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Asthma exacerbations rose following a catastrophic Christmas Eve fire that destroyed pollution controls at the Clairton Coke Works - the largest such facility in the nation, a new analysis concludes. Nearly half of the people with asthma closest to the fire were unaware of the pollution problem and therefore unable to take steps to avoid exposure.

Every one of us has different taste in music. Some like rock, others like rap, classical, alternative, Israeli, international, and so on. Researchers from Tel Aviv and Ariel Universities decided to embark on a scientific assessment to determine whether there is a connection between musical taste and a person's identity. In other words, can a person be identified only by his or her music playlist? The unequivocal conclusion was yes.

Fast growth of the global human population has long been regarded as a major challenge that faces mankind. Presently, this challenge is becoming even more serious than before, in particular because many natural resources are estimated to deplete before the end of this century.

Researchers from the University of Copenhagen have developed a new method that makes it possible to control human hormones and metabolism. One of the study's perspectives suggests that the method could be used to develop more effective medicines to treat cancer and a range of metabolic disorders in the future.

Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) are now measuring tinier moon dust particles than ever before, a step toward more precisely explaining the Moon's apparent color and brightness. This in turn might help improve tracking of weather patterns and other phenomena by satellite cameras that use the Moon as a calibration source.

Areas in Sweden with early access to electricity at the start of the 1900s underwent rapid change. Electrification led to more strikes, but it was not those who were threatened by the new technology who protested. Instead, it was the professional groups who had acquired a stronger negotiating position - thanks to technological development, according to new research from Lund University.

Researchers from the Universities of Bristol and Surrey have found that well-fitting, three-layered cloth masks can be as effective at reducing the transmission of COVID-19 as surgical masks.

A research team led by Prof. HUANG Jinqing, Assistant Professor of Department of Chemistry at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), has developed optical tweezers-coupled Raman spectroscopy that can directly probe the structural features of alpha-synuclein, an IDP closely linked to Parkinson's disease, at the physiological concentration by focusing on individual protein molecules.

Large-scale ocean circulation is a key regulator in the redistribution of oceanic energy. Under the background of global warming, how the ocean circulation will change is an essential question, the answer of which relies on observations. A recent paper published by Science China Earth Sciences presented significant trends in the tropical Pacific western boundary currents, through analyzing six-decade historical hydrological observations.

The new study, published in Physical Review Letters, simulated 25,000 scenarios of black holes and neutron stars colliding, aiming to see how many would likely be detected by instruments on Earth in the mid- to late-2020s. The researchers found that, by 2030, instruments on Earth could sense ripples in space-time caused by up to 3,000 such collisions, and that for around 100 of these events, telescopes would also see accompanying explosions of light.

An automated system that uses artificial intelligence (AI) is effective at detecting a common type of wrist fracture on X-rays, according to a new study. Researchers said the AI-derived algorithm could help speed diagnosis and allow earlier treatment.

Patients with advanced colorectal cancer may be spared from a toxic side effect caused by a type of targeted therapy used to treat the cancer with the help of another drug normally used to treat melanoma.

Scientists led by Dr Jason Heaney from Baylor College of Medicine in Texas, USA, have found that a failure in the development of sperm cells can lead to the formation of testicular tumours in mice. These findings, published in the journal Development, provide new clues for understanding how testicular cancer arises in mammals.

Bone collagen of fish shows individual history of migration and eating habits throughout life history

Researchers at the University of California, Riverside, have used a nanoscale synthetic antiferromagnet to control the interaction between magnons -- research that could lead to faster and more energy-efficient computers.

More sleep could offset children's excess indulgence over the school holidays as new research from the University of South Australia shows that the same decline in body mass index may be achieved by either extra sleep or extra exercise.

Exercising enough can prevent weight gain. Researchers have found a simple measurement method that helps to maintain or reduce weight- and it's free.

New Curtin research has found urgent action is needed to ensure man-made underwater noise in Australian waters does not escalate to levels which could be harmful to marine animals, such as whales, and negatively impact our pristine oceans.

Humans are inherently emotional and to better understand them, robots need to recognize emotions from human speech. Due to the complexity of auditory perception models, however, emotion recognition is a challenging task. In a new study, researchers from Japan and China design a novel feature that captures temporal and contextual information and extracts temporal variation of emotion using a parallel neural network architecture, opening doors to future applications in more complex speech analysis tasks.

The state of China's climate in 2020: Warmer and wetter again.