Tech
Interactions between individuals of the same species shape many aspects of their biology, including their social behaviour. Social genetic effects occur when the phenotype of an individual, defined as a set of their observable characteristics, is affected by the genetic features of others from the same species. These effects are common and imply consequences for the evolutionary history or health state of many animal species.
In addition to being the last horizon for adventurers and spiritual seekers, the Himalaya region is a prime location for understanding geological processes. It hosts world-class mineral deposits of copper, lead, zinc, gold and silver, as well as rarer elements like lithium, antimony and chrome, that are essential to modern technology. The uplift of the Tibetan plateau even affects global climate by influencing atmospheric circulation and the development of seasonal monsoons.
Achieving herd immunity to COVID-19 is an impractical public health strategy, according to a new model developed by University of Georgia scientists. The study recently appeared in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Controlling COVID-19 has presented public health policymakers with a conundrum:
INDIANAPOLIS--Indiana University School of Medicine researchers are learning more about ways to prevent infections in women with obesity who have cesarean delivery. The multi-site study revealed using prophylactic negative pressure wound therapy (NPWT) does not appear to lower the risk of infection for this high-risk group.
While in a three-dimensional world, all particles must be either fermions or bosons, it is known that in fewer dimensions, the existence of particles with intermediate quantum statistics, known as anyons, is possible. Such fascinating objects are strongly believed to exist as emerging quasiparticles in fractional quantum Hall systems, but despite great efforts, experimental evidence of anyons has remained very limited.
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Given the toll that the COVID-19 pandemic has taken on people's health and lives worldwide, it is crucial to be able to accurately predict patients' outcomes, including their chances of mortality from the disease. Using the largest clinical dataset to date, and a systematical machine learning framework, the research team at Mount Sinai identified an accurate and parsimonious prediction model of COVID-19 mortality.
As wildfires rage across much of the American West, researchers at Stanford have used CAT scanners, the same instruments used in medicine to peer inside the human body, to understand the process of smoldering - the state of burning without flame that often leads to fire. They then folded this deeper understanding of burning into computer models to predict where wildfires might strike next. These models could help firefighters allocate precious resources, reduce the loss of property and help save lives, the researchers say.
Although the name may suggest otherwise, Parkinson's disease is not one but two diseases, starting either in the brain or in the intestines. Which explains why patients with Parkinson's describe widely differing symptoms, and points towards personalised medicine as the way forward for people with Parkinson's disease.
This is the conclusion of a study which has just been published in the leading neurology journal Brain.
Stanford University scientists have identified a new class of solid materials that could replace flammable liquid electrolytes in lithium-ion batteries.
The low-cost materials - made of lithium, boron and sulfur - could improve the safety and performance of electric cars, laptops and other battery-powered devices, according to the scientists. Their findings are published in a study in the journal ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces.
Space communication for deep-space missions, inter-satellite data transfer and earth monitoring require high-speed data connectivity. Such systems are increasingly using optical laser beams rather than radio-frequency beams. A key reason for this is that the loss of power as the beam propagates is substantially smaller at light wavelengths, since the beam divergence is then reduced. Nevertheless, light beams will also have substantial loss over long distances.
Compared with traditional display technologies, organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) have many advantages, such as high contrast, colorful, large viewing angle, light weight, flexible, and so on. Up to now, OLEDs have been successfully commercialized in the niche display market and are now under intense research for other applications, such as solid-state lighting.
TORONTO, Sept. 22, 2020 - Although less than one per cent of all water in the world is freshwater, it is what we drink and use for agriculture. In other words, it's vital to human survival. York University researchers have just created a publicly available water quality database for close to 12,000 freshwater lakes globally - almost half of the world's freshwater supply - that will help scientists monitor and manage the health of these lakes.
Not all rats like to be tickled but by listening to their vocalisations it is possible to understand in real-time their individual emotional response, according to new research by the University of Bristol. The study, published today [21 September] in Current Biology, suggests that if this same relationship is observed for other situations, then it may be possible to use call patterns in rats to measure their emotional response and understand how best to improve their welfare.
CABI scientists have conducted new research highlighting the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on food security in Kenya and Uganda with more than two-thirds of those surveyed having experienced economic hardship due to the pandemic.
Dr Monica Kansiime led a team of researchers who discovered, from a random sample of 442 respondents, that the proportion of food insecure people increased by 38% and 44% in Kenya and Uganda respectively.
Biologists have long considered the origins and continued coexistence of the immense diversity of species found in our environment. How can we explain the fact that no single species predominates? A generally accepted hypothesis is that there are trade-offs, which means that no organism can do best in all conditions. One trade-off that is commonly assumed is that between gleaner organisms --which are able to acquire and consume more food than other species when resources are scarce-- and exploiters, which rapidly consume large quantities of the same resources when they are in abundance.