Новости за 20.01.2022

It's now possible to measure how many plastic particles there are in our food. Chinese scientists and Leiden University professor Willie Peijnenburg applied their new method to lettuce and wheat. Their results were published January 20 in Nature Nanotechnology.

Production of high-energy fats by microalgae may provide a sustainable, renewable energy source that can help tackle climate change. However, microalgae engineered to produce lipids rapidly usually grow slowly themselves, making it difficult to increase overall yields.

A new paper co-written by a University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign expert who studies consumer credit issues provides the first comprehensive overview of bankruptcy filers in more than 30 years, shining a spotlight on the economic stressors faced by U.S. debtors.

The way mosquitoes react to predators should be included in disease models, say researchers behind a new study.

Research into engineering techniques that might one day be employed to artificially cool the planet poses some of the thorniest questions facing society today. For climate scientists, that tension is compounded by the lack of a broadly accepted oversight framework to guide their research.

A semiconducting material that performed a quantum "flip" from a conductor to an insulator above room temperature has been developed at the University of Michigan. It potentially brings the world closer to a new generation of quantum devices and ultra-efficient electronics.

An experiment, performed by Istituto Nazionale di Ricerca Metrologica (INRIM) on 200 km of the Italian Quantum Backbone, in collaboration with Toshiba Europe, shows that coherent laser interferometry considerably improves the performances of quantum key distribution protocols in long-distance, real-world networks. The study has been published in Nature Communications.

Native marine macroalgae, also known as limu, or as seaweed, thrive in environments created by natural groundwater seeps, specifically benefiting from the combined effects of enhanced nutrients despite lowered salinity levels, according to a review published recently by a team of University of Hawai'i at Mānoa researchers. Conversely, in areas where the seeping groundwater is tainted by excess nitrogen typical of wastewater, the study found it is invasive species that typically flourish in Hawaiʻi.

For the first time, scientists believe they have detected a merger of two black holes with eccentric orbits. According to a paper published in Nature Astronomy by researchers from Rochester Institute of Technology's Center for Computational Relativity and Gravitation and the University of Florida, this can help explain how some of the black hole mergers detected by LIGO Scientific Collaboration and the Virgo Collaboration are much heavier than previously thought possible.

Becton, Dickinson and Company, a global medical technology company, today announced that a study conducted in collaboration with the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) and published as the cover story of the January 21 issue of the journal Science profiles a new BD innovation in flow cytometry that adds fluorescence imaging and image-based decisioning to sort individual cells at exceptionally high speed, based on the visual details of each cell and not solely on the type or quantity of biomarkers that are present. Читать дальше...

Young stellar jets are a common by-product of star formation and are thought to be caused by the interplay between the magnetic fields of rotating young stars and the disks of gas surrounding them. These interactions eject twin torrents of ionized gas in opposite directions, such as those pictured in two images captured by astronomers using the Gemini South telescope on Cerro Pachón on the edge of the Chilean Andes. Gemini South is one half of the international Gemini Observatory, a Program of NSF's NOIRLab... Читать дальше...

European Union environment ministers gathered in France Thursday to mulls climate policy and the merits of a carbon border tax, while airing differences on whether nuclear energy can be classified as "green".

Atoms bind together by sharing electrons. The way this happens depends on the atom types but also on conditions such as temperature and pressure. In two-dimensional (2D) materials, such as graphene, atoms join along a plane to form structures just one atom thick, which leads to fascinating properties determined by quantum mechanics. Researchers at the University of Vienna in collaboration with the Universities of Tübingen, Antwerp and CY Cergy Paris, together with Danubia NanoTech, have produced... Читать дальше...

The "Doomsday Clock," representing the judgment of leading science and security experts about perils to human existence, remains at 100 seconds to midnight this year, with advances like Covid-19 vaccines balanced by rising misinformation and other threats.

Georgia farmers produce half the peanuts grown in the U.S. each year, using proven production practices to fight disease in the field. In fact, modern peanut varieties carry little genetic defenses against some of the more devastating diseases, so peanut farmers carefully consider when to plant, whether to irrigate and when to apply fungicide and insecticide to keep those diseases from infecting the plant.

Researchers at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory used polymer chemistry to transform a common household plastic into a reusable adhesive with a rare combination of strength and ductility, making it one of the toughest materials ever reported.

New nanophotonic tweezers developed by Cornell researchers can fit on a chip less than one-inch square, making it easier and more efficient to manipulate single molecules using light in order to investigate biological systems.

It's no secret that we need more sustainable materials if we hope to help the planet. Bio-derived materials are one potential option, but they must be economical if anyone is going to use them.

One-third of all Pennsylvania waterways are now considered polluted enough to harm wildlife, recreation or drinking water, according to a report released this week by the state's Department of Environmental Protection.

Researchers from North Carolina State University have developed a free, user-friendly tool that makes use of multiple computational models to help solid waste systems achieve their environmental goals in the most cost-efficient way possible.

The transport of carbon dioxide stored in the Earth's lithospheric mantle beneath the Hyblean Plateau in southern Italy at a depth of approximately 50 to 150 kilometers is responsible for the exceptionally large CO2 emission of Mount Etna. That is the result of research conducted by an international team of geologists, including researchers from the Universities of Florence (Italy) and Cologne (Germany), and from the Istituto di Geologia Ambientale e Geoingegneria of the Italian National Research Council (CNR). Читать дальше...

The Tianwen-1 Mars entry capsule successfully landed on the surface of Mars in southern Utopia planitia on May 14th, 2021 at 23:18 UTC. One of the biggest challenges it faced is that a typical blunt body such as the capsule suffers dynamic instability in during supersonic travel. Investigating the unstable Mach range of flight and confirming the design of the lander's aerodynamic shape and mass properties was key to achieve the Mars entry. In a research paper recently published in Space: Science & Technology... Читать дальше...

Researchers from Lancaster University working to improve the sustainable productivity of key crops in sub-Saharan Africa have discovered an imperfection in a critical enzyme within cowpea—and believe this imperfection is likely shared with other crops.

Researchers at PSI have compared the electron distribution below the oxide layer of two semiconductors. The investigation is part of an effort to develop particularly stable quantum bits—and thus, in turn, particularly efficient quantum computers. They have now published their latest research, which is supported in part by Microsoft, in the journal Advanced Quantum Technologies.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that more than 2.8 million Americans experience antibiotic-resistant infections each year; more than 35,000 die from those infections.