Culture
ITHACA, N.Y. - Traces of the gas phosphine point to volcanic activity on Venus, according to new research from Cornell University.
Last autumn, scientists revealed that phosphine was found in trace amounts in the planet's upper atmosphere. That discovery promised the slim possibility that phosphine serves as a biological signature for the hot, toxic planet.
Now Cornell scientists say the chemical fingerprint support a different and important scientific find: a geological signature, showing evidence of explosive volcanoes on the mysterious planet.
Many exoplanets have opaque atmospheres, obscured by clouds or hazes that make it hard for astronomers to characterize their chemical compositions. A new study shows that haze particles produced under different conditions have a wide range of properties that can determine how clear or hazy a planet's atmosphere is likely to be.
A diet rich in fermented foods enhances the diversity of gut microbes and decreases molecular signs of inflammation, according to researchers at the Stanford School of Medicine.
In a clinical trial, 36 healthy adults were randomly assigned to a 10-week diet that included either fermented or high-fiber foods. The two diets resulted in different effects on the gut microbiome and the immune system.
Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is a medically safe mental health intervention, according to a new study led by CAMH researcher Dr. Tyler Kaster as part of his doctoral studies at ICES and the University of Toronto. The study was published today in the journal The Lancet Psychiatry, and is among the largest and most comprehensive to compare the safety of ECT with standard treatment amongst individuals with depression.
The ubiquitous overuse injuries that nag runners may stem from an unlikely culprit: how far you lean forward.
Destroying tropical ecosystems and replacing them with soybeans and other crops has immediate and devastating consequences for soybeans, according to new peer-reviewed research in the journal World Development. With 35.8 million hectare currently under soy cultivation in Brazil, extreme heat--which adjacent tropical forests help keep in check--has reduced soybean income by an average of approximately US$100 per hectare per year.
PULLMAN, Wash. - After cutbacks and layoffs, remaining employees were more likely to feel they were treated fairly if the companies invested in them - and morale was less likely to plunge, according to new research.
Those investments can include training for workers, team-building exercises or improving company culture. Even keeping workloads manageable after layoffs can help employees' job attitudes, according to the Journal of Organizational Behavior study.
Human Usher syndrome (USH) is the most common form of hereditary deaf-blindness. Sufferers can be deaf from birth, suffer from balance disorders, and eventually lose their eyesight as the disease progresses. For some 25 years now, the research group led by Professor Uwe Wolfrum of the Institute of Molecular Physiology at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) has been conducting research into Usher syndrome.
Co-authors Bulat Galimzyanov and Anatolii Mokshin (Department of Computational Physics) have developed a unique model that allows for a universal interpretation of experimental data on viscosity for systems of different types, while also proposing an alternative method for classifying materials based on a unified temperature scale.
The UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) Secretariat today released the first official draft of a new Global Biodiversity Framework to guide actions worldwide through 2030 to preserve and protect Nature and its essential services to people.
The framework includes 21 targets for 2030 that call for, among other things:
For 30 years, University of Tokyo Associate Professor Hisayoshi Nozaki has traveled an hour west of Tokyo to visit the Sagami River and collect algal samples to understand how living things evolved different sexes. Through new analysis of samples collected in 2007 and 2013 from dam lakes along the river, Lake Sagami and Lake Tsukui, researchers identified a species of freshwater algae that evolved three different sexes, all of which can breed in pairs with each other.
China's first meteorological satellite launched in 1988. It was named Fengyun, which roughly translates to "wind and cloud". Since then, 17 more Fengyun meteorological satellites were launched, with seven still in operation, to monitor Earth's wind, clouds and, more recently, extreme weather events such as hurricanes and wildfires.
"All living beings, including us, depend on photosynthesis," says Prof. Wataru Sakamoto of the Institute of Plant Science and Resources at Okayama University, Japan, as he begins to explain the core concepts behind a recent breakthrough in understanding plant physiology, which he was involved in. "Photosynthesis produces the energy needed to sustain plants and the oxygen we breathe. This reaction occurs in two steps, the first of which involves capturing light energy
RUDN and Shahid Beheshti University (SBU) chemist proposed a protocol for converting cellulose into a catalyst for the synthesis of oxadiazoles. The new approach makes the catalyst 3 times more stable compared to the same catalyst obtained by the traditional method. The results are published in Carbohydrate Polymers
The cave of Satsurblia was inhabited by humans in different periods of the Paleolithic: Up to date a single human individual dated from 15,000 years ago has been sequenced from that site. No other human remains have been discovered in the older layers of the cave.