Новости за 07.07.2021

A team of researchers from Uppsala University, the University of Cincinnati and the University of Toronto has found that there are benefits for female seed beetles mating with males with extra-long spiny genitalia. In their paper published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, the group describes their study of the mating habits of the beetles and what they learned about them.

Diversification in the sourcing of food into cities can go a long way to tempering "food shock"—a sudden drop in food supply due to unforeseen events, according to a team of researchers from Penn State and Northern Arizona University, who developed a statistical risk model linking supply chain diversity to the probability of a city experiencing food shocks.

The Hikurangi Margin, located off the east coast of the North Island of New Zealand, is where the Pacific tectonic plate dives underneath the Australian tectonic plate, in what scientists call a subduction zone. This interface of tectonic plates is partly responsible for the more than 15,000 earthquakes the region experiences each year. Most are too small to be noticed, but between 150 and 200 are large enough to be felt. Geological evidence suggests that large earthquakes happened in the southern... Читать дальше...

Cells fight microbial invaders by engulfing them into membrane sacs—hostile environments in which pathogens are rapidly destroyed. However, the pathogen Salmonella enterica, which grows and reproduces inside cells, has evolved ways to detoxify such hostile compartments, turning them into a comfortable home where it can survive and thrive.

Customs agents in southwest China have seized 2.2 tonnes of pangolin scales and busted an endangered wildlife smuggling gang, state media reported.

A massive explosion from a previously unknown source—10 times more energetic than a supernova—could be the answer to a 13-billion-year-old Milky Way mystery.

Researchers from North Carolina State University have developed a patch that plants can "wear" to monitor continuously for plant diseases or other stresses, such as crop damage or extreme heat.

The growing rate of ice melt in the Arctic due to rising global temperatures has opened up the Northwest Passage (NWP) to more ship traffic, increasing the potential risk of an oil spill and other environmental disasters. A new study published in the journal Risk Analysis suggests that an oil spill in the Canadian Arctic could be devastating—especially for vulnerable indigenous communities.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is able to recognize the biological activity of natural products in a targeted manner, as researchers at ETH Zurich have demonstrated. Moreover, AI helps to find molecules that have the same effect as a natural substance but are easier to manufacture. This opens up huge possibilities for drug discovery, which also have potential to rewrite the rulebook for pharmaceutical research.

Scientists at KAIST have fabricated a laser system that generates highly interactive quantum particles at room temperature. Their findings, published in the journal Nature Photonics, could lead to a single microcavity laser system that requires lower threshold energy as its energy loss increases.

A recent study by scientists from Japanese universities has shown that the shape of cell-derived nanoparticles, known as "extracellular vesicles" (EVs), in body fluids could be a biomarker for identifying types of cancer. In the study, the scientists successfully measured the shape distributions of EVs derived from liver, breast, and colorectal cancer cells, showing that the shape distributions differ from one another. The findings were recently published in the journal Analytical Chemistry.

Despite having been formalized as a species in 1936, Wolbachia pipientis remains an elusive microbe. The reason why relates to the relationship it establishes with its hosts. Wolbachia lives inside the cells of 40% of the arthropods, mainly insects, intertwined in a symbiosis so complex that it can no longer survive on its own. "Guessing what it takes to grow and manipulate it outside the host might not be possible," says Luís Teixeira, IGC principal investigator. And, so far, despite countless attempts... Читать дальше...

Researchers at the IBS Center for Quantum Nanoscience at Ewha Womans University (QNS) have shown that dysprosium atoms resting on a thin insulating layer of magnesium oxide have magnetic stability over days. In a study published in Nature Communications they have proven that these tiny magnets have extreme robustness against fluctuations in magnetic field and temperature and will flip only when they are bombarded with high energy electrons from a scanning tunneling microscope.

Cheap to produce and long to degrade, plastic was once a manufacturing miracle. Now, plastic is an environmental plague, clogging landfills and choking waterways. A Japan-based research team has turned back to nature to develop an approach to degrading the stubborn substance. Similar to how a protein binds to cellulose in plants or to chitin in crustaceans to initiate decomposition, an engineered protein is on its way to binding to plastic particles in an effort to more efficiently break them down.

Some exceptionally gifted people have marked human history and culture. Leonardo, Mozart, and Einstein are some famous examples of this phenomenon.

A new study of lithium production in a classical nova found a production rate of only a couple of percent that seen in other examples. This shows that there is a large diversity within classical novae and implies that nova explosions alone cannot explain the amount of lithium seen in the current universe. This is an important result for understanding both the explosion mechanism of classical novae and the overall chemical evolution of the universe.

Atmospheric cold pools are pockets of air cooler than their surrounding environment that form when rain evaporates underneath thunderstorms. These relatively dense air masses, ranging between 10 and 200 kilometers in diameter, lead to downdrafts that upon hitting the ocean surface, produce temperature fronts and strong winds that affect the surrounding environment. Cold pools over the tropical oceans produce large changes in air temperature and wind speed in the planetary boundary layer. But how... Читать дальше...

Bioenergy crops are an alternative energy source that, unlike fossil fuels, could positively impact the environment by reducing greenhouse gases, soil erosion and carbon dioxide levels. They can be produced even more sustainably if they are grown on poor quality land unsuitable for food. To make up for the poor land quality, these crops can rely on soil microbes like bacteria and fungi to help them access nutrients and water and store more carbon.

The genetic make-up of indigenous chickens has changed to better cope with climatic challenges, giving hope to future breeding of more productive and climate-resilient livestock, a study in Ethiopia has found.

Around 269 million people worldwide use drugs each year. Often forgotten in this story is a problem of basic biology. What goes in must come out. Sewers are inundated with drugs that are excreted from the body, along with the broken down chemical components that have similar effects to the drugs themselves.

A team of researchers from Murdoch University, the New England Aquarium and Mote Marine Laboratory, has found at least one instance of sharks of different species hunting at different times so as to avoid each other. In their paper published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, the group describes tagging and monitoring several species of sharks in the Gulf of Mexico.

Human activities, such as burning fossil fuels for transportation and electricity, have worsened the intensity of extreme rainfall and snowfall over land in recent decades, not just in a few areas but on a global scale, new research shows.

The COVID vaccines currently being deployed were developed with unprecedented speed, but the mRNA technology at work in some of them is an equally impressive success story. Because any desired mRNA sequence can be synthesized in massive quantities, one of the biggest hurdles in a variety of mRNA therapies is the ability to package those sequences into the lipid nanoparticles that deliver them into cells.

Plastics are everywhere. They're in our water, in our food, and even in the air we breathe. They show up in remote glaciers and deep in the ocean.

Our last common ancestor with the octopus existed more than 500 million years ago. So why is it that they seem to show such peculiar similarities with humans, while at the same time appearing so alien? Perhaps because despite their tentacles covered with suckers and their lack of bones, their eyes, brains and even their curiosity remind us our own thirst for knowledge.