Новости за 11.05.2022

As many chemists know, the membrane distillation (MD) process has gained increasing popularity and attention for saline treatment, especially because of its extremely high salt rejection (the theoretical value up to 100%). In MD, the hydrophobic membrane serves as a core and significant part of realizing two-phase separation. However, the existing membrane wetting phenomenon always restricts the long-term stable operation and separation efficiency.

In diverse schools, friends of the same race or ethnicity are influential in shaping teenagers' sense of belonging, finds new research by a multidisciplinary team including Cornell's Adam Hoffman, an expert in psychology and human development.

Liquid fuels with high energy density are essential in many applications where chemical energy is converted into controlled motion, such as in rockets, gas turbines, boilers, and certain vehicle engines. Besides their combustion characteristics and performance, it is also important to guarantee the safety and stability of these fuels when in use as well as during transport and storage.

When stars like our sun use up all their fuel, they shrink to form white dwarfs. Sometimes such dead stars flare back to life in a super-hot explosion and produce a fireball of X-ray radiation. A research team from several German institutes including Tübingen University, and led by Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU), has now been able to observe such an explosion of X-ray light for the very first time.

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet recently published a study in npj Biofilms and Microbiomes, that describes the properties of an enzyme that breaks down lipids.

FMI researchers have identified a synthetic protein that dampens the activity of a cellular pathway involved in viral infection. The findings could help to develop drugs that combat viruses such as influenza A and Zika.

A new method of lie detection shows that lie tellers who are made to multi-task while being interviewed are easier to spot.

Inadequate training has been blamed for a lack of confidence among police officers dealing with hate crimes targeted at disabled people.

In a new study, a brief, audio-guided, befriending-themed meditation reduced affective polarization between people on the "Remain" versus "Leave" sides of the U.K.'s Brexit referendum. Otto Simonsson of the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden, and colleagues present these findings in the open-access journal PLOS ONE on May 11, 2022.

The ground beneath our feet and under the ocean floor is an electrically-charged grid, the product of bacteria "exhaling" excess electrons through tiny nanowires in an environment lacking oxygen.

A team of international researchers has discovered a way to produce higher quality wheat. The scientists from the University of Adelaide and the UK's John Innes Centre have identified a genetic driver that improves yield traits in wheat, which unexpectedly can also lead to increasing protein content by up to 25 percent.

The movement of herders and livestock into the eastern steppe is of great interest to researchers, but few scholars have linked the introduction of herds and horses to the rise of complex societies.

A study employing hypothetical restaurant menus suggests that climate-friendly default options and labels indicating the carbon footprint of each dish may influence diners' dish selections and the resulting environmental effects. Ann-Katrin Betz and colleagues at Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg, Germany, present these findings in the open-access journal PLOS Climate.

The world is on track to breach a key global warming threshold, according to a new report.

The best things in life are unlikely to occur. In many situations, taking at least moderate risks yields higher expected rewards. Yet many people struggle with taking such risks: they are overly cautious and forego high payoffs. "However, we are not alone in this struggle, but we can observe and learn from others," says Wataru Toyokawa. "We therefore wanted to find out whether social learning can also rescue us from adverse risk aversion." The answer is yes, as the authors from the Cluster of Excellence... Читать дальше...

A purely mechanical method can produce a novel, more sustainable fertilizer in a less polluting way. That is the result of a method optimized at DESY's light source PETRA III. An international team used PETRA III to optimize the production method that is an adaptation of an ancient technique: by milling two common ingredients, urea and gypsum, the scientists produce a new solid compound that slowly releases two chemical elements critical to soil fertilization: nitrogen, and calcium.

During the 1950s and 1960s, Minamata Bay in Japan was the site of widespread mercury poisoning caused by the consumption of fish containing methylmercury—a toxic form of mercury that is synthesized when bacteria react with mercury released in water. Mercury poisoning caused deaths and widespread neurological disorders, as well as intergenerational harm as many of the survivors had children with birth defects. As methylmercury was stored in fish, it continued to remain in the food chain long after... Читать дальше...

A new study from researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health found that the estimated average rate of officer-involved shootings increased by 12.9 percent in 10 U.S. states that relaxed restrictions between 2014 and 2020 on civilians carrying concealed firearms in public.

How would afforestation and restoration of large areas worldwide affect water-fluxes world wide? A new study led by Wageningen University researcher Anne Hoek van Dijke with contributions from Martin Herold, GFZ, has interesting answers. Impacts on precipitation reach far beyond country or even continent level: Tree restoration in the Amazon can, for example, affect rainfall in Europe and Eastern Asia. The study, published in Nature Geoscience on May 11, 2022, has calculated the global impact of... Читать дальше...

New research finds that policies granting permanent residency to immigrants conditional on acquiring host country skills—like language—are most likely to generate higher fiscal contributions to the host country through income taxes. In fact, immigrants with a preference for remaining in the host country develop social contacts and other specific skills that allow them to find better paid jobs and stay for a longer time.

The Surface Water and Ocean Topography mission will explore how the ocean absorbs atmospheric heat and carbon, moderating global temperatures and climate change.

A human enzyme converts chemicals produced by marine sponges and related synthetic derivatives into cell-killing compounds, shows a study published today in eLife.

Dust and smoke blowing in from fires, dry land and construction this spring periodically have turned Colorado's blue skies red, and air quality experts anticipate more crazy haze in the future as wind scours particles from the arid Southwest.

With smoggy Southern California poised to miss a critical clean air goal next year, local regulators are now threatening to sue the Environmental Protection Agency, saying the federal government has made their job "impossible."

Colorado didn't see enough snow this winter to fully recover from the ongoing megadrought and now what snow the state did see is melting too quickly, experts say.