178 articles from MONDAY 2.12.2019

Breathing? Thank volcanoes, tectonics and bacteria

A new study suggests Earth's first burst of oxygen was added by a spate of volcanic eruptions brought about by tectonics. In addition to explaining the appearance of significant concentrations of oxygen in the Great Oxidation Event (GOE) 2.5 billion years ago, the theory also accounts for the Lomagundi Event, a puzzling shift in the ratio of carbon isotopes in carbonate minerals that followed the...

Daughters of women with PCOS face five times greater risk

Polycystic ovary syndrome is believed to affect about one in five women of reproductive age Daughters of women with polycystic ovary syndrome, a common disorder that can cause excessive body hair, acne and fertility problems, are five times more likely than the average woman to develop the condition, a major study has found.Researchers in Sweden examined the medical histories of nearly 30,000...

How Rising Temperatures Due to Climate Change are Shortening Pregnancies

It’s bad enough that adults have made a climatological mess of the world. It’s worse that the mess is having a disproportionate impact on kids—who did nothing to create the problem, but are more susceptible to health issues caused by rising temperatures than adults are. Now, it appears, global warming is doing its damage even further down the human age spectrum. According to a...

Monkeys inform group members about threats -- following principles of cooperation

Humans are often faced with the choice of investing in the greater good or being selfish and letting others do the work. Animals that live in groups often encounter threats, and informing others could potentially save lives. Researchers show that wild sooty mangabeys, when facing dangerous vipers, do not just call out of fear or to warn their family, but will call when the information about the...

Providing safe, clean water

In many parts of the world, access to clean drinking water is far from certain. Filtration of large volumes of water, however, is slow and impractical. Scientists have now introduced a new water purification method based on magnetic nanoparticles coated with a so-called ''ionic liquid'' that simultaneously remove organic, inorganic, and microbial contaminants, as well as microplastics. The...

Potential solution to overheating mobile phones

Researchers have developed a revolutionary way to encode computational information without using electrical current. As a global first, this could lead to faster technological devices that could efficiently use energy without overheating.

New evolutionary insights into the early development of songbirds

An international team has sequenced a chromosome in zebra finches called the germline-restricted chromosome (GRC). This chromosome is only found in germline cells, the cells that hold genetic information which is passed on to the next generation. The researchers found that the GRC is tens of millions of years old and plays a key role in songbird biology, having collected genes used for embryonic...

No kale left behind: A new supple management method to limit perishable waste

Many of us know that sting of disappointment when we realize our fridge contents are seriously past their prime. Imagine that on a much bigger scale, like the nearly $54 billion in perishable retail food lost in the U.S. in 2011. That problem helped compel operations management researchers to devise a method for a timelier and less costly distribution of perishable inventory under simultaneous,...

New Compact Remote Sensor to Image Ionospheric Current's Spatial Structure from Space

This blog post originated in the 2018 Science Mission Directorate Science and Technology Report. PROJECT The Microwave Electrojet Magnetogram (MEM) KEY POINTS The low SWaP MEM sensor enables cost-effective implementation of future high-impact ionospheric current investigations on resource-limited missions, including CubeSat constellations. Artist’s depiction of a series of small...

Daylight damage to photovoltaics

A research team has investigated the ways sunlight can degrade the efficiency of newly developed organic photovoltaics over time. This work may assist in the wide commercialization of next-generation solar sheets.