Новости за 01.03.2022

Tapping into groundwater can help communities in Africa diversify their water supply and strengthen their drought defenses, according to a study led by scientists at The University of Texas at Austin.

We tend to think of the human body as operating out of a sense-and-respond paradigm. For example, you eat sugar, the pancreas senses the intake, and it responds by releasing the hormone insulin to keep the body's glucose levels in check.

From the factory floor to the C-suite, women have seen their recent gains in workplace equality be eroded by the ongoing health crisis. This is despite a direct relationship between an inclusive work environment and a healthy bottom line.

To split the chemical bonds in CO2 molecules, heat is needed. One way to get this heat is from plasmas, and it's been long known that plasmas can efficiently split CO2, thanks to 40-year-old research from the Soviet Union.

Research conducted at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) describes a validation exercise for simple models used to understand hot spot conditions reached in an implosion, which find good agreement when compared to a set of simulations.

Two new studies—a survey of residents in hurricane-battered Florida and Texas and a survey of people in wildfire-scarred California—reveal that negative personal experiences are among key variables in pushing people to take or accept protective measures like flood insurance and planned power shut offs. The wildfire survey, published in Energy Research & Social Science, is among the first analyses of people's views of climate adaptation policies enacted by companies rather than governments. The hurricane survey... Читать дальше...

U.S. agricultural systems are world leaders in the production of food, fuel and fiber. This high level of production enables U.S. consumers to spend an average of only 8.6 percent of their disposable income on food, a percentage that has been trending downward since 1960. Growing evidence, however, shows that many hidden costs of cheap food may be passed on through factors such as reduced nutritional content, environmental degradation and the diminishing livelihoods of U.S. farm operators.

Farming Atlantic salmon requires a high volume of wild-caught fish as feed, but produces only a small percentage of the world's farmed fish supply. A study published March 1 in PLOS Sustainability and Transformation by David F. Willer at University of Cambridge, United Kingdom, and colleagues suggests redirecting wild-caught fish towards human consumption instead of salmon farming could relieve pressure on fish stocks while increasing seafood production.

Laboratories may consume large quantities of plastics, generate waste, and emit greenhouse gases. A report published in PLOS Sustainability and Transformation by Jane Kilcoyne and her colleagues at the Marine Institute, Galway, Ireland exemplifies how laboratories can significantly reduce their plastics and carbon footprint, and reduce financial costs, by transitioning to more efficient, sustainable laboratory materials and methods.

For almost 10 years, NASA's NuSTAR (Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array) X-ray space observatory has been studying some of the highest-energy objects in the universe, such as colliding dead stars and enormous black holes feasting on hot gas. During that time, scientists have had to deal with stray light leaking in through the sides of the observatory, which can interfere with observations much like external noise can drown out a phone call.

The U.S. Pacific Northwest was in the throes of a record-shattering heat wave last summer when a woman in her 70s was wheeled into an emergency room with symptoms of a life-threatening heat stroke.

The search for alien life has been restricted to using life on Earth as the reference, essentially looking for "life as we know it" beyond Earth. For astrobiologists looking for life on other planets, there are simply no tools for predicting the features of "life as we don't know it."

Mountain lakes provide freshwater for roughly half the world's population. Yet a shifting climate could impact the reliability of this resource by altering the temperature patterns that govern lake conditions and influence lake biota.

Just how much carbon is in the soil? That's a tough question to answer at large spatial scales, but understanding soil organic carbon at regional, national, or global scales could help scientists predict overall soil health, crop productivity, and even worldwide carbon cycles.

Counterfeit medications and pharmaceutical products are just a click away from being purchased from online pharmacies via smartphone.

By combining CRISPR technology with a protein designed with artificial intelligence, it is possible to awaken individual dormant genes by disabling the chemical "off switches" that silence them. Researchers from the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle describe this finding in the journal Cell Reports.

The physics and chemistry that take place deep inside our planet are fundamental to the existence of life as we know it. But what forces are at work in the interiors of distant worlds, and how do these conditions affect their potential for habitability?

A team of scientists used an emerging genetic tool that analyzes DNA in water samples to detect whales and dolphins in New York waters.

Two cargo ships that allegedly dragged an oil pipeline with their anchors during a winter storm should be held liable for a disastrous October oil spill that sent thousands of gallons of crude into the waters off Orange County, the operator of the ruptured pipeline said in a lawsuit filed Monday.

Florida's experiences helped researchers develop a new United Nations climate change report that offers a stark view of how global warming threatens the world and what people can do to address it.

Two-hundred fifty-two million years ago, volcanic eruptions led to massive climate changes. Around the globe, roughly 75 percent of all land-based organisms and roughly 90 percent of all marine organisms died out as a result. Dr. William Foster from Universität Hamburg's Center for Earth System Research and Sustainability (CEN) and colleagues have now used a new form of machine learning to unravel the causes of the mass extinction in the oceans. This was possible because the "machine" part of machine learning is normally a "black box," but Dr. Читать дальше...

Rita Adrian is lead author in Working Group II (Impacts, Adaptation, Vulnerability) on the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report, released today. She contributed to the chapter on "Terrestrial and Freshwater Ecosystems and their Services." She is a professor of limnology at Freie Universität Berlin and headed the Department of Ecosystem Research at the Leibniz Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries (IGB) until the end of 2021. She investigates the long-term development of lakes and studies the... Читать дальше...

Natural hazards have been responsible for hundreds of billions of dollars in economic losses in the 21st century and pose a complex array of risks to human society, infrastructure, and the environment. These hazards—including hurricanes, floods, tornadoes, earthquakes, and plagues—carry a steep human cost as well, claiming more than a million lives over the past two decades.

Patients in clinical trials must undergo thorough examination in order to allow the effects of new medications to be determined as precisely as possible. One important factor here is the response of their immune systems. Using chip cytometry, researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Toxicology and Experimental Medicine ITEM have established a procedure for characterizing immune cells in the lungs. This technique offers the major advantage of enabling valuable samples from patients to be stored... Читать дальше...

Although it is a naturally occurring metal, lead can be toxic to humans, especially children. Since 1978, lead has been phased out of many products in the United States (including paint and gasoline), but its remnants can still be found in soil, paint in older homes, and household dust.