Phoenix, Arizona, USA: For iconic landscapes such as Grand Canyon or the Appalachian Mountains, geological features are an integral part of their appeal. Yet despite the seeming permanence of cliffs, caves, fossils, and other geological highlights, these features are surprisingly vulnerable to damage or destruction. Across the U.S., there is a growing awareness that America's geological resources represent a common heritage that needs to be preserved--and that doing so can yield considerable economic and societal benefits.
Phoenix, Arizona, USA: Etched onto the steep walls of Arizona's 6,000-foot-deep, 277-mile-long Grand Canyon are clues that chronicle the sweeping changes the region has experienced during the past two billion years. The canyon's colorful layers narrate tales of ancient environments come and gone, from lofty mountain ranges and tropical seas to a Saharan-scale desert that once stretched across much of western North America.
Scientists from the Skoltech Center for Energy Science and Technology and the Institute of Problems of Chemical Physics of RAS in collaboration with researchers from four other Russian and foreign research centers have discovered a new reaction that helps obtain water-soluble fullerene derivatives which effectively combat flu viruses, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), herpes simplex virus (HSV), and cytomegalovirus (CMV).
Queensland University of Technology (QUT) researchers have applied artificial intelligence (AI) deep learning techniques to develop a more accurate and detailed method for analysing images of the back of the eye to help clinicians better detect and track eye diseases, such as glaucoma and aged-related macular degeneration.
Their findings have been published in Nature Scientific Reports.
Scientists studying genetic transcription are gaining new insights into a process that is fundamental to all life. Transcription is the first step in gene expression, the process taking place within all living cells by which the DNA sequence of a gene is copied into RNA, which in turn (most generally speaking) serves as the template for assembling protein molecules, the basic building blocks of life.
Harnessing light's energy into nanoscale volumes requires novel engineering approaches to overcome a fundamental barrier known as the "diffraction limit." However, University of Illinois researchers have breached this barrier by developing nanoantennas that pack the energy captured from light sources, such as LEDs, into particles with nanometer-scale diameters, making it possible to detect individual biomolecules, catalyze chemical reactions, and generate photons with desirable properties for quantum computing.
"Like a book in which the single pages are not all different but carry small portions of common text, or like a group of people who whistle a very similar tune": this is how our brain cells work, say scientists. It is the phenomenon of "co-relation", in which individual neurons do not always act as independent units in receiving and transmitting information but as a group of individuals with similar and simultaneous actions.
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- A new artificial intelligence (AI) tool available for free in a smartphone app can predict near-term crop productivity for farmers in Africa and may help them protect their staple crops -- such as maize, cassava and beans -- in the face of climate warming, according to Penn State researchers. The team will unveil the new tool -- which will work with their existing AI assistant, called "PlantVillage Nuru" -- to coincide with the United Nations Climate Action Summit to be held today (Sept. 23) at the U.N. Headquarters in New York City.
Almost 50 years since the late Richard Heck discovered the powerful chemical reaction that led to the University of Delaware professor's 2010 Nobel Prize, chemists are still finding new and valuable ways to use the Heck Reaction.
Phoenix, Arizona, USA: For more than a century, a guiding principle in seismology has been that earthquakes recur at semi-regular intervals according to a "seismic cycle." In this model, strain that gradually accumulates along a locked fault is completely released in a large earthquake. Recently, however, seismologists have realized that earthquakes often occur in clusters separated by gaps, and one research group now argues that the probability of a tremor's recurrence depends upon whether a cluster is ongoing -- or over.