Новости за 05.04.2021

One day, humankind may step foot on another habitable planet. That planet may look very different from Earth, but one thing will feel familiar—the rain.

The team of scientists and engineers behind NASA's Curiosity rover named a hill along the rover's path on Mars in honor of a recently deceased mission scientist. A craggy hump that stretches 450 feet (120 meters) tall, "Rafael Navarro mountain" is located on Mount Sharp in northwest Gale Crater.

In a new study, researchers found nearly half of those who share explicit images of others without permission feel remorse after the fact and 24% try to deflect blame onto victims. Amy Hasinoff, a researcher at the University of Colorado Denver, joined Danish researcher Sidsel K. Harder, to take a deeper dive into the issue of sexual abuse and image sharing.

A team of polymer science and engineering researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst has demonstrated for the first time that the positions of tiny, flat, solid objects integrated in nanometrically thin membranes—resembling those of biological cells—can be controlled by mechanically varying the elastic forces in the membrane itself. This research milestone is a significant step toward the goal of creating ultrathin flexible materials that self-organize and respond immediately to mechanical force.

Overfishing likely did not cause the Atlantic cod, an iconic species, to evolve genetically and mature earlier, according to a study led by Rutgers University and the University of Oslo—the first of its kind—with major implications for ocean conservation.

High levels of biodiversity in aquatic settings offers a wide range of vitamins, minerals, and fatty acids crucial for human health, a range of nutrients that are lacking in ecosystems where the number of species have been reduced by overfishing, pollution, or climate change, researchers report April 5 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

SARS-CoV-2 showed the world with devastating clarity the threat undetected viruses can pose to global public health. SpillOver, a new web application developed by scientists at the University of California, Davis, and contributed to by experts from all over the world, ranks the risk of wildlife-to-human spillover for newly-discovered viruses.

Nine of the hottest years in human history have occurred in the last decade. Without a major shift in this climate trajectory, the future of life on Earth is in question. Should humans, whose fossil-fueled society is driving climate change, use technology to put the brakes on global warming?

In an effort to save her beloved animals, Kathy Janson, a Maine Coon cat enthusiast reached out to a University of Cincinnati researcher to find a way to help her pets who were developing heart troubles.

Palmer Amaranth is a high-impact agronomic weed species that has cost the United States agriculture industry billions of dollars since its discovery outside of its native range in the southwestern U.S. and northwestern Mexico. Over the last 20 years, it has moved further north, and now poses a major threat to corn, soybean, and cotton growers across the south and Midwest regions of the United States.

Forever chemicals are known for being water-, heat- and oil-resistant, which makes them useful in everything from rain jackets to firefighting foams.

A team of researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the University of Tennessee have developed a concrete mix that demonstrated high early strength within six hours of mixing, potentially doubling the production capacity for the precast industry.

The field scientists working on the Vanishing Glaciers project aren't afraid of heights. They climb to the icy peaks of mountain ranges from the Himalayas to the Alps, equipped with vials, pipettes, thermometers and liquid-nitrogen cylinders (which they've nicknamed Dido and Fido). Their goal is to collect samples of the microorganisms living in glacier-fed streams and bring them back to EPFL for analysis by their colleagues.

A new piece of software developed at Caltech makes it easier to study the behavior of electrons in materials—even materials that have been predicted but do not yet exist. The software, called Perturbo, is gaining traction among researchers.

COVID-19 has impacted women and girls around the globe in adverse ways. However, little attention has been paid to women and girls in humanitarian settings, those whose safety has already been reduced due to conflict, natural disaster or displacement. For these women and girls, COVID-19 has made them particularly vulnerable to increases in gender-based violence.

Bacterial DNA methylation occurs in diverse sequence contexts and plays important functional roles in cellular defense and gene regulation. An increasing number of studies have reported that bacterial DNA methylation has important roles affecting clinically relevant phenotypes such as virulence, host colonization, sporulation, biofilm formation, among others. Bacterial methylomes contain three primary forms of DNA methylation: N6-methyladenine (6 mA), N4-methylcytosine (4mC) and 5-methylcytosine (5mC). Читать дальше...

The ocean's "biological pump" describes the many marine processes that work to take up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and transport it deep into the ocean, where it can remain sequestered for centuries. This ocean pump is a powerful regulator of atmospheric carbon dioxide and an essential ingredient in any global climate forecast.

Drought is returning to California as a second, consecutive parched winter draws to a close in the usually wet north, leaving the state's major reservoirs half empty.

A new study from the University of Central Florida suggests that masks and a good ventilation system are more important than social distancing for reducing the airborne spread of COVID-19 in classrooms.

A team of researchers from Universidad Autónoma del Estrado de Morelos and Universidad de la República, has found that given the choice, female sheep prefer to mate with less domineering males. In their paper published in the journal Applied Animal Behavior Science, the group describe experiments they conducted with male and female sheep and what they learned from them.

Italian astronomers have performed X-ray observations of an ultraluminous X-ray source (ULX) known as NGC 4559 X7 and found that this source exhibits unusual flaring activity. The finding is reported in a paper published March 26 on the arXiv pre-print repository.

I didn't start drinking coffee until this past fall. Despite working as a barista for four years, and growing up in a household that takes their coffee by IV, I just never had a taste for it. The last straw that turned my years of coffee-making knowledge into a coffee-drinking routine was starting graduate school. That timing is probably no coincidence. But coffee also entered my life in another way when it became the subject of a year-long research project.

It is no exaggeration to say that the study of extrasolar planets has exploded in recent decades. To date, 4,375 exoplanets have been confirmed in 3,247 systems, with another 5,856 candidates awaiting confirmation. In recent years, exoplanet studies have started to transition from the process of discovery to one of characterization. This process is expected to accelerate once next-generation telescopes become operational.

A study of currently farmed cacao forests, abandoned forests and natural unfarmed forest on the Caribbean island of Trinidad found that all three supported bird diversity, contrary to expectations.

After an unprecedented winter storm left more than 100 dead and millions without power, Texans call for better preparation through winterization and improved energy reserves, and they support legislative proposals that require energy council board members to live in Texas, according to a new poll by The University of Texas at Austin.