Новости за 27.09.2021

The latest in a series of U.S. satellites that has recorded human and natural impacts on Earth's surface for decades was launched into orbit from California on Monday to ensure continued observations in the era of climate change.

The world is heading towards a trillion-sensor economy where billions of devices using multiple sensors will be connected under the umbrella of Internet-of-things. An important part of this economy is constituted of light/photo sensors, which are tiny semiconductor-based electronic components that detect light and convert them to electrical signals. Light sensors can be found everywhere around us, from household electronic gadgets and health-care equipment to optical communication systems and automobiles.

Researchers have developed and demonstrated a new system that can detect defects in silicon solar panels in full and partial sunlight under any weather conditions. Because current defect detection methods cannot be used in daylight conditions, the new system could make it much easier to keep solar panels working optimally.

Geologists have been baffled by perforations in an Australian quartzite (rock), identical in shape to burrows made in sands by crustaceans; the original sandy sediment is a billion years older than the oldest known animals. An international team of scientists has now resolved the mystery.

Glaciologists at the University of California, Irvine and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory have examined the dynamics underlying the calving of the Delaware-sized iceberg A68 from Antarctica's Larsen C ice shelf in July 2017, finding the likely cause to be a thinning of ice melange, a slushy concoction of windblown snow, iceberg debris and frozen seawater that normally works to heal rifts.

Volcanic eruptions spew lava, rock and ash into the air. When fragments of these materials mix and collide in the outflow, they can create an electric potential large enough to generate lightning.

Most people are familiar with computed tomography from medicine: A part of the body is X-rayed from all sides and a three-dimensional image is then calculated, from which any sectional images can be created for diagnosis.

A team of atmospheric scientists from around the nation is descending on the Houston, Texas, area for the next 14 months to seek answers to a vexing question: Do tiny specks of soot, dust, smoke, and other particles suspended in Earth's atmosphere help determine the severity of thunderstorms? The knowledge gained may make weather forecasts more accurate and provide crucial data for improving predictions about how aerosols may affect Earth's future climate.

A new tool finds hidden connections across industrial sectors and identifies opportunities to reduce waste and lower carbon emissions by mapping the physical economy for a region.

Like a work of art enshrined in a museum, some stones end up on a pedestal of ice in nature, with no human intervention. This "Zen stone" phenomenon, named after the stacked stones in Japanese gardens, appears on the surface of frozen lakes, Lake Baikal (Russia) in particular. These structures result from the phenomenon of sublimation, which causes a body, in this case ice, to change from solid to gaseous form without the intermediary form of a liquid.

Highly positive social outcomes are linked to biodiversity efforts in Amazonian Sustainable-Use Protected Areas, according to new research from the University of East Anglia (UEA).

New research on China suggests that declining birth rates and an aging population might not hinder future prosperity when associated with better education of the young.

A new special edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences showcases multidisciplinary approaches to exploring human impacts on tropical forests and their associated earth systems.

The rise of dinosaurs coincided with environmental changes driven by major volcanic eruptions over 230 million years ago, a new study reveals.

Federal biologist Erin Fedewa boarded a research vessel in June in Dutch Harbor, Alaska, and journeyed to a swath of the Bering Sea that typically yields an abundance of young snow crab in annual surveys.

In December 2020, Japan's Hayabusa2 spacecraft swung by Earth to drop off a cache of rock samples taken from a near-Earth asteroid called Ryugu. Asteroids like Ryugu are thought to represent the ancient building blocks of the solar system, and scientists have been eager to get a closer look at the returned samples.

N95 respirators offer the best protection against wildfire smoke and other types of air pollution, performing better than synthetic, cotton and surgical masks.

A team led by the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the University of Michigan have discovered that certain bacteria can steal an essential compound from other microbes to break down methane and toxic methylmercury in the environment.

Parasitic wasps are natural enemies for effective control over the population of pests in nature. Hence, they are extensively used as green agents of pest control in agriculture and forestry. There are a diversity of parasitic wasps, which have assorted parasitic habits. In general, parasitism can be divided into three types: solitary parasitism, gregarious parasitism and synparasitism. Superparasitism—two or more eggs being laid into a single host by one or more parasitoid females—usually leads to intraspecific or interspecific competition... Читать дальше...

Microorganisms can increase their host's ability to adapt to the environment and reproduce—evolutionary biologists are now studying the underlying molecular mechanisms. A research team headed by Dr. Fabian Staubach and Yun Wang from the Institute of Biology I at the University of Freiburg has now studied the relationship of Gluconobacter bacteria and Drosophila melanogaster fruit flies. They have found that specific Gluconobacter variants supply the flies with vitamin B1 improving fly fitness. The... Читать дальше...

Like the speed of an advancing race car driver, the winds in the outermost "lane" of Jupiter's Great Red Spot are accelerating – a discovery only made possible by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, which has monitored the planet for more than a decade.

In many North American lakes, a tiny clawed creature has become a big bully. The invasive rusty crayfish roams lakebeds, snapping up snails, bivalves, and water plants, cutting off food supplies for native crayfish and other animals. And when they're feeling saucy, some mount daring raids on fish eggs, reducing sport-fish populations.

A version of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19 disease, has been successfully modified to glow brightly in cells and animal tissues, providing a real-time way to track the spread and intensity of viral infection as it happens in animal models, researchers at Texas Biomedical Research Institute (Texas Biomed) report in the journal The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

More than half of U.S. newspaper jobs have been cut since 2008. A new study from the University of Kansas explores how journalists have dealt with the emotional and physical toll of unemployment and how they adjusted to new jobs and careers. Those findings likely illustrate what the thousands more journalists who lost jobs during the pandemic will experience in coming years.

Imagine stacking two sheets of graphene—the 2D form of graphite, or the pencil at your hand—in which the carbon atoms form a hexagonal lattice and twist the top sheet out of alignment with the sheet below, yielding a periodic arrangement of atoms named moiré pattern. Do you know that at a twisted angle of about 1°—people now call it the 'magic' angle—the system could exhibit very exotic behaviors such as becoming an insulator, a metal or even a superconductor? Can you imagine the same carbon atom... Читать дальше...