Новости за 31.03.2022

Scientists are holding up a "mirror" to protons and neutrons to learn more about the particles that build our visible universe. The MARATHON experiment, carried out at the U.S. Department of Energy's Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility, has accessed new details about these particles' structures by comparing the so-called mirror nuclei, helium-3 and triton. The results were recently published in Physical Review Letters.

A research team led by Northwestern University and the University of Michigan has developed a new method for assembling particles into colloidal crystals, a valuable type of material used for chemical and biological sensing and light-detecting devices. Using this method, the team has shown for the first time how these crystals can be designed in ways not found in nature.

From hot volcanic springs where the water is nearly boiling acid, a University of Virginia researcher and his colleagues have discovered how lemon-shaped viruses got their form. And that discovery could lead to new and better ways to deliver drugs and vaccines.

Physicists and soil scientists at the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have teamed up to develop a new method for finding carbon stored in the soil by plants and microbes. Unlike all previous methods, this new technique makes it possible to see the carbon in the dirt without digging holes or taking soil samples, like an X-ray for the soil. This new method for measuring carbon pulled out of the air promises to be an important tool for fighting climate change... Читать дальше...

Intercropping is an agricultural practice that involves growing two or more plant species in the same ground at the same time. This practice enables growers not only to increase crop productivity, but also to improve soil quality. Moreover, it brings advantages such as reduced pests and diseases and a greater diversity of microbes and beneficial insects.

Evolution takes place constantly, everywhere in nature. Nevertheless, it is always exciting for biologists to observe evolution "in real time." One such opportunity for observation is currently being presented by the internal clock—the innate sleep-wake rhythm—of the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster. In fruit flies, a certain variant of a "clock gene," which presumably first appeared in southern Europe 300 to 3000 years ago, is spreading northwards, for example, to and within Scandinavia. Researchers... Читать дальше...

Where standard 3D printing uses a digital blueprint to manufacture an object out of materials like plastic or resin, 3D bioprinting manufactures biological parts and tissues out of living cells, or bioinks. A fourth dimension—shape transformation over time—can be achieved by incorporating materials that enable printed constructs to morph multiple times in a preprogrammed or on-demand manner in response to external signals.

More than 50 years ago on the shoreline of a rocky tide pool, the US ecologist Robert Paine discovered that the removal of a single species from an ecosystem could dramatically alter its structure and function. He had discovered that starfish act as a keystone species in that their presence and role as a top predator maintained the coexistence of diverse species in the rocky intertidal zone.

A new technological approach developed by University of Minnesota researchers will allow key stakeholders to identify important crop types earlier in the season than ever before.

Brazilian researchers have analyzed the mechanisms by which estuarine plants absorb iron, and used their findings to recommend a promising phytoremediation technique for the rehabilitation of water and soil contaminated by environmental disasters such as the 2015 collapse of the Fundão iron mine tailings dam in Mariana, Minas Gerais state (Southeast Brazil). An article on the study is published in the Journal of Hazardous Materials.

A research team led by Prof. Di Kaichang from the Aerospace Information Research Institute (AIR) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and their collaborators have established an evolution model with simple craters in the Chang'e-4 landing area. The research results reveal the evolution process of lunar regolith and quantify the overturning and mixing effect of small simple impact events on lunar regolith.

Toshiyuki Fujioka and Alfonso Benito-Calvo, researchers at the Centro Nacional de Investigación sobre la Evolución Humana (CENIEH), have recently published a paper in the Journal of Human Evolution with the results of burial dating using the cosmogenic nuclide isochron method, applied for the first time directly to the lithic industry of the Olduvai Gorge (Tanzania).

Nuclear medicine uses technetium-99m among other things for tumor diagnostics. With over 30 million applications worldwide each year, it is the most widely used radioisotope. The precursor material, molybdenum-99, is mainly produced in research reactors. A study at the Heinz Maier-Leibnitz Research Neutron Source (FRM II) at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) now shows options to significantly reduce the radioactive waste produced during processing to a medical product.

In the Southern Hemisphere, a zonally oriented high pressure belt extends around the globe in the subtropics and middle latitudes, while lower pressure covers the high latitudes. The pressure in these two regions fluctuates. The Southern Annular Mode (SAM) reflects such fluctuation, which shows a "seesaw" phenomenon of pressure variation in the mid–high latitudes of the Southern Hemisphere. It is called an "annular mode" because of the belt-shaped pressure anomaly in the middle latitudes, and its structure is zonally symmetric. Читать дальше...

Instead of prioritizing energy-efficient, sustainable sea transport, the focus is often on satisfying commercial interests when planning shipping routes. This has been shown by research at the University of Gothenburg, published in Transportation Research Part D: Transport and Environment, which highlights the importance of collaboration for more sustainable shipping.

Giant viruses represent a unique group of viruses that are similar in size to small bacteria. Medusavirus—a special type of giant virus—was first isolated from a hot spring in Japan. Genetic studies showed that medusavirus was more closely related to eukaryotic cells than to other giant viruses, suggesting that it may hold the key to understanding eukaryotic evolution. Although the details of medusavirus morphology and maturation in infected cells have so far remained elusive, the researchers behind its initial discovery now have some answers.

Xinjiang, in northwest China, is located at an important junction between east and west Eurasia and has played a historically important role in the exchange of goods and technologies between these two regions along the Silk Road. It is a complex mix of cultures and populations.

Prehistoric mammals bulked up, rather than develop bigger brains, to boost their survival chances once dinosaurs had become extinct, research suggests.

A complete sequence of the human genome has finally been published by an international consortium of scientists. The new reference genome fills in many gaps that were left by earlier drafts, especially in the centromeres at the middle of chromosomes and large-scale duplications.

It was like a map of New York missing all of Manhattan. The human reference genome finally has all its blank spots filled in, and seeing everything we missed the first time around is both repetitive—and enlightening.

When scientists declared the Human Genome Project complete two decades ago, their announcement was a tad premature. A milestone achievement had certainly been reached, with researchers around the world gaining access to the DNA sequence of most protein-coding genes in the human genome. But even after 20 years of upgrades, eight percent of our genome still remained unsequenced and unstudied. Derided by some as "junk DNA" with no clear function, roughly 151 million base pairs of sequence data scattered... Читать дальше...

Professional organizations in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields could more effectively collect data on underrepresented groups in their fields, according to a new survey published March 31 in Science. With more robust information, STEM organizations could better target efforts to recruit and retain a more diverse membership.

Tetrahymena, a tiny single celled-organism, turns out to be hiding a surprising secret: it's doing respiration—using oxygen to generate cellular energy—differently from other organisms such as plants, animals or yeasts. The discovery, published March 31 in Science, highlights the power of new techniques in structural biology and reveals gaps in our knowledge of a major branch of the tree of life.

Prospects for India achieving the target of generating 100 gigawatts of solar power in 2022 have waned because of high levels of atmospheric pollution.

Stem growth of tropical trees is reduced in years when the dry season is warmer and drier than normal. This is the main finding of a global tree-ring study published in Nature Geoscience led by Wageningen University & Research. The study is based on a new global network consisting of over 14,000 tree-ring data series from 350 locations across the tropics. The researchers found that the effect of drier and hotter years is larger in more arid or warm regions. This suggests that climate change may... Читать дальше...