Новости за 11.07.2022

Hundreds of firefighters scrambled Monday to prevent a wildfire engulfing an area of rare giant sequoia trees in California's Yosemite National Park.

Uncovering the evolution of any set of living creatures is a complex and highly detailed task for scientists, and theories and approaches that may differ over time may indeed change the fossil record. But paleoanthropologist and Stony Brook University Professor Carrie S. Mongle, Ph.D., and co-authors urge investigators to take caution on their findings. They provide researchers investigating the evolutionary past of ancient hominins (a group including humans and our immediate fossil ancestors) an... Читать дальше...

NASA's Perseverance Mars rover is conducting its science campaign, taking samples at Jezero Crater's ancient river delta, but it's also been busy scouting. The rover is looking for locations where the planned Mars Sample Return (MSR) Campaign can land spacecraft and collect sample tubes Perseverance has filled with rock and sediment. The sites being scouted are under consideration because of their proximity to the delta and to one another, as well as for their relatively flat, lander-friendly terrain.

A new King's-led study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, has found that a single factor (a protein coding gene known as Sox8) can make non-ear cells adopt ear character during embryo development. The findings not only demonstrate how cell fate decisions are regulated in the embryo but may also inform reprogramming and regenerative strategies for the ear developmental malformations.

Researchers at the Department of Ethology at Eötvös Loránd University, Hungary, have measured the sleep of the dog's wild counterpart, the wolf, for the first time. Their new study was published in Scientific Reports.

Using UT Southwestern's Cryo-Electron Microscopy Facility, researchers for the first time have captured images of an autoantibody bound to a nerve cell surface receptor, revealing the physical mechanism behind a neurological autoimmune disease. The findings, published in Cell, could lead to new ways to diagnose and treat autoimmune conditions, the study authors said.

The amount of carbon stored by microscopic plankton will increase in the coming century, predict researchers at the University of Bristol and the National Oceanography Centre (NOC).

Micromirrors are micrometer-scale mirrors that are widely used in many applications, mainly in optical-fiber telecommunications, optical scanners, and optical instrumentation. Micromirrors can be integrated within photonic chips, which can be seen as the miniaturized counterparts of the macroscopic optical benches. In optical communication, micromirrors are important building blocks for cross couplers, variable optical attenuators, and external cavity tunable lasers. In all those applications, the... Читать дальше...

Far from taking a back seat during the COVID pandemic, teachers found themselves leading the way.

Producing biomaterials that match the performance of cartilage and tendons has been an elusive goal for scientists, but a new material created at Cornell demonstrates a promising new approach to mimicking natural tissue.

Hawk moths are known for being some of the largest night fliers in the insect world. With wingspans of more than four inches, many species are big enough to comfortably fill the palm of your hand. Thanks to the work of a small team of researchers at the Florida Museum of Natural History, three new species from The Bahamas are breaking records at the opposite end of the size spectrum. At about the length of a vitamin pill, they are among the smallest discovered.

Waste heat is a promising source of energy conservation and reuse, by means of converting this heat into electricity—a process called thermoelectric conversion. Commercially available thermoelectric conversion devices are synthesized using rare metals. While these are quite efficient, they are expensive, and in the majority of cases, utilize toxic materials. Both these factors have led to these converters being of limited use. One of the alternatives is oxide-based thermoelectric materials, but the... Читать дальше...

Rice University scientists who "flash" materials to synthesize substances like graphene have turned their attention to boron nitride, highly valued for its thermal and chemical stability.

The same four factors that explain how people change their beliefs on a variety of issues can account for the recent rise in anti-science attitudes, a new review suggests.

Earth's mantle is the thick layer of silicate rock between Earth's crust and its molten core, making up about 84% of our planet's volume. The mantle is predominantly solid but, on geologic time scales, it behaves as a viscous fluid—as difficult to stir and mix as a pot of caramel.

Insect-eating plants have fascinated biologists for more than a century, but how plants evolved the ability to capture and consume live prey has largely remained a mystery. Now, Salk scientists, along with collaborators from Washington University in St. Louis, have investigated the molecular basis of plant carnivory and found evidence that it evolved from mechanisms plants use to defend themselves.

If you are moaning once again about your suitcase being far too small as your vacation approaches, you should take human sperm cells as an inspiration. During their production, they are faced with an almost insoluble task. They have to pack 23 DNA threads with a total length of one meter into a head with a diameter of just three thousandths of a millimeter. And in the process, the delicate threads must not become entangled in an inextricable knot, nor must they tear.

Lately, the hallways at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore have been filled with a few more smiles than usual.

Net zero what? Carbon sequestration who? And what on Earth do greenhouses have to do with gases?

The Biden administration on has released a draft supplemental environmental review of ConocoPhillips' giant oil prospect on Alaska's North Slope, known as the Willow project, after a federal judge last year rejected approval for the project issued during the Trump administration.

New rocket company Relativity Space is gearing up for its first ever launch testing its Terran 1 rocket at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, and a fire spotted at the launch site prompted its CEO to reassure people the rocket was fine.

In 2019, astronomers observed the nearest example to date of a star that was shredded, or "spaghettified," after approaching too close to a massive black hole.

A major UN report warned Monday that a global economy focused on short-term profit is wrecking the planet and called for a drastically different approach as to how we value nature.

Through the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, Congress attempted to curb CEO pay by repealing a long-standing exemption that allowed companies to deduct large amounts of qualified performance-based pay. New research finds the change has had little effect, with CEO pay either staying the same or growing after the law made it more costly to award executives with high levels of compensation.

To increase public support for automated traffic safety cameras, regulators should emphasize the technology's ability to limit racially divisive interactions with the police, according to a Rutgers study published in the journal Transportation Research Interdisciplinary Perspectives.