Новости за 11.08.2021

More than 70% of plant species that produce flowers depend on birds to disperse their seeds. Birds feed on fruit from a wide array of different plants, and bird-plant interactions configure a welter of complex networks.

Startups backed by venture capital—and their investors—often lose tax savings because they organize as corporations rather than limited liability companies, finds a UC Riverside-led study.

As wildfires and heatwaves stress the western United States, concern over drought is rising: Dry landscapes burn more readily, and rain can help quell fires already raging. But wildfire smoke may keep that essential rain from falling.

MIT engineers and colleagues report important new advances on a tunable metasurface, or flat optical device patterned with nanoscale structures, that they compare to a Swiss army knife while its passive predecessor can be thought of as just one tool, like a flat-bladed screwdriver. Key to the work is a transparent material discovered by the team that quickly and reversibly changes its atomic structure in response to heat.

Physics researchers at the University of North Florida's Atomic LEGO Lab discovered a new electronic phenomenon they call "asymmetric ferroelectricity." The research led by Dr. Maitri Warusawithana, UNF physics assistant professor, in collaboration with researchers at the University of Illinois and the Arizona State University, demonstrated this phenomenon for the first time in engineered two-dimensional crystals.

Can you see NASA's newest rover in this picture from Jezero Crater?

A new UBC study on the impact of climate change on coral reefs is raising sticky questions about conservation.

Cornell researchers have identified a new way to measure DNA torsional stiffness—how much resistance the helix offers when twisted—information that can potentially shed light on how cells work.

The number of beavers in Scotland has more than doubled in the last three years, according to a new population survey.

The cabbage butterfly, voracious as a caterpillar, is every gardener's menace. Turns out, these lovely white or sulfur yellow butterflies started trying to take over the planet millions of years before humans ever set foot on it.

In a study released Wednesday, NASA researchers used precision-tracking data from the agency's Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) spacecraft to better understand movements of the potentially hazardous asteroid Bennu through the year 2300, significantly reducing uncertainties related to its future orbit, and improving scientists' ability to determine the total impact probability and predict orbits of other asteroids.

There are fewer than 500 Indian Ocean humpback dolphins (Sousa plumbea) remaining in South African waters. Science alone will not bring them back from the brink of extinction—we also need a multi-stakeholder Conservation Management Plan to boost their numbers.

A new study in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B by researchers at the University of Washington (UW), Burke Museum, and Stony Brook University, finds important clues on how bats and Piper (pepper) plants in Central America have co-evolved to help each other survive.

A study conducted in Hungarian schools showed that seating students next to each other boosted their tendency to become friends—both for pairs of similar students and pairs of students who differed in their educational achievement, gender, or ethnicity. Julia Rohrer of University of Leipzig, Germany, and colleagues present these findings in the open-access journal PLOS ONE on August 11, 2021.

It is increasingly clear that the prolonged drought conditions, record-breaking heat, sustained wildfires, and frequent, more extreme storms experienced in recent years are a direct result of rising global temperatures brought on by humans' addition of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. And a new MIT study on extreme climate events in Earth's ancient history suggests that today's planet may become more volatile as it continues to warm.

Nearly 100,000 hectares of forestry and farmland have burned in less than two weeks in Greece in the worst wave of wildfires since 2007, the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS) said Wednesday.

Open windows and a good heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) system are starting points for keeping classrooms safe during the COVID-19 pandemic. But they are not the last word, according to a new study from researchers at MIT.

Gen Z adults are interested in using apparel rental services to reduce overconsumption, according to a new study in the journal Sustainability by Washington State University researchers.

Scientists from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) and the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), United States, have developed a new type of 'chain mail' fabric that is flexible like cloth but can stiffen on demand.

Russian scientists sounded the alarm Wednesday over a huge oil slick in the Black Sea, with the World Wildlife Fund saying at least 100 tonnes of oil have leaked off the city of Novorossiysk.

In the 30 years since the University of Georgia's Selig Center for Economic Growth launched its Multicultural Economy report, the population of the United States has grown more racially and ethnically diverse and so has the nation's buying power.

Regional authorities in Sicily recorded temperatures of 48.8 degrees Celsius (119.8 Fahrenheit) Wednesday as an anticyclone dubbed "Lucifer" swept in, which if confirmed would be a new Italian and European record.

A team of researchers affiliated with a host of institutions across the globe has synthesized an AM-III carbon that is the hardest and strongest amorphous material created to date. In their paper published in the journal National Science Review, the group describes the process they used to create their new material and suggest possible uses for it.