Новости за 22.03.2021

A team of scientists at the University of Massachusetts Amherst have developed the thinnest and most sensitive flow sensor, which could have significant implications for medical research and applications, according to new research published recently in Nature Communications.

A University of New Mexico research team conducted a data analysis that has found that as a larger portion of the population gets vaccinated against COVID-19, it becomes economically advantageous to start relaxing social distancing measures and open businesses.

Robert Levis dumped chunks of a whitish substance into a beaker of water, and immediately the liquid began frothing and churning like a sorcerer's potion, spewing plumes of fog across the table of his office at Temple University.

The first documented record of salt as an ancient Maya commodity at a marketplace is depicted in a mural painted more than 2,500 years ago at Calakmul, a UNESCO World Heritage site in the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico. In the mural that portrays daily life, a salt vendor shows what appears to be a salt cake wrapped in leaves to another person, who holds a large spoon over a basket, presumably of loose, granular salt. This is the earliest known record of salt being sold at a marketplace in the Maya region. Читать дальше...

Alaskans have become all too familiar with the choking wildfire smoke that has filled many summer days in recent years. Each time, they are left with these unanswerable questions: "Where is the smoke heading?" "When will it clear up around my vacation destination?" "When will it leave my community?"

The increasing frequency and severity of extreme weather events like droughts and floods have taken a toll on the midwestern U.S. in recent years, putting a major strain on the region's farmers. From 2001 to 2010, the Federal Crop Insurance Program, a government program created to protect farmers from crop loss, covered $4.1 billion in damages; in 2011 alone, the program paid out $10.8 billion.

Batteries charge and recharge—apparently all thanks to a perfect interplay of electrode material and electrolyte. However, for ideal battery function, the solid electrolyte interphase (SEI) plays a crucial role. Materials scientists have now studied nucleation and growth of this layer in atomic detail. According to the study published in the journal Angewandte Chemie, the properties of anions and solvent molecules need to be well balanced.

Antibiotics have revolutionized the field of medicine by making it possible to treat most known microbial diseases today. However, their uncontrolled usage has led to the major global problem of antibiotic resistance. As we continue to exploit antibiotics, sometimes at doses much higher than needed, disease-causing bacteria are rapidly evolving defense strategies to evade them. These drug-resistant bacteria, also known as "superbugs," cause severe infections that are difficult to treat and can eventually be fatal.

Enzymes play essential roles in the cells of every living thing, from bacteria, to plants to people. Some do their jobs a few times and fizzle out. Others can repeat a task hundreds of thousands of times before they quit.

Wolves howling, birds singing, rain falling—natural sounds inspire us and connect us to nature. New research by a team of scientists shows that natural sounds are also good for our health.

Where does snow come from? This may seem like a simple question to ponder as half the planet emerges from a season of watching whimsical flakes fall from the sky—and shoveling them from driveways. But a new study on how water becomes ice in slightly supercooled Arctic clouds may make you rethink the simplicity of the fluffy stuff. The study, published by scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, includes... Читать дальше...

Fighting among social animals is common as they compete for the resources they need to survive and reproduce. A winner and a loser will inevitably result from these interactions, but do these challenges also leave an unseen, lasting mark?

A snake that actually looks like many different snakes. It sounds like a riddle. It sort of is.

Fashion's biggest firms are making slow progress in meeting promises to improve their environmental and social impact, according to a damning sustainability report released Monday.

What's better at finding a hidden bomb—a dog or an electronic chemical detector?

With the offshore wind industry expanding in the United States and elsewhere, a new study raises questions about how the noise from impact pile driving to install turbine supports can affect feeding behaviors of longfin squid, a commercially and ecologically important cephalopod.

Politicians and business leaders often make claims about why certain sectors in the economy are shrinking, such as the decline in U.S. manufacturing is due to robotics or trade with China. Such assessments are flawed, as the sectoral composition of the economy is mostly driven by preferences and not by productivity, according to a recent study that models this long-run structural change in the economy. As consumers become richer, they spend more on services such as health and education whose demand is much more income elastic... Читать дальше...

As World Water Day is observed around the globe, new research from UBC Okanagan suggests a systematic approach to forest and water supply research may yield an improved assessment and understanding of connections between the two.

Less than a decade after unveiling the "Map of Life," a global database that marks the distribution of known species across the planet, Yale researchers have launched an even more ambitious and perhaps important project—creating a map of where life has yet to be discovered.

Efficient conversion of CO2 is strategically significant for alleviating the energy crisis and achieving the goal of carbon neutrality. One promising conversion route is the hydrogenation of CO2 to methanol using a renewable energy-based "green hydrogen" source.

To minimize negative impacts of agriculture on biodiversity and related ecosystem services, 'biodiversity-friendly' management is needed. Why scientific results are rarely translated into agricultural practice could be explained by their different perceptions of agricultural biodiversity, according to the results of a recent survey of European scientists and farmers. The study was led by Bea Maas of the University of Vienna and published in the journal Biological Conservation.

A researcher from Skoltech has filled in the gaps connecting quantum simulators with more traditional quantum computers, discovering a new computationally universal model of quantum computation, the variational model. The paper was published as a Letter in the journal Physical Review A. The work made the Editors' Suggestion list.

An international team of interdisciplinary researchers has identified mathematical metrics to characterize the fragility of financial markets. Their paper "Network geometry and market instability" sheds light on the higher-order architecture of financial systems and allows analysts to identify systemic risks like market bubbles or crashes.

Genes affect when trees put forth leaves in the spring. Understanding how could help scientists adapt trees to be more resilient to climate change.

Researchers have used advanced AI and large sets of genomic data to unveil how humans have adapted to recent diseases.