Earth
The deep seas - vast expanses of water and seabed hidden more than 200 metres below the ocean surface to depths up to 11,000 metres - are recognised globally as an important frontier of science and discovery.
But despite the fact they account for around 60% of Earth's surface area, large areas remain completely unexplored, yet the habitats they support impact on the health of the entire planet.
To see how deeply interconnected the planet truly is look no further than the massive ice sheets on the Northern Hemisphere and South Pole.
Thousands of kilometers apart, they are hardly next-door neighbors, but according to new research from a team of international scientists -- led by alumna Natalya Gomez Ph.D.'14, and including Harvard professor Jerry X. Mitrovica -- what happens in one region has a surprisingly direct and outsized effect on the other, in terms of ice expanding or melting.
Researchers in Japan have revealed a previously unknown mechanism for pain control involving a newly identified group of cells in the spinal cord, offering a potential target for enhancing the therapeutic effect of drugs for chronic pain.
While neurons may be the most well-known cells of the central nervous system, an assortment of non-neuronal cells first discovered in the mid-nineteenth century also play a wide variety of important roles.
In JST Strategic Basic Research Programs, Drs. Masato Hirano and Shinichi Furuya, Sony Computer Science Laboratories, Inc., discovered a training method to further improve the delicate touch of pianists.
Experts such as pianists, athletes and surgeons acquire advanced skills through tremendous amounts of practice. It is difficult to further improve upon these skills, and the methods for exceeding these limits have not been clarified.
Over the years, the efficiency of PSCs has increased at an unprecedented pace. However, many reports have revealed significant irreversible decomposition of the organic component under high humidity and high temperature conditions, implying the instability of organic-inorganic hybrid perovskite solar cell in real applications. Normally, inorganic materials exhibit better stability compared to organic materials, especially at elevated temperatures. However, the size of the Cs+ cation is too small to hold the PbI62? octahedron.
Our lives, and our bodies, are dynamic. The physical state of someone in their twenties is probably vastly different from that of someone in their fifties. Naturally, healthcare should also be oriented differently to different age groups. Older people are more likely to fall and hurt themselves because their joints are less flexible than younger people. To minimize these risks and improve quality of life among elderly individuals, it is important to develop measures that improve physical abilities.
Digital technology has made intercultural contacts a daily activity for many people in the world. As a result, the globalization of cultural flows and the various ways that people appropriate these cultural flows have become hot topics for investigation, and the prefix "trans-" can now be seen in terms like translocalities, transnational, translanguaging and transculturing, underlying the fluidity and mix of cultures, languages and localities in the digital environment.
Physical activity makes happy and is important to maintain psychic health. Researchers of Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) and the Central Institute of Mental Health (CIMH) in Mannheim studied the brain regions which play a central role in this process. Their findings reveal that even everyday activities, such as climbing stairs, significantly enhance well-being, in particular of persons susceptible to psychiatric disorders. The study is published in Science Advances (DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aaz8934).
The transmission of specific infectious diseases have been altered by processes linked to climatic and environmental anomalies. An increase in infectious outbreaks is expected to be seen in mild climates due to global warming, and the alterations in climate patterns, such as El Niño, are modifying the presence, density, strength and dynamics of transmission of many viruses and pathogens.
Their degree of ecological specialisation --the capacity to inhabit many or few environments-- is the most important factor in the evolutionary success of squirrels in the face of climate change, according to research led by the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM) and the Institute of Geosciences (UCM-CSIC).
A psychobiological study led by the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM) on personal identity and its modification over time in parallel with the changes that individuals experience has shown that the essence of our being remains largely stable over the years.
PULLMAN, Wash. -- The ancient inhabitants of the American Southwest used around 11,500 feathers to make a turkey feather blanket, according to a new paper in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports. The people who made such blankets were ancestors of present-day Pueblo Indians such as the Hopi, Zuni and Rio Grande Pueblos.
Carbon is one of the main building blocks for life on Earth. It's abundant in our planet's atmosphere, where it's found in the form of carbon dioxide. Carbon makes its way into Earthlings' bodies mainly through the process of photosynthesis, which incorporates carbon dioxide into sugars that serve as components for important biomolecules and fuel the global food chain. About a third of this process globally is carried out by single-celled algae that live in the oceans (most of the rest is done by plants).
- Monash University researchers have created the world's first bioactive plant-based nanocellulose hydrogel to support organoid growth for biomedical applications. This includes cancer development and treatment.
Nanocellulose gels cost a fraction of the price compared to the current gold standard.
These hydrogels are plant-based and animal-free, and can mimic the human body conditions on a dish.
2020 is the worst fire year on record in the United States, with nearly 13 million acres burned, 14,000 structures destroyed and an estimated $3 billion spent on fire suppression -- and counting. At the same time, certain land managers have invested huge amounts of time and resources toward restoring fire through "controlled burn" approaches.
In the face of heartbreaking losses, effort and expense, scientists are still grappling with some of the most basic questions about how fire influences interactions between plants and animals in the natural world.