Новости за 22.03.2022

On March 22, the newest U.S.-European sea level satellite, named Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich, became the official reference satellite for global sea level measurements. This means that sea surface height data collected by other satellites will be compared to the information produced by Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich to ensure their accuracy.

New research published this week by University of New Mexico archeologist Keith Prufer shows that a site in Belize was critical in studying the origins of the ancient Maya people and the spread of maize as a staple food. According to the paper titled South-to-north migration preceded the advent of intensive farming in the Maya region, published this week in Nature Communications and co-led by Prufer, excavations in Belize, along with ancient DNA analysis, indicate a previously unknown migration of... Читать дальше...

Attosecond laser pulses in the extreme ultraviolet (XUV) are a unique tool enabling the observation and control of electron dynamics in atoms, molecules, and solids. Most attosecond laser sources operate at a pulse repetition rate of 1 kHz (1,000 shots per second), which limits their usefulness in complex experiments. Using a high power laser system developed at MBI we have managed to generate attosecond pulses at 100 kHz repetition rate. This enables new types of experiments in attosecond science.

Worldwide, as many as 285 million people suffer from serious eye diseases or blindness. Unfortunately, most of them do not have access to modern methods of treatment, so help often comes too late. This situation could change with the advent of a very significant improvement to a diagnostic tool that has been utilized for three decades for detecting ocular pathology—Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT).

A team of researchers at Université de Toulouse has attempted to calculate the entire global footprint of space science, including both ground-based and space-based observatories. In their paper published in the journal Nature Astronomy, the team suggests the footprint of space science adds up to 1.2 million metric tons of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere each year, and it has a lifetime footprint of 20.3 million metric tons. Andrew Ross Wilson, with the University of Strathclyde, has... Читать дальше...

This impressive image shows the strangely lopsided spiral galaxy NGC 772, which lies over 100 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Aries. Captured by the Gemini North telescope in Hawai'i, one half of the international Gemini Observatory, a program of NSF's NOIRLab, the image shows NGC 772's overdeveloped spiral arm, which stretches across toward the left-hand edge of the frame. This extra large arm is due to one of NGC 772's unruly neighbors, the dwarf elliptical galaxy NGC 770. The... Читать дальше...

Using case studies and ethnographic examples, anthropologists have for some time proposed that the emergence of hierarchical structures in human societies was in part a product of attempting to overcome cognitive limits in the number of people any one person can deal with simultaneously without hitting information processing challenges. The building of a vast new dataset that goes beyond these case studies and attempts to track variables describing all societies throughout human history and pre-history... Читать дальше...

Maize, or corn, is cultivated globally, as food, feedstock, and a biofuel source, and is one of the most widely produced crops alongside wheat and rice. Today, the importance of maize as a grain is unrivaled and methods to increase crop yields, reduce farming costs, and ensure sustainable agriculture are critical.

Since 2018, Norwegian schools and kindergartens have a statutory duty to co-operate on the transition from kindergarten to school and after-school care. Previously, the responsibility lay with kindergarten alone.

Economic growth in the "advanced economies" of the global North relies on a large net appropriation of resources and labor from the global South, obtained through price differentials in international trade. This is demonstrated by a study led by Jason Hickel, researcher at the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (ICTA-UAB), which uses environmental input-output data and footprint analysis to calculate the scale and value of resource drain from the global South over the period 1990-2015.

Lifetime childlessness as well as greater numbers of children among the low- or medium-educated Finns is tied to changes in partnerships.

The climate of the northern part of Vietnam is similar to that of southern China. It is extremely plant-rich and is known to host more than 12,000 species of higher plants. Despite the floristic significance of this region, and a history of Cenozoic palaeobotany in Vietnam dating back to the beginning of 20th century, few modern palaeobotanical studies have been carried out there.

First predicted in Einstein's theory of general relativity, gravitational waves are tiny ripples in spacetime generated by titanic and powerful cosmic events. The great physicist believed that no equipment would ever be sensitive to detect these faint cosmic ripples. Fortunately, Einstein was wrong, but that doesn't mean that the detection of gravitational waves has been easy.

Arctic sea ice appeared to have hit its annual maximum extent on Feb. 25 after growing through the fall and winter. This year's wintertime extent is the 10th-lowest in the satellite record maintained by the National Snow and Ice Data Center, one of NASA's Distributed Active Archive Centers.

A team of scientists has predicted the science return from one of NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope's groundbreaking planned surveys, which will analyze millions of galaxies strewn across space and time. The mission's enormous, deep panoramas will provide the best opportunity yet to discern between the leading theories about what's speeding up the universe's expansion.

One of the major challenges in particle physics is how to interpret large data sets that consist of many different observables in the context of models with different parameters.

Shelterbelt has long been used as an important approach to protect farmland and increase crop yield. The reasonable shelterbelt structure design is of great significance to ensure food security. However, due to the limitation of methods, the influence of shelterbelt density on yield increase effect is still unclear.

Small bodies of water, i.e., natural ponds, kettle holes and pools, account for 30 to 50% of the world's standing water. Owing to their size, however, the importance of small water bodies was long underestimated. As a result, they are scarcely mentioned in regulations and legal provisions. It is now known, however, that because of their abundance, heterogeneity, exceptional biodiversity and biogeochemical potency, small water bodies play an important role in catchments, landscapes, and possibly even... Читать дальше...

Making use of the LAMOST spectra data as the training sample, a research team led by Dr. Wang Shoucheng and Prof. Ma Jun from National Astronomical Observatories of Chinese Academy of Sciences (NAOC) proposed a new method to search for star clusters in the Andromeda galaxy.

Modeling the impact of meteorological forces on the Red Sea shows that winds in the southern part of the sea modulate sea-level surges across the basin.

Consumers who are environmentally aware will likely warm up to the idea of using alternative proteins like insect meal in poultry feed if they're given enough information about the health and environmental benefits, a new University of Alberta study shows.

A series of studies on endangered species that make their homes on the border of Vietnam and China underscores the growing importance of transboundary conservation efforts in the face of climate change. As the world warms, many plant and animal species migrate from their traditional habitats, increasing the likelihood of local and global extinctions. A special issue of the journal Frontiers of Biogeography co-edited by the American Museum of Natural History's Director of Biodiversity Informatics Research Mary Blair stresses that strategic... Читать дальше...

When Hurricane Katrina bore down on New Orleans in the summer of 2005, many residents in Versailles, a Vietnamese-American community in the east of the city, faced disaster for the second time.

Salt marshes cover much of the state of Georgia's coast and perform key "ecosystem services" for people. They clean the water, protect coastlines against storm surges, and provide a habitat for fish and shellfish. A new study from a team of Georgia Tech School of Biological Sciences researchers finds that a species of grass that dominates those marshes has bacteria in its roots and surrounding soil that affects productivity by providing nutrients, highlighting the importance of soil microorganisms in the entire ecosystem.

To accurately diagnose and treat diseases, doctors and researchers need to see inside bodies. Medical imaging tools have come a long way since the humble X-ray, but most existing tools remain too coarse to quantify numbers or specific types of cells inside deep tissues of the body.