Новости за 24.06.2021

A new technique to look at tumors under the microscope has revealed the cellular make-up of Wilm's tumors, a childhood kidney cancer, in unprecedented detail. This new approach could help understand how tumors develop and grow, and fuel research into new treatments for children's cancers.

Drought—even in a single year—can leave aspen more vulnerable to insect infestation and other stressors decades later, a new study by NAU researchers found. Aspen trees that were not resilient to drought stayed smaller than others, growing more slowly and succumbing to an outbreak of insects known as aspen leaf miners that have plagued interior Alaska for more than two decades.

Ozone levels in the earth's troposphere (the lowest level of our atmosphere) can now be forecasted with accuracy up to two weeks in advance, a remarkable improvement over current systems that can accurately predict ozone levels only three days ahead. The new artificial intelligence system developed in the University of Houston's Air Quality Forecasting and Modeling Lab could lead to improved ways to control high ozone problems and even contribute to solutions for climate change issues.

As mosquito-borne diseases pose risks for half the world's population, scientists have been releasing sterile or genetically modified male mosquitos in attempts to suppress populations or alter their traits to control human disease.

Scientists need to focus on tangible efforts to boost equity, diversity and inclusion in citizen science, researchers from North Carolina State University argued in a new perspective.

Researchers report that small quantities of useful molecules such as hydrocarbons are produced when carbon dioxide and water react in the presence of light and a silver nanoparticle catalyst. Their validation study—made possible through the use of a high-resolution analytical technique—could pave the way for CO2-reduction technologies that allow industrial-scale production of renewable carbon-based fuels.

For the past several years, chemical engineer Michelle O'Malley has focused her research on the anaerobic fungi found in the guts of herbivores, which make it possible for those animals to fuel themselves with sugars and starches extracted from fibrous plants. O'Malley's work, reflected in multiple research awards and journal articles, has centered on how these powerful fungi might be used to extract value-added products from the nonedible parts of plants—roots, stems and leaves—that are generally considered waste products.

Machine learning, a technique used in the artificial intelligence (AI) software behind self-driving cars and digital assistants, now enables scientists to address key challenges to harvesting on Earth the fusion energy that powers the sun and stars. The technique recently empowered physicist Dan Boyer of the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) to develop fast and accurate predictions for advancing control of experiments in the National Spherical Torus Experiment-Upgrade... Читать дальше...

Roads, bridges, pipelines and other types of infrastructure in Alaska and elsewhere in the Arctic will deteriorate faster than expected due to a failure by planners to account for the structures' impact on adjacent permafrost, according to research by a University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute permafrost expert and others.

Record-high heat is forecast in the normally mild-weathered Pacific Northwest this weekend, raising concerns about wildfires and the health of people in a region where many people don't have air conditioning.

Scientists from Helmholtz Zentrum München are revising the current textbook knowledge about gastrulation, the formation of the basic body plan, during embryonic development. Their study in mice has implications for cell replacement strategies and cancer research.

A first-of-its-kind large-scale study of vegetation growth in the Northern Hemisphere over the past 30 years has found that vegetation is becoming increasingly water-limited as global temperatures increase.

Precision-fermentation company Formo and the University of Bath have co-published the first large-scale study of consumer acceptance for animal-free dairy products.

Rude behavior at work has come to be expected, like donuts in the breakroom. Two decades of research on employee relationships shows that 98 percent of employees experience rude behavior at work, but now a new study suggests a large majority of workplace relationships are not characterized by rudeness. Isolated incidents of rude behavior at work, although somewhat common, do not point to widespread incivility between employees and their colleagues, according to a new UCF study.

The same taste-sensing molecule that helps you enjoy a meal from your favorite restaurant may one day lead to improved ways to treat diabetes and other metabolic and immune diseases.

A new study co-published by researchers at the University at Albany and National Central University (NCU) has linked air pollution to the worst drought that Taiwan has experienced in more than a half-century.

Earth is a round planet where flat surfaces and perfect shapes are scarce, but assignments in many geometry courses are completed on grid paper with simplified line segments and symmetrical polygons.

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, universities worldwide have been forced to reduce in-person interactions, altering how we connect and work with one another. The transition to a "virtual world" has been eye-opening, proving to many that research and innovation can continue, even in a remote setting.

Analysis of recently discovered fossils found in Israel suggest that interactions between different human species were more complex than previously believed, according to a team of researchers including Binghamton University anthropology professor Rolf Quam.

Mythological nymphs reincarnate as a group of corn smut proteins to launch a battle on maize immunity. One of these proteins appears to stand out among its sister Pleiades, much like its namesake character in Greek mythology. The research carried out at GMI—Gregor Mendel Institute of Molecular Plant Biology of the Austrian Academy of Sciences—is published in the journal PLOS Pathogens.

Researchers at Tufts University, University College London (UCL), Cambridge University and University of California at Santa Barbara have demonstrated that a catalyst can indeed be an agent of change. In a study published today in Science, they used quantum chemical simulations run on supercomputers to predict a new catalyst architecture as well as its interactions with certain chemicals, and demonstrated in practice its ability to produce propylene—currently in short supply—which is critically needed in the manufacture of plastics... Читать дальше...

In a study in Nature Plants, Yiping Qi, associate professor of Plant Science at the University of Maryland (UMD), introduces a new and improved CRISPR 3.0 system in plants, focusing on gene activation instead of traditional gene editing. This third generation CRISPR system focuses on multiplexed gene activation, meaning that it can boost the function of multiple genes simultaneously. According to the researchers, this system boasts four to six times the activation capacity of current state-of-the-art CRISPR technology... Читать дальше...

A joint research team led by Prof. Fu Qiaomei from the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences sequenced the ancient genomes of 31 individuals from southern East Asia, thus unveiling a missing piece of human prehistory.

Researchers from St. Petersburg University have analyzed data from optical telescopes covering more than eight years and managed to explain the mechanism of polarization plane rotations in blazars.

Female elephant seals weigh 350 kg on average, and dive continuously to the ocean's mesopelagic zone, about 200 to 1,000 meters deep, to consume their only prey: Small fish that weigh less than 10 grams. Now, an international team of researchers, armed with eight years' worth of data, may have answered a decades-long question: How do seals maintain their large size on such small prey?