In recent years, palm oil production has come under fire from environmentalists concerned about the deforestation of land in the tropics to make way for new palm plantations. Now there is a new reason to be concerned about palm oil's environmental impact, according to researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder.
Tech
Any analysis of exit polling reveals a welter of numbers whose meaning remains slightly elusive, with issues or candidate characteristics described as "very important," "somewhat important," or "not important at all" by voters. But it is not always clear how these findings fit together.
Now, a new paper co-written by an MIT political scientist suggests a way to assess the relative impact of several factors at once, using a method known as "conjoint analysis" that is not currently employed in political polling.
A new publication from researchers at the University of Southampton and the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton highlights the importance of nutrients for coral reef survival.
An automated analysis by Disney Research Pittsburgh of team formations used during an entire season of professional soccer provides further evidence that visiting teams are less successful than home teams because they play conservatively, not because of a mythical home advantage.
If you've run out of drinking water during a lakeside camping trip, there's a simple solution: Break off a branch from the nearest pine tree, peel away the bark, and slowly pour lake water through the stick. The improvised filter should trap any bacteria, producing fresh, uncontaminated water.
In fact, an MIT team has discovered that this low-tech filtration system can produce up to four liters of drinking water a day — enough to quench the thirst of a typical person.
HONOLULU – Twenty-five years after the infamous Exxon Valdez oil spill in Prince William Sound, beaches on the Alaska Peninsula hundreds of kilometers from the incident still harbor small hidden pockets of surprisingly unchanged oil, according to new research being presented here today.
The focus of the study is to learn how oil persists long after a spill. Researchers presenting the work caution that the amount of oil being studied is a trace of what was originally spilled and that results from these sites cannot be simply extrapolated to the entire spill area.
South Africa has been financing domestic rainwater harvesting tanks in informal low-income settlements and rural areas in five of that nation's nine provinces. But pathogens inhabit such harvested rainwater, potentially posing a public health hazard, especially for children and immunocompromised individuals, according to a team from the University of Stellenbosch. The research was published ahead of print in Applied and Environmental Microbiology.
BOULDER, Colo -- JILA physicists used an ultrafast laser and help from German theorists to discover a new semiconductor quasiparticle—a handful of smaller particles that briefly condense into a liquid-like droplet.
Quasiparticles are composites of smaller particles that can be created inside solid materials and act together in a predictable way. A simple example is the exciton, a pairing, due to electrostatic forces, of an electron and a so-called "hole," a place in the material's energy structure where an electron could be, but isn't.
In the heart, as in the movies, 3D action beats the 2D experience hands down.
In 3D, healthy hearts do their own version of the twist. Rather than a simple pumping action, they circulate blood as if they were wringing a towel. The bottom of the heart twists as it contracts in a counterclockwise direction while the top twists clockwise. Scientists call this the left ventricular twist—and it can be used as an indicator of heart health.
Researchers from North Carolina State University have developed a "superabsorbing" design that may significantly improve the light absorption efficiency of thin film solar cells and drive down manufacturing costs.
The superabsorbing design could decrease the thickness of the semiconductor materials used in thin film solar cells by more than one order of magnitude without compromising the capability of solar light absorption.
BUFFALO, N.Y. – Associated with unhappy visits to the dentist, "cavity" means something else in the branch of physics known as optics.
Put simply, an optical cavity is an arrangement of mirrors that allows beams of light to circulate in closed paths. These cavities help us build things like lasers and optical fibers used for communications.
It's an odd twist. For scientists to determine if a cell is functioning properly, they must destroy it.
This is what happens in X-ray fluorescence microscopy when biological specimens are exposed to ionizing radiation, which provides images with a level of detail that conventional microscopes just can't match. This exposure can change what is being imaged in profound ways, possibly giving false accounts of how the cell actually works.
Overweight or obese women with the mentality that they are "eating for two" are more likely to experience excessive weight gain while pregnant, according to researchers at Penn State College of Medicine.
PULLMAN, Wash.—While drivers tend to believe it is dangerous to text and drive, many say they can still do it safely. Now Washington State University researchers say drivers can be discouraged from the practice with public service announcements that evoke their fear of death in graphic terms.
This news release is available in German.