Новости за 17.04.2024

A consortium made up of researchers from more than ten countries, including Brazil, the United States and some European nations, is running simulations of the past and future climate in South America with unprecedented resolution. The aim is to create a computer visualization model that more accurately represents the hydroclimatic processes that occur in the region to help decision makers implement more effective measures to adapt to the impacts of climate change.

Globally, last year was the warmest for thousands of years, with a globally averaged temperature of at least 1.45°C greater than pre-industrial times. The year also saw an unprecedented string of extreme weather and climate events in many parts of the world, including heat waves, torrential rainfall, transitions from drought to floods, wildfires, and sandstorms.

It is a common hack to stretch a balloon out to make it easier to inflate. When the balloon stretches, the width crosswise shrinks to the size of a string. Noah Stocek, a Ph.D. student collaborating with Western physicist Giovanni Fanchini, has developed a new nanomaterial that demonstrates the opposite of this phenomenon.

A NASA mission testing a new way of navigating our solar system is ready to hoist its sail into space—not to catch the wind, but the propulsive power of sunlight. The Advanced Composite Solar Sail System is targeting launch on Tuesday, April 23 (Wednesday, April 24 in New Zealand) aboard a Rocket Lab Electron rocket from the company's Launch Complex 1 on the Mahia Peninsula of New Zealand.

In 1969, the recently independent Republic of Congo discovered an enormous oil field off its coast. The find represented both a rare opportunity for the burgeoning nation, and a potential threat—the revenue generated by oil extraction could either pave the way for a stable socialist society, or doom the country to exploitation much like that it had endured under French colonialism.

Engineers at L3Harris Technologies in Rochester, New York, have combined all 10 mirrors for NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. Preliminary tests show the newly aligned optics, collectively called the IOA (Imaging Optics Assembly), will direct light into Roman's science instruments extremely precisely. This will yield crisp images of space once the observatory launches.

A team of international scientists involving the Durham University Geography department has unveiled a new map of the geological provinces hidden beneath the Greenland Ice Sheet.

Coffee beans in a jar and piles of rice or sand are examples of granular matter: materials composed of large numbers of macroscopic—rather than atomic scale—particles. Although granular matter is extremely familiar in everyday life, it represents an unexpected frontier in fundamental physics: Very little is understood about it.

As anyone with seasonal allergies knows, unseen airborne particles can really wreck a person's day. Like the tree pollen that might be plaguing you this spring, small concentrations of trace elements in the air can have significant negative impacts on human health. However, unlike pollen counts and other allergy indices, which are carefully tracked and widely available, limited knowledge exists about the ambient concentrations of cancer-causing trace elements like lead and arsenic in urban areas of developing countries.

Knowing your ABCs is essential to academic success, but having a last name starting with A, B or C might also help make the grade.

Anyone who regularly watches news or sports has likely noticed the steady creep of content competing for screen space, whether it be stock market prices, social media posts, game scores or some other graphic display. Previous studies have indicated that high-intensity visuals that employ vibrant displays of information tend to hamper both long- and short-term memory.

Antimicrobial resistance is an increasingly serious threat for public health, and the use of antimicrobials in livestock feed has been a major contributing factor in the emergence and spread of antimicrobial resistance to many drugs, according to the U.S. National Institutes of Health. The poultry industry is evolving toward antibiotic-free production to meet market demands and decelerate the spread, and Penn State researchers are helping to identify and better understand alternative approaches.

Cellulose nanofibers represent a promising resource for multiple industrial sectors, but what is their impact on the marine environment? A study published in Environmental Science: Nano recently addressed this issue in a study on marine organisms considered sentinels of sea health: mussels.

Electron spin states can now be probed at much higher resolution and more efficiently, opening new opportunities in materials analysis and data processing technologies.

When a single bacterial cell divides into two during periods of rapid growth, it doesn't split in half once it reaches a predetermined size. Instead, data has shown, a cell will divide once it has added a certain amount of mass.

NASA has confirmed its Dragonfly rotorcraft mission to Saturn's organic-rich moon Titan. The decision allows the mission to progress to the completion of the final design, followed by the construction and testing of the entire spacecraft and science instruments.

The heavy impact of traumatic experiences can differ depending on culture and geography. According to a new study from the University of Zurich, the culture-specific sequelae of trauma found in Switzerland align with the norms of a competitive and individualistic society. Post-traumatic coping strategies in Switzerland tend to involve closer connections to nature.

In a recent paper published in Biological Conservation, iDiv researchers suggest that given amphibians' ability to act as "canaries in the coal mine" for aquatic environments, they should be reintroduced or rewilded. Rewilding would not only help protect these endangered species but simultaneously promote ecological stability.

The technology used to sequence SARS-CoV-2 at record speed early in the COVID-19 pandemic has been successfully tested as a technique to monitor arboviruses and diseases transmitted mainly by mosquitoes.

The PACE (Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem) mission has delivered its first operational data back to researchers, a feat made possible in part by innovative, data-storing technology from NASA's Near Space Network, which introduced two key enhancements for PACE and other upcoming science missions.

Copper is a natural antimicrobial material that, when added to pig feed, may promote the growth and health of the animals. Since pigs can tolerate high levels of the metal, researchers at Texas Tech University in Amarillo recently investigated whether copper might be used to promote their gut health and reduce the shedding of microbes to the environment.

Life cycle diagrams are ubiquitous in science textbooks, and they may be due for some updates. A new study finds simple design changes in these diagrams can have a dramatic impact on the ability of undergraduate students to understand key biology concepts.

Much of Earth's water is hidden hundreds of meters beneath our feet, among soil particles and deep within rock pores and fractures.

Picture a group of students tackling a complex project: some are brainstorming, others are researching, and some are planning the presentation. Each student plays a unique role, yet they all work together.

A research team led by Dr. Serge Krasnokutski from the Astrophysics Laboratory at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy at the University of Jena had already demonstrated that simple peptides can form on cosmic dust particles. However, it was previously assumed that this would not be possible if molecular ice, which covers the dust particle, contains water—which is usually the case.