Новости за 06.01.2022

Best management practices (BMPs) for solar installations to protect Hawaiʻi's native and endangered birds have been released by the University of Hawaiʻi Pacific Cooperative Studies Unit. The new technical report synthesizes current literature on the threats posed by industrial-scale solar installations to birds, identifies the species most at risk from solar infrastructure, lists the locations of current and future solar facilities, and describes specific strategies to limit negative impacts on Hawaiian bird life.

Enzymes are biology's catalytic workhorses, binding molecules together, splitting them apart and reconfiguring them in processes vital to everything from digestion to breathing. Their availability, efficiency and specificity have long made them popular for reactions outside biological systems as well, including those involved in food preservation, detergents and disease diagnostics.

When two sheets of the carbon nanomaterial graphene are stacked together at a particular angle with respect to each other, it gives rise to some fascinating physics. For instance, when this so-called "magic-angle graphene" is cooled to near absolute zero, it suddenly becomes a superconductor, meaning it conducts electricity with zero resistance.

Since the first lab-modified virus capable of replication was generated in 1974, an evidence-based consensus has emerged that many changes introduced into viral genomes are likely to prove unstable if released into the environment. On this basis, many virologists would question the release of genetically modified viruses that retain the capacity to spread between individual vertebrate hosts. Researchers from Germany, South Africa, the United Kingdom and the United States now point out in a policy piece that despite these concerns... Читать дальше...

January is filled with resolutions to start the new year off right, from exercise and diet to financial health. One area that may often be overlooked is checking your credit score, and according to new research, there may be a reason for that.

There is more going on in the deep, dark ocean waters than you may think: Uncountable numbers of invisible microorganisms go about their daily lives in the water columns, and now researchers have discovered that some of them produce oxygen in an unexpected way.

To fight infections and heal injuries, immune cells need to enter tissue. They also need to invade tumors to fight them from within. Scientists from the Siekhaus group at the Institute of Science and Technology (IST) Austria now discovered how immune cells protect their sensitive insides as they squeeze between tissue cells. With their study published in the journal PLOS Biology the team lays the foundation for identifying new targets in cancer treatment.

Although twisted sheets of double bilayer graphene have been studied extensively the past few years, there are still pieces missing in the puzzle that is its phase diagram—the different undisturbed, ground states of the system. Writing in Nature Physics, Carmen Rubio-Verdú and colleagues have found a new puzzle piece: an electronic nematic phase.

No longer solely in the realm of science fiction, the possibility of interstellar travel has appeared, tantalizingly, on the horizon. Although we may not see it in our lifetimes—at least not some real version of the fictional warp-speeding, hyperdriving, space-folding sort—we are having early conversations of how life could escape the tether of our solar system, using technology that is within reach.

Researchers from Imperial College London and Lancaster University have suggested a new approach to test the limits of applicability of quantum mechanics.

Grasslands are widespread and relevant ecosystems responsible for sustainable roughage production. Plant genetic diversity (PGD; i.e., within-species diversity) is related to many beneficial effects on the ecosystem functioning of grasslands. In their recently published paper, Miguel Loera-Sánchez, Bruno Studer and Roland Kölliker report a set of 12 multispecies primer pairs that can be used for high-throughput PGD assessments in multiple grassland plant species.

Researchers from KeyGene and Wageningen University & Research (WUR), in collaboration with colleagues from Japan and New Zealand, have discovered a gene that will make it possible to produce seeds from crops that are genetically identical to the mother plant and that do not need pollination.

An Oregon State University research team and collaborators have developed an automated method that can accurately identify calls from a family of fishes.

In a joint recommendation, the German higher federal authorities draw a picture of how the development of safe and sustainable advanced materials can be controlled and regulated. The term "advanced materials" is understood to refer to a broad and heterogeneous group of materials that have been deliberately designed to meet the functional requirements for future-oriented applications. The paper deals with the aspects of risk assessment, sustainability and control with regard to good governance and outlines relevant fields of action.

A simple, low-cost method of directly converting natural gas into useful chemicals and fuels, using the precious metal gold as a key ingredient, has been proposed by researchers at Cardiff University in collaboration with researchers in Lehigh University, U.S. and the National Centre for Magnetic Resonance in Wuhan, China.

Asthma is one of the most common chronic respiratory diseases worldwide and its prevalence is on the rise. Epidemiological studies reveal that the incidence of asthma ranges from 1% to 18% in various countries. More than 400 million people are suffering from asthma all over the world. The number of asthma patients aged 20 years and above in China has is over 45.7 million. However, the treatment of asthma is far from satisfactory. Therefore, it is of urgent need to explore the pathogenesis of asthma and identify new therapeutic targets.

Researchers studying coral reefs damaged by rising sea temperatures have discovered an unexpected 'bright spot' of hope for communities who depend upon them for food security.

In the most comprehensive analysis to date, researchers found that the shapes of fingerprints—whether they are circular, wavy, or winding—are influenced by the genes responsible for limb development instead of skin patterning. The study, presented January 6 in the journal Cell, could help scientists better understand the association between genes and phenotypical traits in humans.

Kogome lattices have become a new focus in the study of condensed matter physics for their novel features. However, due to the in-plane and interlayer interactions in materials, the intrinsic features of the 2D kogome lattices are often affected or even destroyed, causing the bulk states of the material to be inconsistent with its characteristic structure in theoretical calculation.

An international team of researchers from the University of Cologne (Germany), Radboud University Nijmegen (The Netherlands), the Ioffe Institute and the Prokhorov General Physics Institute (Russia) has discovered a new mechanism to control spin-lattice interaction using ultrashort terahertz (THz) pulses (terahertz means 1012 hertz). This mechanism can open up new and elegant ways to control propagation of spin waves and thus make an important step to conceptually new technologies of data processing in future. Читать дальше...

The team of academician Guo Guangcan of University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has made important progress in the research of cold atom super-resolution imaging. The team achieved super-resolution imaging of a single ion in an ion trap system. The results were published in Physical Review Letters.

Xuan paper, known as one of the Four Treasures of the Study, is an important carrier for traditional Chinese calligraphy and painting art, and it is also a precious cultural heritage of the Chinese nation. It has a history of more than 1,500 years and the craftsmanship of Xuan paper is also listed as part of the world's intangible cultural heritage. Xuan paper has the advantages of being soft and tough, not damaged after bending, smooth but not slippery, easily absorbing water and ink, anti-corrosion, and anti-moth.

For the very first time, astronomers have imaged in real time the dramatic end to a red supergiant's life, watching the massive star's rapid self-destruction and final death throes before it collapsed into a Type II supernova.

Over the past few decades, many condensed matter physicists have conducted research focusing on quantum phase transitions that are not clearly associated with a broken symmetry. One reason that these transitions are interesting is that they might underpin the mechanism of high-temperature superconductivity.

The fossil record, which documents the history of life on Earth, is heavily biased by influences such as colonialism, history and global economics, argues a new study involving paleontologists at the University of Birmingham and the University of Erlangen-Nürnberg.