Feed aggregator
World's smallest, best acoustic amplifier emerges from 50-year-old hypothesis
Scientists at Sandia National Laboratories have built the world's smallest and best acoustic amplifier. And they did it using a concept that was all but abandoned for almost 50 years.
Categories: Content
Young T. rexes had a powerful bite, capable of exerting one-sixth the force of an adult
Scientists have experimentally measured the bite force of adult T. rexes but not of younger tyrannosaurs. Fossils with juvenile bite marks, discovered by Joseph Peterson, have now allowed him and Jack Tseng to experimentally test how hard juveniles could chomp. Though their bite force is one-sixth that of an adult, it is still stronger than that of living hyenas. The measurement is higher than previous estimates, suggesting a different ecological niche for these youngsters.
Categories: Content
Atmospheric metal layers appear with surprising regularity
Twice a day, at dusk and just before dawn, a faint layer of sodium and other metals begins sinking down through the atmosphere, about 90 miles high above the city of Boulder, Colorado. The movement was captured by one of the world's most sensitive "lidar" instruments and the regularly appearing layers promise to help researchers understand better how earth's atmosphere interacts with space, even potentially how those interactions help support life.
Categories: Content
Synthetic SPECIES developed for use as a confinable gene drive
Scientists have developed a gene drive with a built-in genetic barrier that is designed to keep the drive under control. The researchers engineered synthetic fly species that, upon release in sufficient numbers, act as gene drives that can spread locally and be reversed if desired.
Categories: Content
Fossil secret may shed light on the diversity of Earth's first animals
A large group of iconic fossils widely believed to shed light on the origins of many of Earth's animals and the communities they lived in may be hiding a secret.Scientists, led by two from the University of Portsmouth, UK, are the first to model how exceptionally well preserved fossils that record the largest and most intense burst of evolution ever seen could have been moved by mudflows.
Categories: Content
'Prescription' to sit less, move more advised for mildly high blood pressure & cholesterol
Physical activity is the optimal first treatment choice for adults with mild to moderately elevated blood pressure and blood cholesterol who otherwise have low heart disease risk. About 21% of adults in the US with mild to moderately raised blood pressure and 28-37% of those with mild to moderate elevated cholesterol levels may be best served by a prescription for lifestyle-only treatment, which includes increasing physical activity.
Categories: Content
Ben-Gurion U. studies show promise using drones to elicit emotional responses
"There is a lack of research on how drones are perceived and understood by humans, which is vastly different than ground robots." says Prof. Jessica Cauchard together with Viviane Herdel of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev Magic Lab, in the Department of Industrial Engineering & Management. "For the first time, we showed that people can recognize different emotions and discriminate between different emotion intensities."
Categories: Content
Better popping potential for popcorn
Research identifies traits associated with improved popcorn expansion
Categories: Content
Researchers explore ways to detect 'deep fakes' in geography
It may only be a matter of time until the growing problem of "deep fakes" converges with geographical information science (GIS). A research team including faculty at Binghamton University are doing what they can to get ahead of the problem.
Categories: Content
Aortic condition more deadly in women than in men
Women who experience acute aortic dissection--a spontaneous and catastrophic tear in one of the body's main arteries--not only are older and have more advanced disease than men when they seek medical care, but they also are more likely to die.
Categories: Content
A 'jolt' for ocean carbon sequestration
Global oceans absorb about 25% of the carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere when fossil fuels are burned. Electricity-eating bacteria known as photoferrotrophs could provide a boost to this essential process, according to new research from Washington University in St. Louis.
Categories: Content
Low-wage earners spent less time at home during early pandemic lockdown
Fine-grained location data gleaned from mobile phones shows that people living in less affluent neighborhoods spent less time at home during the early lockdown and first several months of the coronavirus pandemic.
Categories: Content
Central Oregon bat survey shows value and scale-up potential of citizen science
BEND, Ore. - Bat researchers say a project in Central Oregon shows citizen science's strong potential for helping ecologists learn more about one of the least understood groups of mammals.
Categories: Content
Magnesium ions injected directly into compromised bone accelerate bone regeneration
Orthopedic patients are typically given oral magnesium (Mg) supplements to aid bone regeneration. In this study, researchers tried replacing that supplement with an injection -- directly into the impacted bone -- of custom-made, polymer microspheres that control the release of magnesium ions. They found that the injections accelerated bone formation in vivo.
Categories: Content
Converting scar tissue to heart muscle after a heart attack
Researchers from the University of Tsukuba showed that cardiac scar tissue (fibroblasts) can be directly reprogrammed to heart muscle cells (cardiomyocytes) in mice. By treating mice post-heart attack with a virus carrying cardiac transcription factors, they found that new cardiomyocytes were formed by fibroblasts converting into cardiomyocytes as opposed to fibroblasts fusing with existing cardiomyocytes. This study demonstrates the potential of direct reprograming as a strategy for cardiac regeneration after myocardial infarction.
Categories: Content
Newly identified atmospheric circulation enhances heatwaves and wildfires around the Arctic
Scientists have uncovered a summertime climate pattern in and around the Arctic that could drive co-occurrences of European heatwaves and large-scale wildfires with air pollution over Siberia and subpolar North America.
Categories: Content
How an elephant's trunk manipulates air to eat and drink
New research from Georgia Tech finds that elephants dilate their nostrils in order to create more space in their trunks, allowing them to store up to nine liters of water. They can also suck up three liters per second -- a speed 50 times faster than a human sneeze. The findings could inspire different ways to building robots that manipulate air to move or hold things.
Categories: Content
New Geology articles published online ahead of print in May
Article topics include Zealandia, Earth's newly recognized continent; the topography of Scandinavia; an interfacial energy penalty; major disruptions in North Atlantic circulation; the Great Bahama Bank; Pityusa Patera, Mars; the end-Permian extinction; and Tongariro and Ruapehu volcanoes, New Zealand.
Categories: Content
Analysis reveals global 'hot spots' where new coronaviruses may emerge
Global land-use changes -- including forest fragmentation, agricultural expansion and concentrated livestock production -- are creating "hot spots" favorable for bats that carry coronaviruses and where conditions are ripe for the diseases to jump from bats to humans, finds an analysis published this week by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, the Politecnico di Milano (Polytechnic University of Milan) and Massey University of New Zealand.
Categories: Content
Time-dependent viral interference between influenza virus and coronavirus in the infection of differ
A new study carried out in pig cells suggests previous infection with swine influenza virus (SIV) can protect against the development of porcine respiratory coronavirus (PRCoV) if there is a zero- or three-day interval between infections.
Categories: Content