Новости за 30.03.2021

Greater sage-grouse populations have declined significantly over the last six decades, with an 80% rangewide decline since 1965 and a nearly 40% decline since 2002, according to a new report by the U.S. Geological Survey. Although the overall trend clearly shows continued population declines over the entire range of the species, rates of change do vary regionally.

After more than three decades of research, scientists have proven that the cancer affecting up to one in four adult California sea lions necrospied at The Marine Mammal Center in Sausalito, CA, is caused by a sexually transmitted herpesvirus. The cancer, known as sea lion urogenital carcinoma, has clear parallels to cervical cancer in humans and provides a helpful model for human cancer study.

Giant trees in tropical forests, witnesses to centuries of civilization, may be trapped in a dangerous feedback loop according to a new report in Nature Plants from researchers at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) in Panama and the University of Birmingham, U.K. The biggest trees store half of the carbon in mature tropical forests, but they could be at risk of death as a result of climate change—releasing massive amounts of carbon back into the atmosphere.

At the start of March, NASA's Curiosity Mars rover began approaching an impressive rock formation that scientists dubbed "Mont Mercou," a nickname taken from a mountain in France. Standing about 20 feet (6 meters) tall, the outcrop is captured in all its majesty in a new selfie, as well as in a pair of panoramas that offer a 3D view. The selfie shows Curiosity in front of Mont Mercou with a new drill hole nearby at a rock sample nicknamed "Nontron"—the mission's 30th sample to date.

In order to enable large-scale hydrogen production using solar energy, particulate photocatalysts are being researched as a simple and cost-effective solution to splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen. It is necessary to develop a photocatalyst that can efficiently use visible light, which accounts for a large part of solar energy, in the water decomposition reaction. Barium tantalum oxynitride (BaTaO2N) is an oxynitride semiconductor material that absorbs visible light up to 650 nm and has a band... Читать дальше...

Most businesses were ill-prepared to deal with the pandemic and muddled though the challenges stemming from it, according to a report published today.

Gas hydrates are a solid compound of gases and water that have an ice-like structure at low temperatures and high pressures. Compounds of methane and water, so-called methane hydrates, are found especially at many ocean margins—also in the Black Sea. In addition to a possible use as an energy source, methane hydrate deposits are being investigated for their stability, as they can dissolve with changes in temperature and pressure. In addition to releases of methane, this can also have an impact on submarine slope stability.

Researchers from Newcastle University, UK, working with colleagues at King Mongkut's University of Technology Thonburi (KMUTT) in Thailand and the Institute of Urban Environment of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, analyzed samples of water and sediment taken from aquaculture ponds and nearby canals at five locations in central Thailand's coastal region.

In a new study published in Conservation Science and Practice, researchers at the University of Maryland (UMD) partnered with Indonesian experts to explore the motivations and challenges of women pursuing a career in conservation sciences in Indonesia. Given that Indonesia is one of the most biodiverse countries on the planet but is simultaneously experiencing extreme rates of deforestation, it is an important target country for the conservation of global biodiversity. Conservation work remains male-dominated in Indonesia... Читать дальше...

Physicists from the University of Sussex have developed an extremely thin, large-area semiconductor surface source of terahertz, composed of just a few atomic layers and compatible with existing electronic platforms.

Superconductivity is known to be easily destroyed by strong magnetic fields. NIMS, Osaka University and Hokkaido University have jointly discovered that a superconductor with atomic-scale thickness can retain its superconductivity even when a strong magnetic field is applied to it. The team has also identified a new mechanism behind this phenomenon. These results may facilitate the development of superconducting materials resistant to magnetic fields and topological superconductors composed of superconducting and magnetic materials.

Traditionally, grasshoppers have always had a bad reputation: the biblical image of swarms of pests destroying crops, especially in African countries, is still widespread.

Parents who are exposed to predators pass on information about risky environments to their offspring through changes in gene expression—but how that information affects offspring differs depending on the sex of the parent. My colleagues and I showed this using sticklebacks—a small species of freshwater fish whose brightly colored males care for developing eggs—in a series of papers recently published in the Journal of Animal Ecology.

Lockdown significantly affected our health (for good and bad), our work and how we socialize. These consequences have been widely discussed, but far less attention has been given to the effect on our sex lives.

Researchers from AUT BioDesign Lab have developed a prosthetic fin to rehabilitate injured sea turtles. Healthy oceans need sea turtles, but they are unfortunately frequently injured by human factors such as boats and fishing nets, with all seven species now endangered. A damaged fin limits swimming range and survival and prevents female turtles from returning to land to lay eggs. A successful prosthetic fin, attached to the turtle's humerus by stem implant, would play an important role in the protection... Читать дальше...

An international research team, including biologists from St Petersburg University, has identified a transmissible cancer lineage in the Far Eastern mussels. The disease can have an adverse effect on the populations of these molluscs, which are extensively farmed in Russia.

Following the selection of the first Scout satellite mission last December, ESA has also given the greenlight to start negotiations with Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd in the UK to lead the development of the second Scout mission—HydroGNSS.

In the discipline of archaeology, harassment is widespread, with archaeologists of color, LGBTQIA+ researchers and scholars with disabilities reporting abuse at much higher rates, according to research presented by Stanford archaeologist Barbara Voss.

Education is considered one of the most critical personal capital investments. But formal educational attainment doesn't necessarily pay off in job satisfaction, according to new research from the University of Notre Dame.

Since the Higgs boson was discovered in 2012, scientists at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) have been studying the properties of this very special particle and its relation to the fundamental mechanism essential to the generation of mass of elementary particles. One property that remains to be experimentally verified is whether the Higgs boson is able to couple to itself, known as self-coupling. Such an interaction would contribute to the production of a pair of Higgs bosons in the LHC's high-energy proton–proton collisions... Читать дальше...

We currently face significant challenges to accurately predict the impacts of our changing climate on individual species, as well as their ecosystems.

It makes evolutionary sense for long-lived animals to have complex social relationships—such as friends and enemies—researchers say.

A research team from Ruhr-Universität Bochum (RUB) and McGill University in Montreal is investigating what exactly happens underground when the earth in western Canada shakes as a result of hydraulic fracturing activities. The team, headed by Bochum-based Professor Rebecca Harrington, wants to fundamentally understand how earthquakes occur—whether human induced or natural. "The hydraulic fracturing process is something like a scaled-up laboratory experiment for us," explains Harrington, who heads the Hydrogeomechanics Group at RUB. Читать дальше...

Scientists are developing tools to observe the biological machinery in in vivo animal models to be able to understand and better treat severe brain diseases like Alzheimer's disease and many other conditions. Holographic endoscopes attracted researchers' interest because of their potential to conduct minimally invasive observations inside the human body.

New observations with the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (ESO's VLT) indicate that the rogue comet 2I/Borisov, which is only the second and most recently detected interstellar visitor to our Solar System, is one of the most pristine ever observed. Astronomers suspect that the comet most likely never passed close to a star, making it an undisturbed relic of the cloud of gas and dust it formed from.