Новости за 26.01.2022

The outbreak of COVID-19 has changed our lifestyle, and even the environment around us, such as the reduction of carbon dioxide and nitrogen dioxide emissions and the alleviation of water pollution. A more obvious change is that the production of waste related to pandemic prevention has increased significantly. For example, the main component of disposable masks we use every day is plastic fiber. It is estimated that hundreds of billions of masks are used every month around the world. As the largest producer of masks... Читать дальше...

Optical tweezers use light to immobilize microscopic particles as small as a single atom in 3D space. The basic principle behind optical tweezers is the momentum transfer between light and the object being held. Analogous to the water pushing on a dam that blocks the stream, light pushes onto and attracts objects that make the light bend. This so-called optical force can be designed to point to a certain point in space, where a particle will be held. In fact, the optical trapping technique has so far won two Nobel Prizes... Читать дальше...

Vanderbilt researchers Sokrates Pantelides and Joshua Caldwell are part of an international collaboration that has demonstrated a new way to manipulate and measure subtle atomic vibrations in nanomaterials. This breakthrough could make it possible to develop customized functionalities to improve on and build new technologies.

School closures have caused large and persistent damage to children's learning and well-being, the cost of which will be felt for decades to come, according to a new report launched today by the Global Education Evidence Advisory Panel (GEEAP), co-hosted by the UK's Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, UNICEF Office of Research-Innocenti, and the World Bank.

A new analysis by David Geary at the University of Missouri and Gijsbert Stoet at the University of Essex in the United Kingdom finds career aspirations from nearly 500,000 adolescents shows consistent sex differences across 80 nations, suggesting biologically-influenced preferences can play a role in gender segregation in the workplace later in life. The researchers also found a tendency for larger differences to appear in gender-equal countries, such as Finland, Norway or Sweden.

A new study from scientists at the UNC School of Medicine has illuminated an important process that occurs during cell division and is a likely source of DNA damage under some circumstances, including cancer.

A retired microscope and samples from studies on colloids and cellular signaling are among the cargo returning from the International Space Stationaboard the 24th SpaceX commercial resupply services mission. The Dragon craft, which arrived at the station Dec. 22, 2021, was scheduled to undock Jan. 22 with splashdown the next afternoon off the coast of Florida.

Research done at Cornell University has uncovered from gravitation wave data the first potential signs of spin-orbit resonances in binary black holes, a step toward understanding the mechanisms of supernovas and other big questions in astrophysics.

UCLA scientists have devised a method for producing intricately shaped hydrogel microparticles at a rate of more than 40 million per hour—at least 10 times faster than the current standard approach.

A new analysis predicts that, as climate change progresses, the most suitable regions for growing coffee arabica, cashews, and avocados will decline in some of the main countries that produce these crops. Roman Grüter and colleagues at Zurich University of Applied Sciences, Switzerland, present these findings in the open-access journal PLOS ONE on January 26, 2022.

A new article published today in PLOS ONE by a Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HU)'s Institute of Archaeology team and colleagues focused on the remains of a previously submerged fisher-hunter-gatherer camp on the shores of the Sea of Galilee from around 23,000 years ago. Through a close analysis of the abundance, variety and through use of animal remains, the team concluded that these survivors of the latest Ice Age thrived whereas most of their contemporaries, in other parts of the world, were nearly starved... Читать дальше...

Quantum researchers at the University of Bristol have dramatically reduced the time to simulate an optical quantum computer, with a speedup of around one billion over previous approaches.

Caltech researchers used the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter to determine that surface water left salt minerals behind as recently as 2 billion years ago.

Researchers from HSE University have found that people from different cultures evaluate other people's creativity differently. Russians tend to believe that the more unusual a drawing is, the more creative it is, while participants from the United Arab Emirates tend to believe just the opposite. The paper was published in Frontiers in Psychology.

Academic Analytics Research Center (AARC) shared comprehensive data on scholarly publication rates in 170 disciplines. The newly available data tables show the rate of journal article, book, conference proceeding, and book chapter publications over different time periods and across different career stages in each discipline.

MIT physicists have discovered a new quantum bit, or "qubit," in the form of vibrating pairs of atoms known as fermions. They found that when pairs of fermions are chilled and trapped in an optical lattice, the particles can exist simultaneously in two states—a weird quantum phenomenon known as superposition. In this case, the atoms held a superposition of two vibrational states, in which the pair wobbled against each other while also swinging in sync, at the same time.

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, scientists across the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) national laboratory complex turned to the nation's most powerful supercomputers and other tools to discover molecules that might treat the disease. A study published in the Journal of Chemical Information and Modeling reports the discovery of a molecule with significant potential to disable the virus.

To provide important genomic data to inform research about Europe's biodiversity, scientists from 48 different countries initiated the "European Reference Genome Atlas" (ERGA) in 2021. Along with over 600 researchers, scientists from the University of Göttingen contribute to ERGA to make up an essential transdisciplinary and transborder community of experts. Together, they want to produce extremely high-quality genome analyses, known as "reference genomes". The aim is to establish genomic resources for around 200,000 species in Europe. Читать дальше...

Using an innovative new imaging technique, researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine have revealed the inner workings of a family of light-sensing molecules in unprecedented detail and speed. The work could inform new strategies in the burgeoning field of optogenetics, which uses light pulses to alter the activity of individual neurons and other cells.

A research team led by scientists from City University of Hong Kong (CityU) has recently designed a structured thermal armor (STA) that achieves efficient liquid cooling even over 1,000°C, fundamentally solving a 266-year-old challenge presented by the Leidenfrost effect. This breakthrough can be applied in aero and space engines, as well as improve the safety and reliability of next-generation nuclear reactors.

The tweets of a little song sparrow and its "bird brain" are a lot more complex and akin to human language than anyone realized. A new study finds that male sparrows deliberately shuffle and mix their song repertoire possibly as a way to keep it interesting for their female audience.

When an exciting and unconventional new class of superconducting materials was discovered 35 years ago, researchers cheered.

For the second time in its mission so far, the ESA/NASA Solar Orbiter spacecraft has flown through the tail of a comet. Predicted in advance by astronomers at University College London, UK, the spacecraft collected a wealth of science data that now awaits full analysis.

As a key precursor in the formation of new particles, sulfuric acid (H2SO4) plays an important role in the formation of aerosols and clouds in the atmosphere. Gas-phase sulfuric acid molecules can easily form molecular clusters at the beginning of nucleation through hydrogen bonding and other interactions. Therefore, study of the structure and spectroscopy of H2SO4 and tsulfuric acid–water clusters is of great significance for revealing the nucleation mechanism of new particles.

The Genus Calanthe (family Orchidaceae) consists of more than 207 species distributed in both tropical and subtropical regions. In traditional medicine, Calanthe species have important medicinal value.