Carbon fiber is an important structural material. Due to its high strength, in combination with low specific weight and high oxidative stability, it is an indispensable material for airspace and shipbuilding industries, construction, medicine, the sports industry, and other high- … | Continue reading
An international collaboration between researchers in Spain and Scotland has resulted in a new approach to improve the catalysts needed to carry out the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). The reaction, in which water is transformed into hydrogen and oxygen, is a promising alterna … | Continue reading
While livestock farming has been around for thousands of years, it has only been intensified in recent decades to meet the demands of a rising world population and global competition. This intensification has helped to increase yields and make farming practices more efficient, re … | Continue reading
Engineers at the University of Maryland (UMD) have created the first 3-D-printed fluid circuit element so tiny that 10 could rest on the width of a human hair. The diode ensures fluids move in only a single direction—a critical feature for products like implantable devices that r … | Continue reading
More than 750 million people don't get enough nutrients from their food. More than two-thirds of those people live in places that consume a lot of rice. Can rice bred for extra protein be the answer? | Continue reading
Two UBC Okanagan biologists, who have publicly solicited images of wild cats for their research, have answered that question. | Continue reading
Physicists from Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University have developed and applied a method of identifying microplastic collected in sea waters. The spectroscopy method determines the chemical composition of contaminants regardless of their size. The results were published in Mar … | Continue reading
Egypt says archaeologists have uncovered ancient tombs dating back to the Second Intermediate Period, 1782-1570 B.C., in the Nile Delta. | Continue reading
A small change in the genetic makeup of the South African Cape bee turns the socially organised animal into a fighting parasite. This change ensures that infertile worker bees begin to lay their own eggs and fight other colonies. In the current issue of the journal Molecular Biol … | Continue reading
A team of facial recognition experts from the University of New South Wales, Newcastle University and the University of York has published a Comment piece in the journal Royal Society Open Science challenging claims made by another research team. In their paper, they acknowledge … | Continue reading
Pacific salmon are one of Canada's iconic creatures. Each summer, they complete their, on average, four- to five-year-long life cycle by returning from their rich ocean feeding grounds to the creeks and streams where they were born. Here, following in the "footsteps" of their par … | Continue reading
An international group of astronomers has detected an unusual nuclear transient in the nucleus of a weakly active galaxy. The new transient was identified by the OGLE-IV Transient Detection System and received designation OGLE17aaj. The finding is reported in a paper published Ja … | Continue reading
Before the feminist revolution in the late 1960s, men largely built their masculinity on traits that opposed those ascribed to women. Since then, society has been moving increasingly toward gender equality, and men can no longer rely on this anti-feminine norm. What are the effec … | Continue reading
Two-dimensional sheets of graphene in the form of ribbons a few tens of nanometers across have unique properties that are highly interesting for use in future electronics. Researchers have now for the first time fully characterised nanoribbons grown in both the two possible confi … | Continue reading
Most consumers' exposure to toxic methylmercury occurs when they eat fish. But research just published in the ACS journal Environmental Science & Technology could help clarify why methylmercury concentrations in tuna vary geographically. | Continue reading
Might power naps enhance performance? Perhaps. Short breaks sure do. That is the finding of research by Kristina Lerman, principal scientist at the USC Information Sciences Institute and research associate professor in the USC Viterbi School of Engineering's Department of Compute … | Continue reading
Do the same laws of biodiversity which apply in nature also apply to our own bodies and homes? If so, current hygiene measures to combat aggressive germs could be, to some extent, counterproductive. So writes an interdisciplinary team of researchers from the German Centre for Int … | Continue reading
Solar irradiation treatment, combined with naturally occurring viral components, could help destroy a highly antibiotic-resistant form of Escherichia coli (E. coli PI-7) that has been identified in Jeddah's wastewater network. | Continue reading
A team of scientists from I.M. Sechenov First Moscow State Medical University (MSMU) together with their colleagues isolated a peptide named emericellipsin A from soil fungi. The substance was proved to possess antitumor and antibacterial properties. The report of the scientists … | Continue reading
The influence of drug activity on crime rates is independent of a neighborhood's stability and socioeconomic status, according to a recent UCI study. | Continue reading
Scientists of the Far Eastern Federal University (FEFU), together with Russian and foreign colleagues, developed samples of nickel mesoporous film structures, which have a useful surface area up to 400 time greater than their solid analogue. This new material can be used in many … | Continue reading
Joerg Schaefer and Gisela Winckler, geochemists and paleoclimatologists at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, were awarded funding from the Center for Climate and Life to examine the vulnerability of Greenland's massive ice sheet. | Continue reading
Researchers from Osaka University, in collaboration with the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) and Grenoble Alpes University, report an efficient technique for controlling the direction of a nano-sized magnet by heating at high speed. The res … | Continue reading
