Новости за 17.06.2021

A study performed by researchers at the Institute for Advanced Chemistry of Catalonia (IQAC-CSIC) from the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) in collaboration with Stony Brook University (U.S.) proposes a new strategy for the development of new drugs based on the inhibition of tyrosine kinase enzymes, molecules that activate and trigger many cellular processes. The results have been published in the Chemistry—A European Journal.

To the human eye, most stationary objects appear to be just that—still, and completely at rest. Yet if we were handed a quantum lens, allowing us to see objects at the scale of individual atoms, what was an apple sitting idly on our desk would appear as a teeming collection of vibrating particles, very much in motion.

The glaciers of Nanga Parbat—one of the highest mountains in the world—have been shrinking slightly but continually since the 1930s. This loss in surface area is evidenced by a long-term study conducted by researchers from the South Asia Institute of Heidelberg University. The geographers combined historical photographs, surveys, and topographical maps with current data, which allowed them to show glacial changes for this massif in the north-western Himalaya as far back as the mid-1800s.

Three Chinese astronauts arrived Thursday at China's new space station at the start of a three-month mission, marking another milestone in the country's ambitious space program.

Dozens of turtles and dolphins were killed by intense heat and chemical poisoning from a container ship that burned for almost two weeks off Sri Lanka, authorities said Thursday.

No breakthroughs have been made on key issues during three weeks of international climate talks that ended Thursday, officials said, with plans now for a select group of ministers to come together next month in the hope of making progress ahead of a U.N. summit in November.

RUDN University biotechnologists have created a method for detection of bacterial infection in apple, pear, hawthorn and other plants of the Rosaceae family. The test does not require laboratory equipment, the result is ready in 10 minutes. This will allow detecting the disease quickly and prevent the spread of infection. The results are published in Physiological and Molecular Pathology of Plants.

Trans-Neptunian Objects (TNOs), small objects that orbit the sun beyond Neptune, are fossils from the early days of the solar system which can tell us a lot about its formation and evolution.

Chemical engineers at the University of Illinois Chicago and UCLA have answered longstanding questions about the underlying processes that determine the life cycle of liquid foams. The breakthrough could help improve the commercial production and application of foams in a broad range of industries.

An international survey by the University of Münster's Cluster of Excellence "Religion and Politics" provides the first empirical evidence of an identity-related political cleavage of European societies that has resulted in the emergence of two entrenched camps of substantial size. "We see two distinct groups with opposing positions, which we call "Defenders' and "Explorers'", says psychologist Mitja Back, spokesperson of the interdisciplinary research team that conducted the most comprehensive survey of identity conflicts in Europe to date. Читать дальше...

In the mid-14th century Europe was devastated by a major pandemic—the Black Death—which killed between 40 and 60 per cent of the population. Later waves of plague then continued to strike regularly over several centuries.

A trio of researchers has found that approximately 40% of agricultural products imported into the European Union will be "highly vulnerable" to drought by 2050. In their paper published in the journal Nature Communications, Ertug Ercin, Ted Veldkamp and Johannes Hunink, from R2Water Research and Consultancy, the Amsterdam University of Applied Science and FutureWater, respectively, suggest the droughts impacting agricultural products will be due to global warming.

Researchers at Technion—Israel Institute of Technology, Technische Universität Darmstadt, and IBM Research Europe have recently proposed a new strategy to simultaneously achieve microscale hydrodynamic cloaking and shielding. While the idea of cloaking or shielding objects has been around for some time now, in contrast with other previously developed methods the technique they proposed allows physicists to dynamically switch between these two states.

A large team of researchers working at the University of Hong Kong has found that three major types of coronaviruses are able to induce cell apoptosis in infected hosts. In their paper published in the journal Science Advances, the group describes their study of how SARS-Cov-2, SARS-Cov-1 and Mers-Cov damage lung tissue and what they found.