers in Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences has developed a diagnostic test that can identify virulent forms of the swine bacterial pathogen Streptococcus equi subspecies zooepidemicus—often referred to as "Strep zoo"—which can cause severe illness and death in pigs, other animals and rarely people.

Everyone hates spiders. This is a sweeping (and swinging) generalization, obviously, but nonetheless the stereotype exists for a reason. Western postdoctoral associate Erin Brandt doesn't mind the creepy crawlers though, especially when they're leaping through the air like a young Peter Parker.

Researchers from Queen Mary University of London have developed a novel computational approach to better understand freezing in different types of liquids.

Six major emerging economies—China, India, Indonesia, Brazil, Mexico and South Africa—could collectively cut emissions by up to 96% from key urban sectors (buildings, transport, materials use, and waste) by 2050, leading to $12 trillion in economic returns based on cost savings alone, as well as delivering millions of new jobs, according to a new report published today by the Coalition for Urban Transitions.

The introduction of gender-neutral restrooms into public and private spaces is a departure from more than a century of policies put in place to ostensibly "protect" women in business, schools and the military. New University of Kansas research shows a stark divide between men and women in the military in their attitudes about the existence of gender-neutral bathrooms and what they mean for gender-based stereotypes and discrimination.

The uptake of CO₂ from the air is an essential process of plant photosynthesis. In dry areas, some plants shift this process to the night so that they can keep their stomata closed during the day and thus reduce the evaporation of water. To do this, they possess a special photosynthesis mechanism (Crassulacean acid metabolism, CAM). The extent to which plants use this mechanism for their energy balance depends, in part, on the unpredictability of precipitation. Scientists from the University of Bayreuth... Читать дальше...

New insight into how antimicrobial peptides destroy the membrane may help in designing better drugs against multi-drug resistant bacterial infections. Now that we are in the midst of a pandemic, it is easy to forget the perhaps even greater threat from the antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

The financial impact of COVID-19 has been devastating for public water operators around the world. Millions of households and businesses have not been able to pay their water bills due to lost income, while operating expenses have risen sharply.

Duke University researchers have found high levels of toxic heavy metals in coal ash from the Dominican Republic's largest coal-fired power plant.