- CBC - Technology & Science News
- 20/9/11 22:45
How one ornithologist spent her summer doing double duty studying coastal marsh sparrows and organizing a social media movement in support of Black...
193 articles from FRIDAY 11.9.2020
How one ornithologist spent her summer doing double duty studying coastal marsh sparrows and organizing a social media movement in support of Black...
When her plan to research plastic pollution on an island in Alaska was canceled due to the global pandemic, one researcher turned her attention to COVID litter on the streets of...
In what it's calling a new approach to forest management in B.C., the province says it will protect 353,000 hectares of forest in nine old-growth areas throughout the province from...
Doherty Institute says the eight devices for rapid testing shouldn’t be used in acute stages of the illnessRapid Covid-19 testing devices rushed onto the Australian market are far less accurate than their manufacturers have claimed, and the expert leading a government-initiated review says they should not be used to detect acute cases.In the early stages of the pandemic, the federal government...
An endangered fish in California might use its internal clock to decide when to migrate, according to a study by the University of Cincinnati.
A team of Israeli and American researchers funded by grants from the National Geographic Society and the Israel Science Foundation has uncovered new evidence that an earthquake may have caused the destruction and abandonment of a flourishing Canaanite palatial site about 3,700 years ago.
As missions like NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, TESS and Kepler continue to provide insights into the properties of exoplanets (planets around other stars), scientists are increasingly able to piece together what these planets look like, what they are made of, and if they could be habitable or even inhabited.
Recent protests across the United States and the world have put a magnifying glass on issues of diversity and equity. A new study explores the ways in which these issues go all the way to the top of the corporate ladder.
Bob McDonald's blog: Bob's summer adventures included witnessing the results of global...
SAN FRANCISCO -- Jennifer Krasner's 4-year-old daughter had been coughing for days. Krasner and her family live 20 minutes north of San Francisco, in Mill Valley, California, not close to any fire but wreathed in smoke nonetheless, with her house and car dusted with ash."I had to get her tested for COVID because she's been coughing so much," she said Thursday, "but it turned...
Fabien Costeau — grandson of oceanographer Jacques Cousteau — helped design a proposed habitat named Proteus that would sit 60 feet...
Researchers have found that middle-aged individuals -- those born in the late 1960s and the 1970s -- may be in a perpetual state of H3N2 influenza virus susceptibility because their antibodies bind to H3N2 viruses but fail to prevent infections, according to a new study.
Researchers have reviewed current research into patterns of sex differences in gene expression across the genome, and highlights sampling biases in the human populations included in such studies.
Researchers have identified a possible treatment for Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD), a rare genetic disease for which there is currently no cure or treatment, by targeting an enzyme that had been considered 'undruggable.'
Measuring the temperature of objects at a nanometer-scale has been a long challenge, especially in living biological samples, because of the lack of precise and reliable nanothermometers. An international team of researchers has realized a quantum technology to probe temperature on a nanometer-scale, and have observed a 'fever' in tiny nematode worms under pharmacological treatment. This...
Researchers describe using a novel method combining cryogenic technology and direct laser light to cool the nonlinear polyatomic molecule calcium monomethoxide (CaOCH3) to just above absolute zero.
New research suggests people too often opt to send email or text messages when a phone call is more likely to produce the feelings of connectedness they crave.
A professor has a lesson in one of his mechanical engineering courses on how brittle materials like calcium carbonate behave under stress. In it, he takes a piece of chalk composed of the compound and snaps it in half to show his students the edge of one of the broken pieces. The break is blunt and straight.
An antibody test for the virus that causes COVID-19 is more accurate and can handle a much larger number of donor samples at lower overall cost than standard antibody tests currently in use. In the near term, the test can be used to accurately identify the best donors for convalescent plasma therapy and measure how well candidate vaccines and other therapies elicit an immune response.
Researchers have shown why intense, pure red colors in nature are mainly produced by pigments, instead of the structural color that produces bright blue and green hues.
UC Berkeley archaeologists have discovered that unglazed ceramic cookware can retain the residue of not just the last supper cooked, but earlier meals as well, opening a window onto gastronomic practices possibly going back millennia.
