Новости за 21.04.2022

"Si sta come d'autunno sugli alberi le foglie."

In recent years, there's been rapid growth in the field of community-engaged research, a model of knowledge production that partners universities with community organizations to co-develop research in response to local needs. In theory, this model can advance the service mission of public universities. But there's been little follow-up research to assess the value and impacts of these projects from the perspective of the community partners they aim to serve.

A record-setting rainstorm over Kaua'i, Hawai'i in April 2018 resulted in severe flash flooding and estimated damage of nearly $180 million. The deluge damaged or destroyed 532 homes, and landslides left people along Kaua'i's north coast without access to their homes. In a recently published study, atmospheric scientists at the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa revealed that severe supercell thunderstorms were to blame.

Modern drug discovery is an expensive and complicated process. Hundreds of scientists and at least a decade are often required to produce a single medicine. One of the most critical steps in this process is the first one—identifying new chemical compounds that could be developed into new medicines.

The next time you find yourself walking across campus, take a moment to stop or slow down and observe the many living things that call Western's vast land their habitat. And while you're at it, take a picture.

The inclusion of a high-flavonoid corn, developed by a Penn State maize geneticist, in the diet of broiler chickens reduced the incidence and severity of a fatal intestinal disorder known as necrotic enteritis.

Among transportation experts, congestion pricing is the gold standard policy for managing traffic on freeways and highways. The strategy involves charging drivers tolls to use a road, and charging more during the busiest times—morning and evening rush hours, for example.

Eye-tracking technology has been used to investigate how well users engage with animated advertisements in a mobile application. The results published in the International Journal of Internet Marketing and Advertising, reveal that users tend to avoid focusing on complex advertisements that are over-stimulating. The finding reinforces earlier evidence of a cognitive workload.

Insects are critical to the future of our planet. They help to keep pest species under control and break down dead material to release nutrients into the soil. Flying insects are also key pollinators of many major food crops, including fruits, spices and—importantly for chocolate lovers—cocoa.

These pictures depict the magnificent wonders of our planet, yet, they weren't taken anywhere on Earth. Instead, they were captured by astronauts aboard the International Space Station to chronicle the fragile beauty and ever-changing landscape of our collective home.

A serendipitous discovery has led researchers from the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) in Kenya and the Roslin Institute at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland to identify a genetic marker that accurately predicts whether an individual cow is likely to survive infection with East Coast fever—making possible breeding programs that could improve the livelihoods of millions of smallholder farmers.

To get to the places where they are needed, immune cells not only squeeze through tiny pores. They even overcome wall-like barriers of tightly packed cells. Researchers at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA) have now discovered that cell division is key to their success. Together with other recent studies, their findings published in Science give the full picture of a process just as important for healing as for the spread of cancer.

"Proteins are the building blocks of our body": You have probably heard this phrase before. Proteins are essential to the formation of our body's structures and their functioning.

Shine a flashlight into a murky pond water and the beam won't penetrate very far. Absorption and scattering rapidly diminishes the intensity of the light beam, which loses a fixed percentage of energy per unit distance traveled. That decline—known as exponential decay—holds true for light traveling through any fluid or solid that readily absorbs and scatters electromagnetic energy.

Stinky but handsome and widely popular landscape trees have spawned aggressive invaders, creating thickets that overwhelm native plants and sport nasty four-inch spikes.

Annual crops are the farmer's bread and butter, the crops they rely on most, but at least one type of perennial grain is proving much more beneficial to the environment.

A handful of ancient zircon crystals found in South Africa hold the oldest evidence of subduction, a key element of plate tectonics, according to a new study published today in AGU Advances.

An international research team uses a global sampling of seawater to reveal which tropical reef fish occur where. To identify species and families, they successfully used the residual DNA shed by the animals present in the water. But not all fish can be traced in this way.

A hand-held laser pointer produces no noticeable recoil forces when it is "fired"—even though it emits a directed stream of light particles. The reason for this is its very large mass compared to the very small recoil impulses that the light particles cause when leaving the laser pointer.

Trust in science is rising worldwide, according to a 3M-backed survey released Tuesday, and more people expect it to solve the world's problems.

In 1930, astronomer Clyde Tombaugh discovered the fabled "Ninth Planet" (or "Planet X") while working at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona. The existence of this body had been predicted previously based on perturbations in the orbit of Uranus and Neptune. After receiving more than 1,000 suggestions from around the world, and a debate among the Observatory's staff, this newfound object was named Pluto—which was proposed by a young schoolgirl from Oxford (Venetia Burney).

Researchers from The University of Manchester and University of Navarra have examined the value of politically connected firm directors to the Chinese elite, in terms of getting preferential access to resources.

The development of new, more efficient electrochemical cells could provide a good option for carbon-free hydrogen and chemical production along with large-scale electricity generation and storage.

Crop breeding is largely constrained by tradeoffs among different agronomic traits. Since many of these tradeoffs are caused by gene pleiotropy, reducing gene pleiotropy may make it easier to overcome these tradeoffs in plant breeding. However, few effective strategies have yet been developed.

Despite the good care, a shelter can be a stressful environment for dogs. Researchers at Utrecht University investigated if the amount of the hormone cortisol in hair indicates the levels of stress that dogs experience before, during and after their stay in the shelter.