Mortgage seekers from minority groups may pay more in fees than similarly qualified white borrowers, according to a team of researchers. | Continue reading
Philippine microsatellite DIWATA-2 has successfully captured initial images. Launched last autumn, it is the second microsatellite designed and developed under a collaborative project between Hokkaido University, Tohoku University, the Advanced Science and Technology Institute (D … | Continue reading
The North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) is considered a key driver of winter weather patterns over the northern hemisphere. A positive NAO is linked with more windstorms, and mild and wet winters in Europe. A negative NAO indicates snowy and cold winters in Europe. In recent years, … | Continue reading
Climate scientists have known for decades that there's more to climate change than higher temperatures. Sea levels are rising, wildfires are blazing and droughts are diminishing water supplies across the globe. | Continue reading
Researchers at VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland have developed a new and more accurate method for estimating the probability of extreme events, such as storms, floods and earthquakes. The new method will be used in updating building codes and land-use regulations, and is … | Continue reading
Plants don't need noses to smell. The ability is in their genes. Researchers at the University of Tokyo have discovered the first steps of how information from odor molecules changes gene expression in plants. Manipulating plants' odor detection systems may lead to new ways of in … | Continue reading
So-called bifacial stem cells are responsible for one of the most critical growth processes on Earth – the formation of wood. By alternately developing into wood and bast cells, these stem cells are thus starting points for forming wood as well as generating plant bast fibres. A … | Continue reading
Water flow through plants is critical to our food supply: without proper water flow, plants cannot carry out photosynthesis, or grow or reliably produce flowers, fruit or seeds. Water flows within specialized structures from the roots, through the stem to the leaves, where its ev … | Continue reading
Thanks to new technology, it is possible to retain individual atoms, move them in a targeted manner or change their condition. Kaiserslautern physicists also work with this system. In a recent study, they investigated the consequences of the collision of two atoms in a weak magne … | Continue reading
A team that includes the scientist who first harnessed the revolutionary CRISPR-Cas9 and other systems for genome editing of eukaryotic organisms, including animals and plants, has engineered another CRISPR system, called Cas12b. The new system offers improved capabilities and op … | Continue reading
Using a specially designed camera, researchers at Lund University in Sweden have succeeded for the first time in recreating how birds see colours in their surroundings. The study reveals that birds see a very different reality compared to what we see. | Continue reading
The lunar eclipse that took place in the early hours of Monday 21 January kicks off a major year for our satellite. This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission, the first crewed landing on the Moon. | Continue reading
Using a new computational method, an international collaboration has succeeded for the first time in systematically investigating magnetic quantum effects in the well-known 3-D pyrochlore Heisenberg model. The surprising finding: Physical quantum phases are formed only for small … | Continue reading
Researchers from Aarhus University, Denmark, and Copenhagen Zoo have discovered that the human mutation rate is significantly slower than for our closest primate relatives. This new knowledge may be important for estimates of when the common ancestor for humans and chimpanzees li … | Continue reading
As the drive to commercialise graphene continues, it is important that all safety aspects are thoroughly researched and understood. The Graphene Flagship project studies the impact of graphene and related materials on human health, as well as its environmental impact. This enable … | Continue reading
A new study of Bajondillo Cave (Málaga) by a team of researchers based in Spain, Japan and the U.K., coordinated from the Universidad de Sevilla, reveals that modern humans replaced Neanderthals at this site approximately 44,000 years ago. The research, to be published in Nature … | Continue reading
The DNA replication process in which cells divide to create new cells also triggers repair of DNA damage, researchers from the University of Copenhagen report in a new study. The researchers studied extracts from frog eggs, which have proteins very similar to those of human cells … | Continue reading
For the first time, a team led by Prof. Jian-Wei Pan and Prof. Bo Zhao at the University of Science and Technology of China, have successfully observed scattering resonances between atoms and molecules at ultra-low temperatures, shedding light on the quantum nature of atom-molecu … | Continue reading
On a hot day in August 1972 toward the end of the Vietnam War, dozens of naval mines off the coast of Hai Phong in North Vietnam began to explode without warning. In March 1989, a magnetic surge tripped circuits, knocking out power in the entire Canadian province of Quebec. While … | Continue reading
U.S. government regulators are accusing software maker Oracle of engaging in discriminatory practices that resulted in thousands of its women, black and Asian employees being underpaid by more than $400 million. | Continue reading
Leaf-cutter ants build super highways to transfer food and building materials hundreds of metres without communicating with each other, scientists claimed Wednesday, in findings that could prompt a rethink about how some insect communities organise themselves. | Continue reading
From "Fortnite" to "Pokemon Go," play in the US drove video-game industry revenue to a record-setting $43.4 billion last year, according to data released Tuesday. | Continue reading