Tech
SAN ANTONIO -- As the days count down to NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft's Touch-And-Go asteroid sample collection attempt, Southwest Research Institute scientists have helped determine what the spacecraft can expect to return from the near-Earth asteroid Bennu's surface. Three papers published online by Science on Oct. 8 discuss the color, reflectivity, age, composition, origin and distribution of materials that make up the asteroid's rough surface.
Irvine, Calif. ¬ - An international team of researchers - including Earth system scientists at the University of California, Irvine - recently completed the most thorough review yet of nitrous oxide from emission to destruction in the planet's atmosphere.
In addition to confirming that the 20 percent increase in the amount of the greenhouse gas since the start of the Industrial Revolution can be totally attributed to humans, the team expressed doubt about the ability to reduce emissions or mitigate their future impacts.
There are many places in this world that are hard for researchers to study, mainly because it's too dangerous for people to get there.
The Achilles' heel of water desalination technologies is the crystallization of salt particles within the various components of the device. This clogging phenomenon causes a reduction in performance over time, thus limiting the durability of these devices. Tackling this problem is important to ensure a constant production of freshwater over time. Recently, innovative nanostructured materials with anti-clogging properties have been proposed, with the potential of limiting salt accumulation.
In 2017, Category 5 Hurricane Irma devastated islands of the Lesser and Greater Antilles before turning northward and ultimately making landfall in southwestern Florida. Forecasting the timing and position of that northward turn was critical for Floridians to prepare for the storm's impact, but the uncertainty surrounding prediction of the upper-level trough that would steer the turn made this difficult.
A research team led by Nagoya University scientists in Japan has developed an approach that can quickly find synthetic proteins that specifically bind to important targets, such as components of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. The method was published in the journal Science Advances and could be used to develop test kits or for finding treatments.
PULLMAN, Wash. - On average, men not only showed less empathy toward temporary agricultural laborers, known as H-2A guest workers, but also were less likely to see food supply and production as issues of national security, according to a study led by a Washington State University researcher.
This particular finding relating to gender stood out from the rest of the study's results. The survey was conducted before and during the COVID-19 pandemic.
BOSTON - The goal of harvesting hearts from pigs to solve the chronic shortage of these donor organs appears to be in reach, according to a new scientific review by researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH). This analysis, published in the journal Circulation, describes how recent breakthroughs in genetic engineering and drug development led to the recent successful transplantation of pig hearts into baboons by a team in Germany.
Ringed seals and other Arctic marine mammals are important in the diet of Arctic Indigenous peoples. A study spanning 45 years of testing indicates that mercury concentrations in ringed seals from the Canadian Arctic have remained stable, showing very limited declines over time.
The authors of the Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry study noted that different climate parameters may have affected mercury accumulation in seals.
A McGill-led multi-institutional research team has discovered that during memory consolidation, there are at least two distinct processes taking place in two different brain networks - the excitatory and inhibitory networks. The excitatory neurons are involved in creating a memory trace, and the inhibitory neurons block out background noise and allow long-term learning to take place.
Durham, NC - A study released today in STEM CELLS Translational Medicine points the way to a possible new avenue of treatment for ischemic stroke. The study, led by Annamaria Cimini, Ph.D., of the University of L'Aquila, and Liborio Stuppia, M.D., of D'Annunzio University, Italy, reveals how the secretome of amniotic fluid stem cells can restore neuronal plasticity (the brain's capacity to change and adapt), improve cognition, and replace neurons damaged or lost due to an ischemic stroke.
Melbourne researchers are working towards a potential treatment to slow the progression of motor neuron disease (MND), offering hope to people with this debilitating and incurable illness.
The research team have uncovered how inflammation in MND is triggered. Pinpointing the molecules involved in this pathway could be a first step towards a new treatment for MND.
Limited safety, sustainability and recyclability are key drawbacks of today's lithium-ion battery technology, along with restricted availability of starting materials (e.g. cobalt). In the search for alternative electrochemical energy storage systems for use in e-mobility and for storing energy from renewable sources, a combination of battery and capacitor is very promising: the "hybrid supercapacitor". It can be charged and discharged as quickly as a capacitor and can store almost as much energy as conventional batteries.
(LOS ANGELES) - There is great potential in gene therapy for treating certain types of cancer and genetic defects, immunological diseases, wounds and infections. The therapies work by delivering genes into the patients' cells, which then produce therapeutic proteins to treat the affliction.
University of Maryland scientists have developed a method to determine the structures of large RNA molecules at high resolution. The method overcomes a challenge that has limited 3D analysis and imaging of RNA to only small molecules and pieces of RNA for the past 50 years.