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Salt marsh plants may signal carbon capture capacity
Coastal wetlands like seagrass meadows, mangroves, and salt marshes play vital roles along the shoreline, from providing a buffer against storm surges, to providing critical habitat for animals, to capturing atmospheric carbon.We are still just beginning to comprehend the intricate workings of these highly productive ecosystems and their role in mitigating the climate crisis, but researchers are one step closer to understanding how salt marsh vegetation, their bacterial communities, and vegetation can help predict a marsh's potential to be a blue carbon reservoir.
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Personality traits relate to being a morning or evening person
The link between the different hierarchies of personality, sleep patterns and even genetics has been discovered by researchers from the Department of Psychology at the University of Warwick.
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Producing hydrogen using less energy
The way in which a compound inspired by nature produces hydrogen has now been described in detail for the first time by an international research team from the University of Jena, Germany and the University of Milan-Bicocca, Italy. These findings are the foundation for the energy-efficient production of hydrogen as a sustainable energy source.
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Open learning spaces do not increase children's physical activity
According to a recent study, open learning spaces are not directly associated with the physical activity of students in grades 3 and 5, even though more breaks from sedentary time were observed in open learning spaces compared to conventional classrooms.
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AR can improve the lives of older adults, so why are apps designed mainly for youngsters?
Older people affected by memory loss have much to gain from AR technology, yet a study from the University of Bath in the UK, exploring the use of augmented reality to support older adults at home finds the user interface is sometimes confusing for those aged 50+.
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The humidity of flowers acts as an invisible attractor for bumblebees
As well as bright colors and subtle scents, flowers possess many invisible ways of attracting their pollinators, and a new study shows that bumblebees may use the humidity of a flower to tell them about the presence of nectar, according to scientists at the Universities of Bristol and Exeter.
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Soft robots -- smart elastomers are making the robots of the future more touchy-feely
Imagine flexible surgical instruments that can twist and turn in all directions like miniature octopus arms, or how about large and powerful robot tentacles that can work closely and safely with human workers on production lines. A new generation of robotic tools are beginning to be realized thanks to a combination of strong 'muscles' and sensitive 'nerves' created from smart polymeric materials.
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What Facebook can tell us about dietary choices
Lifestyle changes for demand-side climate change mitigation is gaining more and more importance and attention. A new IIASA-led study set out to understand the full potential of behavior change and what drives such changes in people's choices across the world using data from almost two billion Facebook profiles.
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As many state of emergency declarations during first pandemic wave as in preceding decade
In 2020, as many states of emergency were declared around the world during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic as there were in the entire previous decade. The influence of neighbouring countries on each other, weak democracies and poor pandemic preparedness are some of the explanations, according to research from the University of Gothenburg and Stockholm University.
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Patents help build a global map of new space industry
Skoltech researchers and their colleagues from Russia and Serbia have reviewed almost a thousand patents held by some 200 organizations involved in the new space economy. The analysis helped draw a comprehensive picture of technology trends in the field.
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Running to music combats mental fatigue a study suggests
Listening to music while running might be the key to improving people's performance when they feel mentally fatigued a study suggests. The performance of runners who listened to a self-selected playlist after completing a demanding thinking task was at the same level as when they were not mentally fatigued, the research found. The study is the first to investigate the effect of listening to music playlists on endurance running capacity and performance when mentally fatigued.
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Improving asphalt road pavement with nano-engineered particles
New research suggests fumed silica nanoparticles (FSNs) can be used to help improve the performance of warm mix asphalt (WMA).
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Childhood trauma can make people like morphine more
People who have experienced childhood trauma get a more pleasurable 'high' from morphine, new research suggests.
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How shadow banks have exploited the COVID-19 crisis
Rather than levelling inequality, as the Great Depression did, the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated inequalities around the world allowing some wealthy investors to benefit from the crisis and make a fortune on the misfortune of others.
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Actively addressing inequalities promotes social change
People who have contact with other social groups are more likely to be committed to social justice. However, an international study led by the University of Zurich has shown that for this to be the case, power relations and discrimination must be actively addressed and group-specific needs must be met. It is important that disadvantaged group members, such as racial minorities and LGBTIQ+ individuals, are given a voice, and that those who belong to advantaged groups do not feel labeled as biased.
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Perovskite memory devices with ultra-fast switching speed
A research team led by Professor Jang-Sik Lee of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at POSTECH has successfully developed the halide perovskite-based memory with ultra-fast switching speed. The findings from this study were published in Nature Communications on June 10, 2021.
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SUTD researchers use nanoscale 3D printing to create high-resolution light field prints
SUTD researchers have used nanotechnology to create a unique print that displays a glasses-free 3D image under ordinary white light. The appearance of the image changes as the print is viewed from varying angles. The print is called a 'light field print' for its unique design and appearance as compared to conventional 2D images.
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Virtual pupils make for more confident teachers
Teacher training students who practiced teaching virtual pupils developed greater confidence in their teaching ability, according to a study from Linköping University. In the long term, simulation can make the students better prepared for their workforce debut.
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Secretin hormone induces satiation by activating brown fat
Researchers from the Turku PET Centre and Technical University of Munich have discovered a new mechanism controlling satiation. According to the recently published study, the hormone secretin induces satiation by activating brown adipose tissue.
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A new type of gravitational wave detector to find tennis ballsized black holes
A team of researchers composed of physicists and mathematicians from the University of Namur (UNamur), the Free University of Brussels (ULB) and the Ecole Normal Supérieure (ENS) of ParisSaclay, offers an innovative experiment to enable the detection of primordial black holes the size of a tennis ball. Such a discovery could shake up our understanding of the cosmos!
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