Culture
The digital age brims with promise for the world's half-billion smallholder farmers. Smartphones with the right apps can tell farmers when it's likely going to rain, how to identify and eradicate pests, and negotiate the prices for a bountiful harvest delivered by a combination of hard work and big data.
While digital technologies are steadily reaching more farmers, for each one plugged into the latest weather forecast or selling produce at the tap of a screen, millions more are sidelined as the digital revolution whizzes by.
The fabled Silk Road - the 4,000-mile stretch between China and Western Europe where trade flourished from the second century B.C. to the 14th century A.D. - is responsible for one of our favorite and most valuable fruits: the domesticated apple (Malus domestica).
Snack-packing travelers would pick apples at one spot, eat them and toss their cores many miles away. The seeds grew into trees in their new locations, cross-bred with the wild species, and created more than 7,000 varieties of apples that exist today.
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- As health care costs balloon in the U.S., experts say it may be important to analyze whether those costs translate into better population health. A new study led by a Penn State researcher analyzed existing data to find a dividing line - or "threshold - for what makes a treatment cost-effective or not.
CHICAGO (November 2, 2020): Firearm violence impacts not only individuals and their communities, but also the health care providers who treat them. For surgeons, treating these victims and understanding the impact of firearm violence as a public health issue requires both technical and non-technical skills. Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine, St.
In nature, healthy plants are awash with bacteria and other microbes, mostly deriving from the soil they grow in. This community of microbes, termed the plant microbiota, is essential for optimal plant growth and protects plants from the harmful effects of pathogenic microorganisms and insects. The plant root microbiota is also thought to improve plant performance when nutrient levels are low, but concrete examples of such beneficial interactions remain scarce. Iron is one of the most important micronutrients for plant growth and productivity.
Although profoundly different in terms of physiology, habitat and nutritional needs, plants and animals are confronted with one shared existential problem: how to keep themselves safe in the face of constant exposure to harmful microorganisms. Mounting evidence suggests that plants and animals have independently evolved similar receptors that sense pathogen molecules and set in motion appropriate innate immune responses. Now, in a study just published in the journal Cell Host & Microbe, senior author Takaki Maekawa together with co-first authors Lisa K.
The period of time before pregnancy is critically important for the health of a woman and her infant, yet not all women have access to health insurance during this time. New research finds that the expansion of Medicaid for many states under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) had a positive impact on a variety of indicators of maternal health prior to conception.
Okazaki, Japan -- In baseball, a batter's reaction when he swings and misses can differ depending on whether they were totally fooled by the pitch or simply missed the change-up they expected. Interpreting these reactions is critical when a pitcher is deciding what the next pitch should be. This type of socially interactive decision-making is the topic of a recent brain study led by Masaki Isoda at the National Institute for Physiological Sciences (NIPS) in Japan.
Scientists at Korea's Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science and Technology (DGIST) and colleagues have uncovered some of the complex molecular mechanisms involved in the formation of the brain's neural circuits. Their findings were published in The Journal of Neuroscience and could be relevant for developing treatments for diseases, such as autism spectrum disorders and schizophrenia.
Banning a harmful ingredient from the Australian food supply could prevent thousands of deaths from heart disease according to new research from The George Institute for Global Health.
Trans fatty acids - made during the industrial process that converts vegetable oils into a solid form of fat - are a well-known risk factor for heart disease. But it has been argued that eliminating them completely - as required by law in many overseas countries - would be too costly for both government and the food industry.
Osaka, Japan - A research team from Osaka University has developed an innovative new animal-borne data-collection system that, guided by artificial intelligence (AI), has led to the witnessing of previously unreported foraging behaviors in seabirds.
Bio-logging is a technique involving the mounting of small lightweight video cameras and/or other data-gathering devices onto the bodies of wild animals. The systems then allow researchers to observe various aspects of that animal's life, such as its behaviors and social interactions, with minimal disturbance.
New research from north-west England published in Anaesthesia (a journal of the Association of Anaesthetists) shows that during the first wave of COVID-19, the proportion of caesarean section deliveries carried out under general anaesthesia approximately halved, from 7.7% to 3.7%. This lower rate of general anaesthesia (also 3.7%) was also found among the small number of women having caesarean sections who had tested positive for COVID-19.
Simply comparing the total number of deaths across countries may provide a misleading representation of the underlying level of transmission of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, because of large differences in reported COVID-19 death rates in elderly populations in different countries.
Russian and British scientists study the approaches to mathematical modeling of electromechanical processes in neurons of the brain.
The research method used is the same as that employed in the testing of drugs for medicine. This means applying randomization methods in the analysis of electric energy consumption in households: a randomly selected sample group, made up of hundreds of thousands of people that are all clients of the same Italian company Eni gas e luce, were sent a document containing a comparison of their energy consumption with that of other households, with positive messages aimed at those that were more efficient.