Новости за 08.07.2021

Nonprofits and companies planting trees in the tropics may often pick species for their commercial rather than ecological value, researchers found in a new analysis of organizations' publicly available data. They also found many may not have tracked the trees' survival.

When NASA's Ingenuity Mars Helicopter hovered above the Red Planet April 19 on its maiden voyage, the moment was hailed as the first instance of powered, controlled flight on another planet. Figuring out how to fly on Mars, where the air is thin but gravity is about a third of that on Earth, took years of work. Along with the challenge of developing a craft that was up to the task, the mission needed software to make the unprecedented flights possible.

A new paper enriches scientists' understanding of where the rock record preserved or destroyed evidence of Mars' past and possible signs of ancient life.

In a critical next step toward room-temperature superconductivity at ambient pressure, Paul Chu, Founding Director and Chief Scientist at the Texas Center for Superconductivity at the University of Houston (TcSUH), Liangzi Deng, research assistant professor of physics at TcSUH, and their colleagues at TcSUH conceived and developed a pressure-quench (PQ) technique that retains the pressure-enhanced and/or -induced high transition temperature (Tc) phase even after the removal of the applied pressure that generates this phase.

Ever since the 1986 discovery that copper oxide materials, or cuprates, could carry electrical current with no loss at unexpectedly high temperatures, scientists have been looking for other unconventional superconductors that could operate even closer to room temperature. This would allow for a host of everyday applications that could transform society by making energy transmission more efficient, for instance.

Major ecosystem changes like sea-level rise, desertification and lake warming are fueling uncertainty about the future. Many initiatives—such as those fighting to fully eradicate non-native species, or to combat wildfires—focus on actively resisting change to preserve a slice of the past.

A new study led by WCS-India documents how a big cat deity worshiped by Indigenous Peoples facilitates coexistence between humans and leopards.

Rude behavior is a common form of insensitive and disrespectful conduct that harms employees' performance in the workplace. In a new study, researchers examined the impact of rude behavior on how individuals make critical decisions. The study found that in certain situations, these behaviors can have deadly consequences.

A new University of Central Florida study indicates that smaller loggerhead and green sea turtles are nesting on Florida beaches than in the past; however, researchers aren't sure why.

Between the stars in our Milky Way, vast amounts of tiny dust grains are floating aimlessly around. They form the building blocks of new stars and planets. But we still don't know what elements exactly are available to form planets like Earth. A research team at SRON led by Elisa Costantini has now matched observations from X-ray telescopes with data from synchrotron facilities to create a map of interstellar grains in the Milky Way.

The plates of the Earth's crust perform complicated movements that can be attributed to quite simple mechanisms. That is the short version of the explanation of a rift that began to tear the world apart 105 million years ago over a length of several thousand kilometers. The scientific explanation appears today in the journal Nature Geoscience.

When driving up to a busy intersection, you probably pay more attention to where you will be in the near future than where you are at that moment. After all, knowing when you will arrive at the intersection—and whether you need to stop or slow down to avoid a collision with a passing car, pedestrian or cyclist—is usually much more important than knowing your current location.

Dogs infected with echinococcosis play a major role in spreading tapeworms across human populations around the world. Now, researchers have developed a "smart collar" which gradually delivers a steady dose of a deworming drug to dogs. The collar successfully reduces the animals' risk of echinococcosis, the team reports in PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases

The Large High Altitude Air Shower Observatory (LHAASO), one of China's key national science and technology infrastructure facilities, has accurately measured the brightness over 3.5 orders of magnitude of the standard candle in high-energy astronomy, thus calibrating a new standard for ultra-high-energy (UHE) gamma-ray sources. The standard candle is the famous Crab Nebula, which evolved from the "guest star" recorded by the imperial astronomers of China's Song Dynasty.

The mystery of the formation of one of the most peculiar plant forms—the Romanesco cauliflower—has been solved by a team of scientists from the CNRS and Inria in an article published on the 9 July in Science.

Researchers at the Francis Crick Institute have found a vital mechanism, previously thought to have disappeared as mammals evolved, that helps protect mammalian stem cells from RNA viruses such as SARS-CoV-2 and Zika virus. The scientists suggest this could one day be exploited in the development of new antiviral treatments.

As tectonic plates slip past each other, the rivers that cross fault lines change shape. The shifting ground stretches the river channels until the water breaks its course and flows onto new paths.

The field of topological photonics, specialized in the development of a class of materials known as photonic topological insulators, has advanced considerably over the past few decades. Photonic topological insulators have many promising qualities, including the ability to control the flow of classic light.

A team of researchers from Universitat Jaume, Universitat de València and Grup Guix, Vila-real, has identified a new species of sharp-clawed dinosaur excavated at a site in Catalonia. They have written a paper describing their findings, available on the open-access site PLOS One.

A team of researchers from the University of Kiel in Germany and Aarhus University in Denmark, has found that darkling beetles create a type of lubricant in their legs to prevent their leg joints from wearing away. They describe their research in a paper published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B.