Новости за 11.01.2022

Gender bias has not changed in more than 20 years, even by language experts who are aware of the potential dangers of such prejudices, according to a study coauthored by Rutgers University-New Brunswick that examined textbooks used to teach undergraduates studying the scientific structure of language.

Bioelectricity, the current that flows between our cells, is fundamental to our ability to think and talk and walk.

When male workers believe their gender status is threatened, they are more likely than their female counterparts to engage in deviant behavior such as lying, cheating or stealing in the workplace, new research suggests.

Apoptosis is a process that causes cell death. It can go awry in cancer cells, sustaining the disease. Scientists at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital have captured the structure of BAK, a protein that triggers apoptosis. They have shown how BAK autoactivates, essentially turning itself on. Understanding how apoptosis is triggered can lead to drugs that kill cancer cells. The findings were published online today in Nature Communications.

With a little twist and the turn of a voltage knob, Cornell researchers have shown that a single material system can toggle between two of the wildest states in condensed matter physics: The quantum anomalous Hall insulator and the two-dimensional topological insulator.

Stars are giant factories that produce most of the elements in the universe—including the elements in us, and in Earth's metal deposits. But how do stars produce changes over time?

Many academics and journalists have written about rural "brain drain," the migration of talented and bright young people who leave their communities, usually in search of better economic opportunities. But a team of Iowa State University researchers have identified three significant factors that draw people back to their hometowns a decade or two after leaving: public schools, population density and other college-degree-holders in the community.

As the human population grows to a predicted 10 billion by 2050 and overall land mass remains constant, traditional animal farming may become a less viable method for food production.

Rutgers researchers have unearthed the earliest definitive evidence of broomcorn millet (Panicum miliaceum) in ancient Iraq, challenging our understanding of humanity's earliest agricultural practices. Their findings appear in the journal Scientific Reports.

When designing environmental policies to limit the damage of river pollution, it is paramount to assess the specific risks that particular pollutants pose to different species. However, rigorously testing the effects of toxicants—like insecticides, plastic debris, pathogens, and chemicals—on entire groups of organisms without severely damaging their whole ecosystems is simply not feasible. Mathematical modeling can provide a flexible way to assess toxicants' impact on river populations without endangering the environment.

Astronomers are one step closer to revealing the properties of dark matter enveloping our Milky Way galaxy, thanks to a new map of twelve streams of stars orbiting within our galactic halo.

A gene that causes bacteria to be resistant to one of the world's most important antibiotics, colistin, has been detected in sewer water in Georgia. The presence of the MCR-9 gene is a major concern for public health because it causes antimicrobial resistance, a problem that the World Health Organization has declared "one of the top 10 global public health threats facing humanity."

German and Austrian scientists took a closer look at the braincase of a dinosaur from Austria. The group examined the fossil with a micro-CT and found surprising new details: it was sluggish and deaf. The respective study was recently published in the journal Scientific Reports.

Recorded lectures have become a routine part of course instruction during the COVID-19 pandemic, and college students often try to pack more learning into a shorter span by watching these recordings at double their normal speed or even faster. But does comprehension suffer as a result?

Some wildlife are stuck in their ways.

The sun rises on the savannas of central Kenya. Grasses sway in the wind as hoof-steps fall on the dusty ground. A menagerie of Africa's iconic wildlife congregates around a watering hole to quench their thirst during the region's dry season.

In the face of presidential orders and a flurry of legislation to curb carbon emissions, the volume of climate-warming gasses pumped into the atmosphere in the U.S. grew by more than 6 percent in 2021 after a pandemic-driven decline in 2020, according to widely watched data released Monday.

On a recent morning with wind chills below zero, at a Cook County, Illinois, forest preserve, a coyote paced back and forth inside a cage, turning tight figures eights, peering out through the wires. With sharp teeth and quick movements, the animal looked ready to hunt. But animal experts agree, he probably can't survive on his own in the wild.

A collaboration between computer scientists and physicists at the University of Chicago broke through one of the key obstacles for large-scale quantum computing by figuring out how to move their control signals "inside the fridge."

TAMPA, Fla.—It's been clear for months that 2021 would be the deadliest year on record for Florida's manatees. When the death count surpassed 1,000 in November, experts sounded the alarm, fearing the toll the winter months ahead would continue to inflict.

Astronomers from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have investigated a persistent radio source known as QRS121102 that is associated with the fast radio burst FRB 121102. Results of the study, published January 4 on arXiv.org, shed more light on the origin of this source and could help us better understand the nature of fast radio bursts.

If there's one thing that scavengers do, it's scavenge: feed on whatever is available, whenever it's available.

The Chamaeleon Infrared Nebula is an outflow of gas that resides in the larger Chamaeleon I dark cloud (one of the closest star-forming regions of the Milky Way), and adjacent to the Chamaeleon II and Chamaeleon III dark clouds. These three dark clouds—a type of nebula so dense that it obscures light—are known collectively as the Chamaeleon Complex, a large area of star formation.

The world's oceans are hotter than ever before, continuing their record-breaking temperature streak for the sixth straight year. The finding based on the latest data through 2021 comes at the end of the first year of the United Nations' Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development Goals, the 17 interlocked goals to maintain human societies and natural ecosystems around the globe, many of which are related to ocean health.

Researchers at Penn Medicine have discovered a new, more effective method of preventing the body's own proteins from treating nanomedicines like foreign invaders, by covering the nanoparticles with a coating to suppress the immune response that dampens the therapy's effectiveness.