Tech
Using a network of a newly introduced type of rain gauge that can measure rainfall with drop-by-drop precision, KAUST researchers have developed a high-frequency rainfall model to improve understanding of rainfall/runoff dynamics, such as flash flooding and hydrodynamics in small watersheds.
Cancers like melanoma are hard to treat, not least because they have a varied bag of tricks for defeating or evading treatments. A combined research effort by scientists at the Weizmann Institute of Science and researchers in the Netherlands Cancer Institute in Amsterdam and the University of Oslo, Norway, shows exactly how tumors, in their battles to survive, will go so far as to starve themselves in order to keep the immune cells that would eradicate them from functioning.
PITTSBURGH--It has long been a dream to invent new materials from the "top down" choosing which atoms go where to engineer properties of interest. A technique created by researchers out of the Department of Physics and Astronomy enables them to "sketch" patterns of electrons into a programmable quantum material--lanthanum aluminate/strontium titanate or "LAO/STO". Using this approach, they can create quantum devices and with feature sizes comparable to the spacing between electrons, and even "sketch" artificial lattices for electrons to traverse, with extremely high precision.
In work published in the National Science Review (nwaa288), a team at HPSTAR led by Dr. Xujie Lü applied high pressure to tune the remarkable photoluminescence (PL) properties in halide perovskites. For the first time, they reveal a universal relationship whereby regulating the level of off-centering distortion (towards 0.2) can achieve optimal PL performance.
ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- Parenting in a pandemic is not for the faint of heart.
Many children are in virtual school, less physically connected to friends and activities like sports and may have experienced major lifestyle changes from spending more time at home during quarantine.
Now, a new national poll gives a glimpse into parents' greatest concerns about their kids in the pandemic-era. High on the top 10 list: overuse of social media and screen time, internet safety, unhealthy eating, depression and suicide and lack of physical activity.
Exposure to metals such as nickel, arsenic, cobalt and lead may disrupt a woman's hormones during pregnancy, according to a Rutgers study.
The study appears in the journal Environment International.
Exposure to metals has been associated with problems at birth such as preterm birth and low birth weight in babies, and preeclampsia in women. However, little is known about how metals exposure can lead to such problems.
Salmon from upstream reaches of the two northernmost Baltic rivers are different from downstream salmon. A recent study found that upstream salmon from the large Tornio and Kalix Rivers in Finland and Sweden are genetically distinct and migrate at different times and ages than their downstream counterparts. However, there seems to be no such distinction between salmon from these two neighbouring rivers.
In the midst of a global pandemic with COVID-19, it's hard to appreciate how lucky those outside of Africa have been to avoid the deadly Ebola virus disease. It incapacitates its victims soon after infection with massive vomiting or diarrhea, leading to death from fluid loss in about 50 percent of the afflicted. The Ebola virus transmits only through bodily fluids, marking a key difference from the COVID-19 virus and one that has helped contain Ebola's spread.
An especially counter-intuitive feature of quantum mechanics is that a single event can exist in a state of superposition - happening both here and there, or both today and tomorrow.
Such superpositions are hard to create, as they are destroyed if any kind of information about the place and time of the event leaks into the surrounding - and even if nobody actually records this information. But when superpositions do occur, they lead to observations that are very different from that of classical physics, questioning down to our very understanding of space and time.
Many chemotherapeutic agents used to treat cancers are associated with side-effects of varying severity, because they are toxic to normal cells as well as malignant tumors. This has motivated the search for effective alternatives to the synthetic pharmaceuticals with which most cancers are currently treated. The use of calcium phosphate and citrate for this purpose has been under discussion for some years now, since they lead to cell death when delivered directly into cells, while their presence in the circulation has little or no toxic effect.
More plants and longer growing seasons in the northern latitudes have converted parts of Alaska, Canada and Siberia to deeper shades of green. Some studies translate this Arctic greening to a greater global carbon uptake. But new research shows that as Earth's climate is changing, increased carbon absorption by plants in the Arctic is being offset by a corresponding decline in the tropics.
Approximately 8,000-12,000 of the North Pacific humpback whale stock visits the shallow waters of the Hawaiian Islands seasonally to breed. During this time, mature males produce an elaborate acoustic display known as "song," which becomes the dominant source of ambient underwater sound between December and April.
PITTSBURGH (December 18, 2020) ... The gear is one of the oldest mechanical tools in human history1 and led to machines ranging from early irrigation systems and clocks, to modern engines and robotics. For the first time, researchers at the University of Pittsburgh Swanson School of Engineering have utilized a catalytic reaction that causes a two-dimensional, chemically-coated sheet to spontaneously "morph" into a three-dimensional gear that performs sustained work.
The CRISPR Journal announces the publication of its December 2020 issue, a Special Issue on Expanding the CRISPR Toolbox. The Journal is dedicated to validating and publishing outstanding research and commentary on all aspects of CRISPR and gene editing, including CRISPR biology, technology, and genome editing, and commentary and debate of key policy, regulatory, and ethical issues affecting the field.