Новости за 09.07.2021

It's hard to miss a flashlight beam pointed straight at you. But that beam viewed from the side appears significantly dimmer. The same holds true for some cosmic objects: Like a flashlight, they radiate primarily in one direction, and they look dramatically different depending on whether the beam points away from Earth (and nearby space telescopes) or straight at it.

DNA is composed of nucleobases represented by the letters A, T, G and C. They form the basis of the genetic code and are present in all living beings. But in a bacteriophage, another base, represented by the letter Z, exists. This exception, the only one observed to date, has long remained a mystery. Scientists from the Institut Pasteur and the CNRS, in collaboration with the CEA, have now elucidated the biosynthesis pathway of this base. This work has been published in the April 30th, 2021 issue of Science.

Deforestation of the Brazilian Amazon reached a record in June for the fourth consecutive month, according to official data released Friday.

Food insecurity is a major problem in the U.S., and it worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) provides some relief, but millions of Americans still lack adequate access to healthy food. A new study from the University of Illinois proposes a potential solution.

Ed Steponaitis jumps off the boat and trudges through the murky, lukewarm Gulf of Mexico. His shorts soak in the waist-deep saltwater.

A trio of researchers from the University of Colorado Boulder, has found the secret to fireflies flashing in unison: interacting locally through an active network of visual connections. In their paper published in the journal Science Advances, Raphael Sarfati, Julie Hayes and Orit Peleg, describe their study of the glowing insects in the Great Smoky Mountains in Tennessee and North Carolina, and what they learned about them.

On average, Dutch breeding birds have become more numerous in the period 1980-2010. The common species have even done better than birds in other European countries. Farmland birds are an exception: they declined sharply both in the Netherlands and elsewhere in Europe.

An unprecedented heat wave that started around June 26 smashed numerous all-time temperature records in the Pacific Northwest and western Canada. NASA's Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS), aboard the Aqua satellite, captured the progression of this slow-moving heat dome across the region from June 21 to 30. An animation of some of the AIRS data show surface air temperature anomalies—values above or below long-term averages. Surface air temperature is something that people directly feel when they are outside.

Although the giant panda is in practice a herbivore, its masticatory system functions differently from the other herbivores. Through the processes of natural selection, the giant panda's dietary preference has strongly impacted the evolution of its teeth and jaws. Researchers from the Institute of Dentistry at the University of Turku and the Biodiversity unit of the University of Turku together with researchers from the China Conservation and Research Center for Giant Panda (CCRCGP) have been the... Читать дальше...

Mitochondria, the powerhouse of the cell, convert sustenance into energy, fueling the cell's activities. In addition to power, mitochondria also produce reactive oxygen species, byproduct molecules primed to help facilitate communication among the other units in the cells. But when produced too abundantly, they damage DNA and render some cellular components dysfunctional. Now, an international research team has revealed how mitochondria keep their reactive oxygen species production in check.

A new instrument that will fly to the moon has been delivered to NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.

Coral reefs are a favorite spot for scuba divers and are among the world's most diverse ecosystems. For example, the Hawaiian coral reefs, known as the 'rainforests of the sea', host over 7,000 species of marine animals, fishes, birds and plants. But coral reefs are facing serious threats, including a number of diseases that have been linked to human activity.

Hundreds of dead turtles continue to wash ashore in Sri Lanka, almost two months after a newly built container ship caught fire while anchored off Colombo's port.

Food waste is a huge problem for the environment. Making and getting rid of excess food accounts for around 8-10% of greenhouse gas emissions. In fact, if global food waste were a country, it would rank third in the world for greenhouse gas emissions after China and the US. Globally, we throw away around a third of all food we produce.

Down in the main lab of the R/V Marcus Langseth, you'll find an array of monitors—46, to be exact!—all displaying information about the data we're collecting. While many of the screens are dedicated to monitoring the seismic data and the instrumentation related to collecting the seismic data, there are two screens that display data related to the multibeam echo sounder. A multibeam echo sounder is an instrument mounted to the hull of the vessel that emits sound waves in a fan shape beneath the ship. Читать дальше...

A team of researchers working at Zhejiang University in China has developed a way to grow water ice that is elastic and bendable. In their paper published in the journal Science, the group describes how they grew their single-crystal microfibers and suggest possible uses for them. Erland Schulson with Dartmouth College, has published a Perspective piece in the same journal issue outlining the work done by the team in China.

The era of space tourism is set to soar, with highly symbolic flights by rivals Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin scheduled just days apart.

As famous for his thrill-seeking lifestyle and publicity stunts as for his vast business empire, Richard Branson has set his sights on the stars as he prepares for liftoff on his first space flight.

Two vessels, two companies, with one goal: blasting their billionaire founders into space.

As light detection and ranging (lidar) technology evolves, forest ecology and ecological restoration researchers have been using these tools in a wide range of applications.

Remember Napster? The peer-to-peer file sharing company, popular in the late 1990s and early 2000s, depended on users sharing their music files. To promote cooperation, such software "could mislead its users," says Bryce Morsky, a postdoc in Penn's School of Arts & Sciences.

Planets which are tilted on their axis, like Earth, are more capable of evolving complex life. This finding will help scientists refine the search for more advanced life on exoplanets. This NASA-funded research is presented at the Goldschmidt Geochemistry Conference.

Scientists know that the Earth was bombarded by huge impactors in distant time, but a new analysis suggests that the number of these impacts may have been 10 times higher than previously thought. This translates into a barrage of collisions—similar in scale to that of the asteroid strike that wiped out the dinosaurs—on average every 15 million years between 2.5 and 3.5 billion years ago. Some of these individual impacts may have been much bigger, possibly ranging from city-sized to small province sized. Читать дальше...