Earth
To understand how climate change may affect different ecosystems, 27 researchers from Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Costa Rica, French Guiana and Puerto Rico, among other countries, conducted experiments in seven different locations involving the aquatic environment in the tank (centrally-located water-holding cup) of bromeliads, a habitat for insect larvae and other small organisms.
Biofilms -- microbial communities that form slimy layers on surfaces -- are difficult to treat and remove, often because the microbes release molecules that block the entry of antibiotics and other therapies. Now, researchers reporting in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces have made magnetically propelled microbots derived from tea buds, which they call "T-Budbots," that can dislodge biofilms, release an antibiotic to kill bacteria, and clean away the debris.
Storms, fires, bark beetles: Many forests around the world are increasingly affected by these and other natural disturbances. It is common practice to eliminate the consequences of these disturbances - in other words, to harvest damaged trees as quickly as possible. Spruce trees attacked by bark beetles are removed from the forest, as are dryed beeches or trees thrown to the ground by storms.
NASA's Aqua satellite used infrared light to identify strongest storms and coldest cloud top temperatures in Tropical Storm Lowell and found them south of the center of circulation.
Lowell is moving through the Eastern Pacific Ocean and far from land areas. There are no coastal watches or warnings in effect.
Infrared Data Reveals Powerful Storms
A small subpopulation of polar bears lives on what used to be thick, multiyear sea ice far above the Arctic Circle. The roughly 300 to 350 bears in Kane Basin, a frigid channel between Canada's Ellesmere Island and Greenland, make up about 1-2% of the world's polar bears.
As the general election nears amid a historic season of hurricanes, wildfires, and heat waves, a new survey finds that majorities of Americans are supportive of climate change mitigation measures. This suggests that policymakers can introduce legislation that would enjoy public approval—including a green stimulus package to help deal with the economic downturn associated with COVID-19.
KINGSTON, R.I. - Sept.23, 2020 - Evidence continues to accumulate about human and wildlife exposure to chemical compounds called per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, collectively referred to as PFAS, and their deleterious effects on the environment. The latest study, by a University of Rhode Island graduate student, found high levels of the compounds in seabirds from offshore Massachusetts and coastal Rhode Island and North Carolina.
New knowledge on the cellular makeup and growth of teeth can expedite developments in regenerative dentistry - a biological therapy for damaged teeth - as well as the treatment of tooth sensitivity. The study, which was conducted by researchers at Karolinska Institutet, is published in Nature Communications.
Fast imaging is of great interest in microscopy, computer vision, and laser machining. For example, in neuroscience, high-speed volumetric imaging is essential to monitor dynamic biological processes, including membrane voltage activity (with dynamics on the time scale of 1 ms or less) or cerebral blood flow. How fast one can image is tightly connected to how fast one can change the position of the focus of the imaging system, particularly in the third dimension.
A father's involvement in the parenting of an infant is associated to a lower risk of experiencing paternal depressive symptoms during the first year of the child's life, according to a study published in the open-access journal Frontiers in Psychiatry.
A recent study found that survivors of childhood cancer have a similar risk of having suicidal thoughts compared with other individuals, and they have lower risk of suicidal behaviors and suicidal death.
The analysis was published in CANCER, a journal of the American Cancer Society, and included medical information and survey responses from 3,096 childhood cancer survivors and 429 individuals in the general population.
Cancer driver genes are those with mutations that are essential for tumour development and spread. Led by ICREA researcher Patrick Aloy, scientists from the Structural Bioinformatics and Network Biology (SBNB) Laboratory at IRB Barcelona have developed a computational pipeline that predicts tumour response to different cancer treatments. This system is based on the identification of complex response markers derived from the patterns of co-occurrence between cancer driver genes carrying mutations.
By far the most important process in cell development is how cells divide and then enlarge in order to multiply. A research team headed by Freiburg medical scientist Prof. Dr. Robert Grosse has now discovered that bundled fibers of actin within a cell nucleus play an important part in how they enlarge after division. Fibers of the structural protein actin stabilize the outer form of the cell and transport substances into a cell. The mechanisms that influence the growth of the cell nucleus after division were less well known by scientists.
The matter between the stars in a galaxy - called the interstellar medium - consists not only of gas, but also of a great deal of dust. At some point in time, stars and planets originated in such an environment, because the dust particles can clump together and merge into celestial bodies. Important chemical processes also take place on these particles, from which complex organic - possibly even prebiotic - molecules emerge. However, for these processes to be possible, there has to be water. In particularly cold cosmic environments, water occurs in the form of ice.
A research project headed by the Technical University of Denmark, DTU, has come up with the formula for a freeze-dried starter culture that African camel milk farmers can use to make safe, fermented milk products.
The majority of the world’s camels are located in East Africa, where they are a common dairy animal. Camel milk constitutes upwards of 9% of the total milk production of Africa. The farmers, who milk the animals, sell much of the milk as a fermented product in local markets or roadside stalls.