Новости за 03.12.2021

Research published in the journal Anatomical Record finds that humans have more in common with endangered crocodiles than we think—namely, a deviated septum.

Photons are the basis for many next-generation quantum technologies, including ultra-secure quantum communications and potentially game-changing quantum computers.

Food texture can make the difference between passing on a plate and love at first bite. To date, most studies on food texture center on relating a food's overall composition to its mechanical properties. Our understanding of how microscopic structure and changes in the shape of food affect food texture, however, remains underdeveloped.

For decades, scientists have hotly debated the origin of the western honey bee. Now, new research led by York University has discovered these popular honey-producing bees most likely originated in Asia.

A multi-institutional team of astrophysicists headquartered at Boston University, led by BU astrophysicist Merav Opher, has made a breakthrough discovery in our understanding of the cosmic forces that shape the protective bubble surrounding our solar system—a bubble that shelters life on Earth and is known by space researchers as the heliosphere.

Few developments have rocked the biotechnology world or generated as much buzz as the discovery of CRISPR-Cas systems, a breakthrough in gene editing recognized in 2020 with a Nobel Prize. But these systems that naturally occur in bacteria are limited because they can make only small tweaks to genes. In recent years, scientists discovered a different system in bacteria that might lead to even more powerful methods for gene editing, given its unique ability to insert genes or whole sections of DNA in a genome.

Three-dimensional fault models are generally more accurate than two-dimensional line models at sending ground shaking alerts to the correct areas as part of an earthquake early warning system, according to a new study.

Unusual ways of investment, such as collecting toys, can generate high returns. For example, secondary market prices of retired LEGO sets grow by 11% annually, which is faster than gold, stocks, and bonds, HSE University economists say. Their paper was published in the Research in International Business and Finance journal.

Researchers have shown that green tea can be used as a reducing reagent for the preparation of nanomaterials to synthesize ammonia. Compared with bulk graphitic carbon nitride, the optimal sample had 2.93-fold photocatalytic nitrate reduction to ammonia activity (2.627 mg/h/gcat), and the NH3 selectivity increased from 50.77% to 77.9%. The team published their approach on September 06 in Energy Material Advances.

Robots are already in space. From landers on the moon to rovers on Mars and more, robots are the perfect candidates for space exploration: they can bear extreme environments while consistently repeating the same tasks in exactly the same way without tiring. Like robots on Earth, they can accomplish both dangerous and mundane jobs, from space walks to polishing a spacecraft's surface. With space missions increasing in number and expanding in scientific scope, requiring more equipment, there's a need... Читать дальше...

As the world's temperatures rise, tidewater glaciers are receding and melting, releasing air trapped in the ice. Scientists can listen to the release of the air and potentially use the sounds to help them gauge the impact of climate change on the ice floes.

Two dimensional (2D) magnetic semiconductors, integrating semiconductivity, ferromagnetism and low dimensionality, serve as the cornerstone for high-speed nanospintronic devices. However, the practical applications of nowadays 2D magnetic semiconductors face two key problems: the rather low magnetic Curie temperature compared to room temperature, and the lack of a simple and efficient method to control the carrier's spin polarization direction. Thus, exploring 2D magnetic semiconductors with room... Читать дальше...

In a recent review article published online in National Science Review, Prof. Shenjian Chen (Nanjing University) and Prof. Stephen Olsen (University of Chinese Academy of Sciences) review the major progress of the BESIII experiment in searching for new physics in Charm physics energy region, and prospect the potential of new physics search in the future.

A stash of rediscovered dinosaur bones wrapped in century-old newspapers is set to reveal two pasts: one set in the 1920s and the University of Alberta's earliest paleontology, the other some 70 million years ago.

A rare total solar eclipse in Antarctica this weekend (Saturday 4 December) is giving researchers a unique opportunity to learn more about how solar eclipses affect space weather. The next total eclipse in Antarctica will not be until 2039.

Music, dance, art and storytelling have allowed an international team of researchers to reveal aspects of air pollution in Nairobi that would not have been identified otherwise.

An organism's genome could be compared to a complex system of instructions that allows it not only to develop, but also to carry out all the activities essential to its survival. To do this, this genome needs to be expressed correctly, i.e. these instructions need to be "read" properly, and the information it contains must not be altered or degraded over time.

Tropical forests are disappearing at an alarming rate through deforestation, but they also have the potential to regrow naturally on abandoned lands. This has been shown by an international study led by scientists from Wageningen University. How a forest recovers, depends on the amount of rainfall, the age of the forest, and the functional characteristics of the tree species.

In a new study, published in the journal Nature, the researchers show that the planet, which is 31 light years from Earth, is one of the lightest among the nearly 5,000 exoplanets (planets outside our own solar system) that are known today, with half the mass of Earth. It has a diameter of just over 9,000 kilometers—slightly larger than Mars.

Invasive ant species can be found in almost every ecosystem on earth, but the impact these invaders may have on plant health has only recently been investigated by scientists. A new study published in Journal of Ecology is the first of its kind to find that invasive ants can disrupt plants' growth and photosynthesis by nesting at their roots—potentially threatening plants in tropical and subtropical regions around the globe.

Debris disks around main-sequence stars are tenuous belts of dust thought to be produced when asteroids or other planetesimals collide and fragment. They are common: more than about a quarter of all main-sequence stars have debris disks and, since these disks can be hard to detect, it is likely that the fraction is even higher. Current instruments are only able to detect debris disks in systems that are at least an order of magnitude more luminous than the disk generated by the solar system's Kuiper... Читать дальше...

Graphene consists of a planar structure, with carbon atoms connected in a hexagonal shape that resembles a beehive. When graphene is reduced to several nanometers (nm) in size, it becomes a graphene quantum dot that exhibits fluorescent and semiconductor properties. Graphene quantum dots can be used in various applications as a novel material, including display screens, solar cells, secondary batteries, bioimaging, lighting, photocatalysis, and sensors. Interest in graphene quantum dots is growing... Читать дальше...

In their recent publication, "Why is Denali (6,190 m) so big? Caught inside the tectonic wake of a migrating restraining bend," Jeff A. Benowitz and a research team from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Virginia Tech, and the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology in the U.S., documented the evolution of the Mount McKinley bend of the Denali Fault.

How can we understand the activity of wild bats? Mostly soundless, flying in the dark, bats feed at night and evade our senses. Many bats can use echolocation to hunt and can avoid the traditional nets used to capture them; those that do not "echolocate" cannot be detected by ultrasound bat detectors. Now, an international research team led by the University of Göttingen has developed a new method ("bat point counts") by combining modern sensing technologies—thermal, ultrasonic and near-infrared—to detect... Читать дальше...

By performing a series of real and 'fake' flybys, ESA's Mars Express has revealed how Mars' largest moon, Phobos, interacts with the solar wind of charged particles thrown out by the Sun—and spotted an elusive process that has only been seen at Phobos once before.