Новости за 16.12.2022

Cryo-electron microscopy by University of Alabama at Birmingham researchers has exposed the structure of a bacterial virus with unprecedented detail. This is the first structure of a virus able to infect Staphylococcus epidermidis, and high-resolution knowledge of structure is a key link between viral biology and potential therapeutic use of the virus to quell bacterial infections.

Ensuring manufactured goods and components have not been copied and replaced illegally by counterfeited goods is a high-priority concern of the manufacturing and defense industries in the U.S. and around the world.

Avoiding mosquitoes to protect against bites is always a good idea. But a new North Carolina State University study shows that the bacteria-ridden exteriors of mosquitoes may be another reason to arm yourself with a swatter.

In the coming days, NASA's Perseverance rover is expected to begin building the first sample depot on another world. This will mark a crucial milestone in the NASA-ESA (European Space Agency) Mars Sample Return campaign, which aims to bring Mars samples to Earth for closer study.

Archaeologists have identified a 4000-year-old goldworking toolkit amongst the grave goods from an important Bronze Age burial near Stonehenge.

It can be easy to assume that the vast stretches of desert in southeastern Utah and southwestern Colorado are mostly barren landscapes—but in truth, the sagebrush-strewn Colorado Plateau is awash with treasure.

Researchers from the University of Toronto's Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering and Fujitsu have developed a new way of searching through 'chemical space' for materials with desirable properties.

The earliest dinosaurs included carnivorous, omnivorous and herbivorous species, according to a team of University of Bristol paleobiologists.

Microbes have skins that react to the environment, much in the same way that our skin sweats when it is hot, or shivers when it is cold outside. Fossilized microbial skins can give us a glimpse of how the climate was in the deep geological past. By discovering the 'missing link' between such fossil skins and the skins of living bacteria, Diana Sahonero, a microbiologist at Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research (NIOZ), has greatly improved the accuracy of climate reconstructions and predictions.

A new tool developed by European and Australian scientists enabling unparalleled modeling of interconnected species loss shows cascading extinctions are unavoidable, and that the Earth will lose some 10% of its animals and plants by 2050, rising to 27% by 2100.

Organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) play an important role in new-generation flat-panel displays. For ultra-high-definition displays presented in International Telecommunication Union (ITU) Recommendation BT 2020 standard, the emitter is required to be high color purity with narrow full width at half-maximum (FWHM).

Lipstick can be a confidence booster, enhance a costume and keep lips from chapping. But sharing a tube with a friend or family member can also spread infections. To develop a version with antimicrobial properties, researchers reporting in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces have added cranberry extract to the formulation. Their deep red cream quickly inactivates disease-causing viruses, bacteria and a fungus that come in contact with it.

Holiday shoppers are finding that discounts among some of the items on their shopping lists are a little easier to find this year due to higher inventories at retailers and a slowing demand due to inflation and certain recessionary economic conditions. At the same time, consumers may notice that some retailers are slower to reduce prices to generate sales.

In Hungary, the majority of households use natural gas for heating. It is one of the most environmentally friendly ways of keeping our homes warm.

This week government scientists at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory achieved a long-sought milestone in developing clean fusion energy. For the first time, the amount of energy produced by a fusion reaction exceeded the energy required to produce it.

As human-elephant conflict continues to rise across Africa, researchers are searching for new ways to keep a watchful eye on wild African elephants, even looking to space technologies for guidance.

A new study found bird diversity increased in North Carolina mountain forest areas severely burned by wildfire in 2016, reinforcing that while wildfire can pose risks to safety and property, it can be beneficial to wildlife. The study results could help forest managers better predict bird responses to wildfire, and manage forests to benefit birds.

Safeguard's policy brief was distributed at a side event of the 15th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (COP15) and was showcased at the EU commission's stand.

It takes chemist Liaisan Khasanova less than a minute to turn an ordinary silica glass tube into a printing nozzle for a very special 3D printer. The chemist inserts the capillary tube—which is just one millimeter thick—into a blue device, closes the flap and presses a button. After a few seconds there is a loud bang and the nozzle is ready for use.

Researchers may have answered a decades-old question about galaxy evolution, leveraging the power of artificial intelligence (AI) to accelerate their research.

The Dutch use their bicycles around twice as often as their German neighbors in the winter months. Generally, bicycles are used more often in the Netherlands than in Germany. In the summer (June to August) the Dutch use their bicycles for 23.0% of their journeys—in Germany only 16.7%. The Dutch also use their bicycles in the winter (December to February) for 20.5% of their journeys. On the other hand, the Germans only use their bicycles for 10.3% of their journeys.

Germany is committed to protecting biodiversity. In order to stop the decline of biodiversity and reverse the trend, great efforts are required in nature reserves: Studies show that the insect biomass in nature reserves has declined by 75 percent since the 1990s. For biodiversity experts, the link between agricultural land use and the decline of insect biomass in protected areas has been obvious for a long time.

The work with forest preservation in southwestern Ethiopia, where smallholder coffee farmers play an important part, is essential for global sustainability. But there are also negative consequence to the synergy between smallholder cash crop production and biodiversity values.

A satellite built for NASA and the French space agency Center National d'Études Spatiales (CNES) to observe nearly all the water on our planet's surface lifted off on its way to low-Earth orbit at 3:46 a.m. PST on Friday. The Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) spacecraft also has contributions from the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) and the UK Space Agency.

Phosphorus use in the U.K. needs to be better managed and used in a much more sustainable way to reduce river pollution and increase resilience over rising fertilizer prices, say researchers.