192 articles from THURSDAY 10.10.2019

Climate Change Is Shaping Up As an Utter Disaster for Much of America’s Bird Life

Sanderlings, red-headed woodpeckers and great gray owls are just a few of the North American bird species projected to be threatened by climate change in the coming decades, according to the latest assessment depicting an increasingly dire situation for the continent’s avian wildlife. “Two thirds of birds in North America are at risk from climate change, to large range losses,...

That new yarn? Wearable, washable textile devices are possible with MXene-coated yarns

Researchers have figured out how to add more conductivity into functional fabric devices, by coating yarns with a 2-dimensional carbon-based material called MXene, to make conductive threads. The group has developed a dip-coating method, similar to the dyeing process, that can produce a conductive yarn strong enough for use in industrial knitting machines and durable enough to make it through wash...

'Sticky' gene may help Valium calm nerves

For years, scientists thought that these powerful sedatives, which are used to treat anxiety, muscle spasms, and sleeping disorders, worked alone to calm nerves. Now, researchers show that this view of the drugs and the neural circuits they affect may have to change. In a study of mice, scientists discovered that both may need the assistance of a 'sticky' gene, named after a mythological figure,...

Beyond the 'replication crisis,' does research face an 'inference crisis'?

For the past decade, social scientists have been unpacking a 'replication crisis' that has revealed how findings of an alarming number of scientific studies are difficult or impossible to repeat. Efforts are underway to improve the reliability of findings, but cognitive psychology researchers say that not enough attention has been paid to the validity of theoretical inferences made from research...

Study suggests ice on lunar south pole may have more than one source

The discovery of ice deposits in craters scattered across the Moon's south pole has helped to renew interest in exploring the lunar surface, but no one is sure exactly when or how that ice got there. A new study published in the journal Icarus suggests that while a majority of those deposits are likely billions of years old, some may be much more recent.

Scientists are decoding the genetic mechanisms of aging

The discovery in the 1990s that a mutation in a single gene of an experimental worm could double its lifespan set off a stampede of research on the molecular biology of aging and triggered hopes that drug therapies or other interventions could be developed to extend healthy human lifespan. But as is often the case in science, the genetic regulation of aging is more complicated than it first...