Новости за 09.06.2022

NASA is launching the first two of six small satellites no earlier than June 12, to study the formation and development of tropical cyclones almost every hour—about four to six times more often than is possible with current satellites. This is the first of three CubeSat launches for NASA's Time-Resolved Observations of Precipitation structure and storm Intensity with a Constellation of Smallsats (TROPICS) mission. The remaining satellites will be placed into their orbits during two subsequent launches this year. Читать дальше...

A large swathe of the southwestern United States was on alert Thursday for a potentially deadly heatwave that could push temperatures as high as 47 degrees celsius (117 Fahrenheit) over the coming days.

NASA is officially joining the hunt for UFOs.

Thanks to climate change, high-elevation forests in the Central Cascade mountains of the Pacific Northwest are burning more frequently and expansively than in the recent past, prompting researchers and fire managers to question whether forests will be able to recover from these emerging fire patterns and whether they will require human assistance to do so.

After a six-year journey, a plucky spacecraft called Hayabusa2 zinged back into Earth's atmosphere in late 2020 and landed deep in the Australian outback. When researchers from the Japanese space agency JAXA opened it, they found its precious payload sealed and intact: a handful of dirt that Hayabusa2 managed to scoop off the surface of a speeding asteroid.

Researchers have mimicked a corn plant's make-up in the lab to investigate "corn smut," opening the door to finding a cure for the disease. Their study appears in Science.

Packing material, disposable cutlery, CD cases: Polystyrene is among the most common forms of plastic, but recycling it isn't easy and the vast majority ends up in landfills or finds its way to the oceans where it threatens marine life.

Since the first hot Jupiter was discovered in 1995, astronomers have been trying to figure out how the searing-hot exoplanets formed and arrived in their extreme orbits. Johns Hopkins University astronomers have found a way to determine the relative age of hot Jupiters using new measurements from the Gaia spacecraft, which is tracking over a billion stars.

Following a devastating wildfire in 2018 that raged through Paradise, California, volatile organic compounds (VOCs) were found to be contaminating the town's water—and scientists suggest this problem may be widespread in other fire-prone areas. A feature article in Chemical & Engineering News, an independent news outlet of the American Chemical Society, examines how plastic pipes may be a key source of contamination and explores what can be done to protect vulnerable communities.

In the lead-up to the release of Webb's first full-color images and spectroscopic data on July 12, the Webb team is now in the last phase of commissioning the science instruments. The first two instrument modes, NIRCam imaging and NIRISS imaging, have been declared ready for science; watch the "Where is Webb" page as the team works their way through the other 15 instrument modes.

While much of public attention on Yellowstone focuses on its potential to produce large supereruptions, the hazards that are much more likely to occur are smaller, violent hydrothermal explosions. Hydrothermal explosions occur when near-boiling water suddenly flashes into steam, releasing large amounts of energy. The energy release fractures the rock downward, often leaving behind a crater. The same sources that can produce these explosions are what give Yellowstone its well-known hot springs, geysers, and fumaroles.

Parents accustomed to home schooling felt more resilient during the COVID-19 pandemic than those whose public-school children were suddenly housebound, according to a Rice University study.

University of Queensland scientists have cracked a problem that's frustrated chemists and physicists for years, potentially leading to a new age of powerful, efficient, and environmentally friendly technologies.

Phosphorus is an essential but often overlooked resource, which is vital for life on Earth and is extracted from phosphate rock for use in crop fertilizers, livestock feeds and food additives. A major new report by scientists warns that global mismanagement of this finite nutrient is causing twin crises, brought into sharp focus with fertilizer prices skyrocketing in recent months.

A black canister with yellow filter inside—resembling a cross between a trash can and big pool skimmer—was dunked in the Schuylkill River at Bartram's Garden park in Philadelphia and emptied daily from May to June to see what it would catch.

In biology, getting rid of stuff can be just as important as making it. A buildup of cells, proteins, or other molecules that are no longer needed can cause problems, so living things have evolved several ways to clean house.

A deep dive into the 5,500 marine RNA virus species scientists recently identified has found that several may help drive carbon absorbed from the atmosphere to permanent storage on the ocean floor.

A hotter ocean is a hungrier ocean—at least as far as fish predators are concerned. In a new field study published online June 9 in Science, Smithsonian scientists discovered predator impacts in the Atlantic and Pacific peak at higher temperatures. The effects cascade down to transform other life in the ocean, potentially disrupting balances that have existed for millennia.

Interferons are proteins that constitute an important part of our natural defense systems. These proteins also exhibit a remarkable antiviral activity. The recombinant human interferon α2b (rhIFNα2b) was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 1986. It has been used ever since as an antiviral agent for the treatment of hepatitis B and hepatitis C. Despite its widespread applications, however, there remains an issue: the detection of rhIFNα2b is tedious and time-consuming.

The drought currently impacting the upper Colorado River Basin is extremely severe. A new study from federal government and university scientists led by the Bureau of Reclamation and published in Geophysical Research Letters identifies a second-century drought unmatched in severity by the current drought or previously identified droughts.

Humans have used milk to make cheese for millennia. However, climate change and sustainability concerns are prompting us to look towards the plant kingdom for the cheeses of the future. New research from the University of Copenhagen points to the modest yellow pea, which with its high nutritional content and sustainable cultivation attributes, could become tomorrow's plant-based cheese of choice.

Carbon dots (CDs) are new carbon-based photoluminescence (PL) nanomaterials with a core-shell motif. Due to their fascinating advantages, such as chemical inertness, high quantum yields (QYs), high water solubility, thermal stability, and excellent biocompatibility, CDs have attracted extensive attention in various research applications, such as cancer diagnosis, phototherapy, and optoelectronic devices. However, the underlying PL phenomena of CDs remain a mystery due to the polydispersity of the... Читать дальше...

A class of proteins known as TMEM16 scramblases permit rearrangement of lipids in the cell membrane chiefly by thinning the membrane, according to a new model by Weill Cornell Medicine investigators.

Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) have refined the use of magnetic fields to improve the performance of doughnut-shaped fusion facilities known as tokamaks. The improved technique protects internal parts from damage by instabilities called "edge-localized modes" (ELMs) and allows tokamaks to operate for longer without pausing.

Even if society is able to slow all greenhouse gas emissions and get to "net zero" by mid-century as targeted by nations of the world in the UN Paris Agreement, there is a lag built into the climate system primarily as a result of ocean thermal inertia that means slow emerging changes such as deep ocean warming and sea-level rise will continue very long afterward.