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46 articles from ScienceDaily

Multitasking in the workplace can lead to negative emotions

From writing papers to answering emails, it's common for office workers to juggle multiple tasks at once. But those constant interruptions can actually create sadness and fear and eventually, a tense working environment, according to a new study aimed at understanding what shapes the emotional culture of a workplace.

A close relative of SARS-CoV-2 found in bats offers more evidence it evolved naturally

Researchers describe a recently identified bat coronavirus that contains insertions of amino acids at the junction of the S1 and S2 subunits of the virus's spike protein in a manner similar to SAR-CoV-2. While it's not a direct evolutionary precursor of SARS-CoV-2, this new virus, RmYN02, suggests that these types of seemingly unusual insertion events can occur naturally in coronavirus evolution.

Are our brains hard-wired for longing?

A new brain imaging study of prairie voles -- which are among only about 5% of mammalian species besides humans who are monogamous -- found that when it comes to forming bonds, longing may be as important as being together. The study also sheds light on why it's so hard to social distance, and could lead to new therapies for conditions like autism and depression.

Emotional well-being while home gardening similar to other popular activities, study finds

Researchers found that gardening at home had a similar effect on emotional well-being (or happiness) as biking, walking or dining out. The benefits were similar across racial boundaries and between urban and suburban residents, and it was the only activity out of the 15 studied for which women and people with low incomes reported the highest emotional well-being. The results suggest that household...

Street smarts required in heat mitigation

Researchers investigated how solar reflective coatings on select Los Angeles city streets affected radiant heat and, in turn, pedestrians' comfort on a typical summer day. The idea is, if you coat a street with a lighter color than traditional pavement black, it will actually lower the surrounding temperatures. But researchers wanted to measure what effect reflective coating had on pedestrians.

Towards a new generation of vegetation models

Plants and vegetation play a critical role in supporting life on Earth, but there is still a lot of uncertainty in our understanding of how exactly they affect the global carbon cycle and ecosystem services. A new study explored the most important organizing principles that control vegetation behavior and how they can be used to improve vegetation models.

El Niño-linked decreases in soil moisture could trigger massive tropical-plant die offs

New research has found that El Niño events are often associated with droughts in some of the world's more vulnerable tropical regions. Associated with warmer than average ocean temperatures in the eastern Pacific, El Niños can in turn influence global weather patterns and tropical precipitation, and these changes can lead to massive plant die-offs if other extreme factors are also at play.

Microalgae food for honey bees

A microscopic algae ('microalgae') could provide a complete and sustainably sourced supplemental diet to boost the robustness of managed honey bees, according to new research.

Photosynthesis in a droplet

For hundreds of millions of years plants have had the ability to harness carbon dioxide from the air using solar energy. The research network is on the trail of building artificial cells as sustainable green bioreactors. A research team has now succeeded in developing a platform for the automated construction of cell-sized photosynthesis modules. The artificial chloroplasts are capable of binding...

Single-cell RNA seq developed to accurately quantify cell-specific drug effects in pancreatic islets

Researchers have developed a method to accurately assess the effect of specific drugs in isolated pancreatic tissue by using a refined single-cell RNA sequencing method. Their study describes their technique to overcome the problem of contaminating RNA molecules in single-cell transcriptomics, allowing for accurate results of dynamic drug responses in pancreatic cells.

A century of misunderstanding of a key tool in the economics of natural resources

In the past few weeks, oil prices have fallen to record lows. This development was not predicted by the Hotelling rule, an equation proposed in 1931 that remains central to the economics of natural resources today. Economists present the results of a groundbreaking historical survey of documents from Harold Hotelling's archives. They show that in fact this 'rule' was not designed to investigate...

Artificial synapses on design

Memristive devices behave similarly to neurons in the brain. Researchers have now discovered how to systematically control the functional behaviour of these elements. The smallest differences in material composition are found crucial: differences so small that until now experts had failed to notice them.