Новости за 23.02.2022

In one teaspoon of soil, we can find more than 5,000 species of bacteria, fungi, nematodes and other microbial organisms. Such "soil biota" support a wide range of functions, such as nutrient cycling and water regulation and purification. Yet it is challenging to define how soil organisms contribute to these soil functions. A new framework can help us understand the complexity of soil biology in relation to multiple soil functions. The framework is supported by an online tool that enables users to... Читать дальше...

A scientific team on marine sciences and geography of the University of Barcelona, the University of Girona (UdG), the Centre for Advanced Studies of Blanes (CEAB-CSIC) and the Institute of Marine Sciences (ICM-CSIC) recommends excluding and moving offshore wind farms from the protected areas in the Mediterranean due to the serious negative impacts these facilities can cause on the marine biodiversity and the landscape. This is one of the main conclusions of the team's paper, published in the journal Science of the Total Environment... Читать дальше...

Sexual harassment in secondary schools is pervasive: two in three teens (64.7 percent) surveyed in Scotland reported visual and verbal harassment, and one in three (34.3 percent) reported personally invasive behaviors, in the last three months. Students are uncertain about the acceptability of many behaviors, and some are normalized, according to the research, published in the open access journal PLOS ONE. Effective interventions are needed to change attitudes and behaviors which can persist into later life.

A new study highlights neighborhood-level gun violence dynamics in Philadelphia during the COVID-19 pandemic, identifying statistical links between changes in shooting rates and levels of drug market and police activity. Nicole Johnson and Caterina Roman of Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, present these findings in the open-access journal PLOS ONE on February 23, 2022.

Scientists from Durham University and Kings College London have presented a theoretical review in a new study strongly supporting the search for axion dark matter.

Morphogenesis is nature's way of building diverse structures and functions out of a fixed set of components. While nature is rich with examples of morphogenesis—cell differentiation, embryonic development and cytoskeleton formation, for example—research into the phenomenon in synthetic materials is scant. University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign researchers are taking a step forward using electron tomography, fluid dynamics theories and machine learning to watch soft polymers as the polymers learn from nature.

Contrary to popular belief, China's massive emigration from rural areas to cities has been shown to have a positive effect on China's carbon stocks. Urbanization can even play a role in attaining climate neutrality. This is the conclusion of University of Copenhagen researchers based upon analyses of vast amounts of satellite data.

A new way of dating collisions between asteroids and planetary bodies throughout our Solar System's history could help scientists reconstruct how and when planets were born.

On one of the first mild days in February, Duke's Emily Bernhardt and her stream ecology team donned their hip waders and ventured out to the sycamore-lined banks of New Hope Creek.

Ambitious restoration of mangroves and seagrasses could lead to substantial recovery of these ecosystems New research has found.

Scientists from University of Regensburg, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Moscow institute of Physics and Technology, and University of Kansas have discovered abnormally strong light absorption in graphene. The effect arises from the conversion of ordinary electromagnetic waves into super-slow surface waves running through graphene. The observation is of fundamental interest and shows in an impressive way how the interaction of Bernstein modes, collective excitations of electrons driven by... Читать дальше...

A new study by researchers from Central European University's (CEU) Department of Cognitive Science, Eotvos Lorand University (ELTE), the University of St. Andrews, and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology look at whether apes are similar to humans regarding learning capacities when someone is trying to teach them something. The study, "Learning from communication versus observation in great apes," was published on February 21, 2022 in Scientific Reports.

Succinic acid is an important precursor for pharmaceutical and cosmetic products and also serves as a component in biodegradable plastics. It is currently derived mainly from petroleum-based processes. Researchers at the Straubing campus of the Technical University of Munich (TUM) are using the marine bacterium Vibrio natriegens as a biocatalyst. This could permit the production of succinic acid in sustainable processes using renewable raw materials.

Federal scientists have confirmed cases of an infectious avain flu strain in several species of Florida birds, the state announced Tuesday.

When is a container not just a container?

In North Carolina, the worries about climate change often focus on more frequent storms with heavier rainfall, but a new federal report points to an equally potent danger—the seeping effect of sea level rise.

A team of several researchers from the University of Valladolid, in Spain and one from the Spanish National Research Council in Italy, has found evidence of the earliest ear surgery performed on a human being. In their paper published in the journal Scientific Reports, the group describes their study of a human skull found at the Dolmen of El Pendónis back in 2018 and what they learned from it.

A team of researchers affiliated with multiple institutions in China has verified the relationship between the rate at which a nonequilibrium process happens and the rate at which it creates entropy. In their paper published in the journal Physical Review Letters, the researchers describe experiments with individual calcium atoms in an ion trap and findings about the relationship between their lifespan and the rate at which they are able to exchange energy using different types of baths.

Scroll through any supermarket chain's social media feed and you're bound to see feel-good stories about charitable food donations to the community. What may seem like an altruistic gesture at first sight is actually helping the company's bottom line, according to research by a Northeastern professor who studies food waste.

Researchers at North Carolina State University have found that soybean crops planted near pollinator habitat produce larger soybeans than soybean crops that are not planted near pollinator habitat.

The job of a protein hub inside the nucleus of a cell is similar to that of a chef in a kitchen. Both need to manage multiple tasks efficiently for a successful outcome. For the chef, if they spend too much time chopping vegetables and neglect the main course cooking on the stove, the result is a burnt dish. Similarly, if the protein hub spends too much time interacting with one protein and is not given a break to accomplish its other important tasks, it can lead to disease states such as cancer.

New research by Bayes Business School (formerly Cass) shows that accounting firms leverage their auditing expertise to produce fairer target valuations on mergers and acquisitions (M&A) than investment banks.

An object hidden below ground has been located using quantum technology—a long-awaited milestone with profound implications for industry, human knowledge and national security.

A new analysis of human remains that were buried in African archaeological sites has produced the earliest DNA from the continent, telling a fascinating tale of how early humans lived, traveled and even found their significant others.

The asteroid that killed nearly all dinosaurs struck Earth during springtime. An international team of scientists from the Vrije Universiteit (VU) Amsterdam (The Netherlands), Uppsala University (Sweden), Vrije Universiteit Brussel (Belgium) and the ESRF, the European Synchrotron (France), have determined when the meteorite crashed into the Earth after analyzing the remains of fishes that died just after the impact. Their results are published in the journal Nature today.