Tech

Shells of tamarind, a tropical fruit consumed worldwide, are discarded during food production. As they are bulky, tamarind shells take up a considerable amount of space in landfills where they are disposed as agricultural waste.

CORVALLIS, Ore. - Oregon State University scientists are beginning to unravel the key microorganisms that contribute to the fermentation of kombucha, research that is already aiding large-scale kombucha producers in the fast-growing industry.

Kombucha is a fermented tea drink that has been homebrewed around the world for centuries, but in recent years has become widely popular with a global market size expected to grow from $1.3 billion in 2019 to $8.1 billion by 2027, according to an industry report. Several large producers, including Humm and Brew Dr., are based in Oregon.

For the first time, scientists have seen stony coral cells engulf dinoflagellates - single-celled, photosynthetic algae that are crucial for keeping coral alive

The researchers used a cell line called IVB5, which contains endoderm-like cells cultured from the stony coral, Acropora tenuis

Around 40% of coral cells incorporated the algae in around 30 minutes and remained healthy for one month

The research is a step towards understanding the partnership between coral and dinoflagellates and could shed light on how coral bleaching occurs

Cancer cell death is triggered within three days when X-rays are shone onto tumor tissue containing iodine-carrying nanoparticles. The iodine releases electrons that break the tumor's DNA, leading to cell death. The findings, by scientists at Kyoto University's Institute for Integrated Cell-Material Sciences (iCeMS) and colleagues in Japan and the US, were published in the journal Scientific Reports.

Each fingertip has more than 3,000 touch receptors, which largely respond to pressure. Humans rely heavily on sensation in their fingertips when manipulating an object. The lack of this sensation presents a unique challenge for individuals with upper limb amputations. While there are several high-tech, dexterous prosthetics available today - they all lack the sensation of "touch." The absence of this sensory feedback results in objects inadvertently being dropped or crushed by a prosthetic hand.

Superconductivity is a physical phenomenon where the electrical resistance of a material drops to zero under a certain critical temperature. Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer (BCS) theory is a well-established explanation that describes superconductivity in most materials. It states that Cooper pairs of electrons are formed in the lattice under sufficiently low temperature and that BCS superconductivity arises from their condensation. While graphene itself is an excellent conductor of electricity, it does not exhibit BCS superconductivity due to the suppression of electron-phonon interactions.

New York, NY--July 13, 2021--The past decade has witnessed scandal after scandal over private images maliciously or accidentally made public. A new study from computer scientists at Columbia Engineering reveals what may be the first way to encrypt personal images on popular cloud photo services, such as those from Google, Apple, Flickr and others, all without requiring any changes to -- or trust in -- those services.

A new study co-authored by the UBC Sauder School of Business has found that when senior managers mistreat workers, middle managers often attempt to quietly smooth things over.

Robin Hood was known for stealing from the rich and giving to the poor -- but while he may have lived in Sherwood Forest centuries ago, he would have fit right in as a middle manager in today's business world.

When there is a gas leak in a large building or at an industrial site, human firefighters currently need to go in with gas sensing instruments. Finding the gas leak may take considerable time, while they are risking their lives. Researchers from TU Delft (the Netherlands), University of Barcelona, and Harvard University have now developed the first swarm of tiny - and hence very safe - drones that can autonomously detect and localize gas sources in cluttered indoor environments.

Super-thin carbon molecular sieve (CMS) membranes may not be best for separating industrially important chemical mixtures. However, ensuring the CMS film thickness is just right could enable more energy-efficient purification of chemical products, KAUST researchers have shown.

The premise of heated tobacco (HT) is simple: tobacco leaf is heated, never burnt, so avoiding many harmful by-products of combustion for the user. The exhaled 'mist' is correctly termed an aerosol, which is almost invisible and far less dense and pungent than the exhaled smoke from combustible cigarettes.

Researchers have found evidence for an anomalous phase of matter that was predicted to exist in the 1960s. Harnessing its properties could pave the way to new technologies able to share information without energy losses. These results are reported in the journal Science Advances.

Researchers from the Buck Institute and Stanford University have created an inflammatory clock of aging (iAge) which measures inflammatory load and predicts multi-morbidity, frailty, immune health, cardiovascular aging and is also associated with exceptional longevity in centenarians. Utilizing deep learning, a form of AI, in studies of the blood immunome of 1001 people, researchers also identified a modifiable chemokine associated with cardiac aging which can be used for early detection of age-related pathology and provides a target for interventions.

According to the study, Australia, Indonesia and the USA provide the largest carbon storage potential with their coastal ecosystems. The team also calculated which countries benefit most from the coastal CO2 uptake worldwide. The different ways in which countries are affected by climate change are quantified by using the so-called social costs of carbon.

You're as old as your immune system.

Investigators at the Stanford University School of Medicine and the Buck Institute for Research on Aging have built an inflammatory-aging clock that's more accurate than the number of candles on your birthday cake in predicting how strong your immune system is, how soon you'll become frail or whether you have unseen cardiovascular problems that could become clinical headaches a few years down the road.

In the process, the scientists fingered a bloodborne substance whose abundance may accelerate cardiovascular aging.