Новости за 15.04.2021

Last month saw the average concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) climb to almost 418 parts-per-million, a level not seen on Earth for millions of years. In order to get a sense of what our future may hold, scientists have been looking to the deep past. Now, new research from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, which combines climate, ice sheet and vegetation model simulations with a suite of different climatic and geologic scenarios, opens the clearest window yet into the deep history... Читать дальше...

Florida State University researchers have discovered a novel way to improve the performance of electrical wires used as high-temperature superconductors (HTS), findings that have the potential to power a new generation of particle accelerators.

A new study from North Carolina State University found that, on average, voters and local leaders showed greater concern about plastic and other garbage in the ocean after watching kids' presentations.

A pair of orbiting black holes millions of times the Sun's mass perform a hypnotic pas de deux in a new NASA visualization. The movie traces how the black holes distort and redirect light emanating from the maelstrom of hot gas—called an accretion disk—that surrounds each one.

Even the mention of parasites can be enough to make some people's skin crawl. But to recent UC Santa Barbara doctoral graduate Dana Morton these creepy critters occupy important ecological niches, fulfilling roles that, in her opinion, have too often been overlooked.

From cancer treatment to sunlight, radiation and toxins can severely damage DNA in both harmful and healthy cells. While the body has evolved to efficiently treat and restore damaged cells, the mechanisms that allow this natural repair remain misunderstood.

The widespread proliferation of the internet and information and communication technologies (ICT) has drawn people into urban centers, according to new research.

University of California, Berkeley, chemists have discovered a way to simplify the removal of toxic metals. like mercury and boron. during desalination to produce clean water, while at the same time potentially capturing valuable metals, such as gold.

How many Tyrannosaurus rexes roamed North America during the Cretaceous period?

Bearded dragon embryos can use two different sets of genes to become a female lizard—one activated by the sex chromosomes and the other activated by high temperatures during development. Sarah Whiteley and Arthur Georges of the University of Canberra report these new findings April 15th in the journal PLOS Genetics.

By analyzing gains and losses in the genes of phytoplankton samples collected in all major ocean regions, researchers at the University of California, Irvine have created the most nuanced and high-resolution map yet to show where these photosynthetic organisms either thrive or are forced to adapt to limited quantities of key nutrients, nitrogen, phosphorus and iron.

A team of researchers from QuTech in the Netherlands reports realization of the first multi-node quantum network, connecting three quantum processors. In addition, they achieved a proof-of-principle demonstration of key quantum network protocols. Their findings mark an important milestone toward the future quantum internet and have now been published in Science.

More severe and frequent fires in the Alaskan boreal forest are releasing vast stores of carbon and nitrogen from burned trees and soil into the atmosphere, a trend that could accelerate climate warming. But new research published this week in the journal Science shows that the deciduous trees replacing burned spruce forests more than make up for that loss, storing more carbon and accumulating it four times faster over a 100-year fire interval. The study, led by a team of researchers at the Center... Читать дальше...

The field of ancient DNA has revealed important aspects of human evolutionary past, including relationships with Denisovans and Neandertals. These studies have relied on DNA from bones and teeth, which store DNA and protect it from the environment. But such skeletal remains are exceedingly rare, leaving large parts of human history inaccessible to genetic analysis.

In an effort to curb global warming, Purdue University engineers have created the whitest paint yet. Coating buildings with this paint may one day cool them off enough to reduce the need for air conditioning, the researchers say.

Mammal communities underwent long periods of so-called functional stability despite the waxing and waning of their constituent species over tens of millions of years, even persisting through several environmental crises. This is the main conclusion of a new study published in the journal Science by an interdisciplinary team from Spain and Germany.

A new review published in The European Physical Journal H by Clara Matteuzzi, Research Director at the National Institute for Nuclear Physics (INFN) and former tenured professor at the University of Milan, and her colleagues, examines almost three decades of the LHCb experiment—from its conception to operation at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) - documenting its achievements and future potential.

As the world's energy demands grow, so too does growing concern over the environmental impact of power production. The need for a safe, clean, and reliable energy source has never been clearer. Fusion power could fulfil such a need. A review paper published in The European Physical Journal H examines the 6-decade history of neutral particle analysis (NPA), developed in Ioffe Institute, Saint Petersburg, Russia, a vital diagnostic tool used in magnetic plasma confinement devices such as tokamaks that... Читать дальше...

Scientists at the University of Southampton have conducted a study that highlights the importance of studying a full range of organisms when measuring the impact of environmental change—from tiny bacteria, to mighty whales.

Scientists at the Institute for Cooperative Upcycling of Plastics (iCOUP), an Energy Frontier Research Center led by Ames Laboratory, have discovered a chemical process that provides biodegradable, valuable chemicals, which are used as surfactants and detergents in a range of applications, from discarded plastics. The process has the potential to create more sustainable and economically favorable lifecycles for plastics.

A team of scientists led by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and working closely with experts from the Agence Nationale des Parcs Nationaux du Gabon (ANPN) compared methodologies to count African forest elephants (Loxodonta cyclotis), which were recently acknowledged by IUCN as a separate, Critically Endangered species from African savannah elephants. The study is part of a larger initiative in partnership with Vulcan Inc. to provide the first nationwide census in Gabon for more than 30 years. Читать дальше...

The dynamics of the neural activity of a mouse brain behave in a peculiar, unexpected way that can be theoretically modeled without any fine tuning, suggests a new paper by physicists at Emory University. Physical Review Letters published the research, which adds to the evidence that theoretical physics frameworks may aid in the understanding of large-scale brain activity.

U.S. Naval Research Laboratory scientists were recently left scratching their heads over a familiar sight in the sky. Venus images are nothing new, but a solar probe surprised the researchers by seeing through the planet's clouds. NRL's Wide-field Imager for Parker Solar Probe (WISPR) took a stunning image of Earth's celestial neighbor Venus last year that left researchers searching for answers as to how what they were seeing was possible. Expecting to see just the featureless Venusian clouds, the... Читать дальше...

Besides enabling more potent smartphones and higher download speeds while riding the subway, cutting-edge technologies like artificial intelligence, robotics, and wireless communications are on the verge of revolutionizing well-established industrial fields. A remarkable example is 'smart agriculture,' which has seen a tremendous increase in the use of drones for various tasks, especially in Japan.

Researchers in Sweden have developed a more eco-friendly way to remove heavy metals, dyes and other pollutants from water. The answer lies in filtering wastewater with a gel material taken from plant cellulose and spiked with small carbon dots produced in a microwave oven.