Feed aggregator

Diversification in the sourcing of food into cities can go a long way to tempering "food shock" -- a sudden drop in food supply due to unforeseen events, according to a team of researchers from Penn State and Northern Arizona University, who developed a statistical risk model linking supply chain diversity to the probability of a city experiencing food shocks.

What The Study Did: The characteristics and factors associated with deaths among individuals detained in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities from 2011 to 2018 were examined in this study.

What The Study Did: Wearable sensor data were used to examine the duration and variation of recovery among COVID-19-positive and COVID-19-negative participants.

Why magma flowed along a curved pathway during the 2018 eruption of a Galapagos volcano is explained by a GFZ model

In mosquitofish, of the genus Gambusia, male fish are smaller than females - sometimes only half the size. Biologists had previously assumed that smaller male mosquitofish had at least some reproductive advantages. Researchers from the transregional collaborative research centre NC³ at Bielefeld University have shown in a systematic review and meta-analysis that larger mosquitofish are actually more successful at reproduction. The re-searchers are presenting their findings today (07.07.2021) in the Journal of Animal Ecology.

Environmental education provision needs greater investment and innovation if future generations are to be able to respond fully to the climate emergency, experts have said.

Female vampire bats establish an egalitarian community within a roost rather than a society based on a clear hierarchy of dominance that is often seen in animal groups, a new study suggests.

Physicists of Ruhr-Universität Bochum have taken spectacular pictures that allow the ignition process of plasma under water to be viewed and tracked in real time. They have provided the first data sets with ultra-high temporal resolution, supporting a new hypothesis on the ignition of these plasmas: In the nanosecond range, there is not enough time to form a gas environment. Electrons generated by field effects lead to the propagation of the plasma.

The body is filled with mucus that keeps track of the bacteria. Now, researchers from the University of Copenhagen present the first method for producing artificial mucus. They hope that the artificial mucus, which consists of sugary molecules, may help to develop completely new, medical treatments.

A team led by researchers from Queen Mary University of London has developed a new artificial intelligence (AI) tool that is able to automatically measure the amount of fat around the heart from MRI scan images.

Every organism is a universe that lives thanks to the activities of tens of thousands of nanomachines, whose functions depend on their forms. Now, a group at the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO) has helped determine the structure of a nanomachine essential for the functioning of another, mTOR, which plays fundamental roles in cancer and nutrition, ageing and other vital processes in the body.

Dehydrated plant seeds can lay dormant for long periods--over 1,000 years in some species--before the availability of water can trigger germination. This protects the embryonic plant inside from a variety of environmental stresses until conditions are favorable for growth and survival. However, the mechanism by which the baby plant senses water and reactivates cellular activity has remained a mystery until now.

Researchers analyzed responses to an open-ended question about employment in the 2015 Kessler Foundation National Employment and Disability Survey, focusing on 1,254 respondents with disabilities who self-identified as unemployed. The most common reasons related to their perceptions about their medical conditions, functional limitations, or disability, which contributed to concerns about being able to work. Countering negative perceptions, which are often associated with diverse demographic and sociodemographic characteristics, is essential to developing successful return-to-work interventions.

The findings, described in a study published in PLOS Genetics, expand on the complex role of a region of the genome of Wolbachia called Octomom, which is known to regulate its growth inside the host. And bring to light a paradox. If Octomom is deleted, Wolbachia grows uncontrolled inside the host. If amplified, with extra copies, it also grows uncontrolled. Both absence and excess lead to the same observable characteristic.

The growing rate of ice melt in the Arctic due to rising global temperatures has opened up the Northwest Passage (NWP) to more ship traffic, increasing the potential risk of an oil spill and other environmental disasters. A new study published in the journal Risk Analysis suggests that an oil spill in the Canadian Arctic could be devastating--especially for vulnerable indigenous communities.

An integrated design optimisation and fabrication workflow opens new opportunities for tailoring the mechanical properties of soft machines.

"Snowball Earth" is the most extreme climate event in Earth's history, when it was completely engulfed in ice.The theory of its existence has faced two challenges - how life survived and variations in rock formations from the time implying changes to the climate cycle.New study shows that changes to Earth's orbit caused the ice sheets to advance and retreat, providing ice-free 'oases' for animal life and explaining variations in rock formations.

Researchers from IDIBELL and the University of Barcelona have described that neurons derived from Parkinson's patients show impairments in their transmission before neurodegeneration.For this study, it has been used dopaminergic neurons differentiated from patient stem cells as a model.

Screens may be larger on smartphones now, but nearly every other component is designed to be thinner, flatter and tinier than ever before. The engineering requires a shift from shapely, and bulky lenses to the development of miniaturized, two-dimensional metalenses. They might look better, but do they work better? A team of Japan-based researchers says yes, thanks to a solution they published on July 7th in Applied Physics Express, a journal of the Japan Society of Applied Physics.

An international research team has found that despite being the world's leading cause of pain, disability and healthcare expenditure, the prevention and management of musculoskeletal health, including conditions such as low back pain, fractures, arthritis and osteoporosis, is globally under-prioritised and have devised an action plan to address this gap.