Severely ill COVID-19 patients on ventilators are placed in a prone (face down) position because it's easier for them to breathe and reduces mortality. But that life-saving position can also cause permanent nerve damage in these vulnerable patients, reports a new study. Scientists believe the nerve damage is the result of reduced blood flow and inflammation. Other non-COVID-19 patients on...
A team from Osaka City University, in collaboration with other international partners, has demonstrated a reliable, precise, microscope-based thermometer using quantum technology that measures the temperature fo microscopic animals. The technology detects temperature-dependent properties of quantum spins in fluorescent nanodiamonds.
Wind shear was affecting both Tropical Storm Paulette and Rene in the Atlantic Ocean on Sept. 11. Infrared imagery from NASA's Aqua satellite showed that strong southwesterly wind shear pushed against Paulette creating a wedge-shaped storm.
The US did not shut down nearly as much as the European Union, according to indicators like grocery visits, park visits, and workplace...
Researchers have shown why intense, pure red colors in nature are mainly produced by pigments, instead of the structural color that produces bright blue and green hues.
Males and females share the vast majority of their genomes. Only a sprinkling of genes, located on the so-called X and Y sex chromosomes, differ between the sexes. Nevertheless, the activities of our genes—their expression in cells and tissues—generate profound distinctions between males and females.
Lasing—the emission of a collimated light beam of light with a well-defined wavelength (color) and phase—results from a self-organization process, in which a collection of emission centers synchronizes itself to produce identical light particles (photons). A similar self-organized synchronization phenomenon can also lead to the generation of coherent vibrations—a phonon laser, where phonon...
Infrared imagery from NASA's Aqua satellite showed an elongated Tropical Storm Rene being battered by wind shear in the Central Atlantic Ocean. Tropical cyclones that appear less than round are likely being affected by wind shear or outside winds transitioning into an extra-tropical cyclone or taking on the elongated appearance of a weather front. Infrared imagery from NASA's Aqua satellite showed...
The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has shown that the world needs technology that can quickly and accurately identify invisible dangers, including harmful substances or airborne environmental pollutants. Colorimetric sensors—devices that intuitively reveal information about their environment through color changes—are an attractive option in this regard. But, for more people to benefit from these...
Ling Li has a lesson in one of his mechanical engineering courses on how brittle materials like calcium carbonate behave under stress. In it, he takes a piece of chalk composed of the compound and snaps it in half to show his students the edge of one of the broken pieces. The break is blunt and straight.
NOAA/NASA's Suomi NPP satellite captured these series of images (made into an animated GIF) showing the winds changing direction on Sep. 06, 2020 when choking clouds of brown smoke began to billow and cascade into the Pacific Ocean. (Dates displayed in lower left hand corner.) By Sep. 10, the smoke cloud had traveled over 1,300 miles. The square miles of smoke in the image below totals 963,269....
The discovery was heartbreaking for biologists, who consider the mountain lions of Southern California to be among the most threatened mammals in North America: a young male with the distortions of inbreeding—a tail kinked like the letter "L" and only one descended testicle.
Despite the importance of changes in root architecture to exploit local nutrient patches, mechanisms integrating external nutrient signals into the root developmental program remain poorly understood. "Here, we show for the first time that local ammonium supply stimulates the accumulation of auxin in the root vasculature and promotes auxin diffusion and lateral root formation to build a highly...
Galapagos tourist guides are being retrained to catalog the islands' famous biodiversity.
Researchers working on the Seeds of Discovery (SeeD) initiative, which aims to facilitate the effective use of genetic diversity of maize and wheat, have genetically characterized 79,191 samples of wheat from the germplasm banks of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA).
An international team of researchers led by biologists from Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf (HHU) has examined how seed formation is coordinated with fruit growth. In the latest edition of the journal Current Biology, they explain the genetic control mechanisms underlying the process.
Last month was the second-worst August on record for deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon, according to official figures released Friday, sparking new criticism of far-right President Jair Bolsonaro's environmental policies.
The news: An international consortium of medical experts has introduced the first official standards for clinical trials that involve artificial intelligence. The move comes at a time when hype around medical AI is at a peak, with inflated and unverified claims about the effectiveness of certain tools threatening to undermine people’s trust in AI overall. What it means: Announced in...
The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has shown how important it is to have tools that can rapidly diagnose viral infectious diseases. Aside from the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which has currently taken the spotlight, the zika, dengue, and chikungunya viruses have also become major threats to human health in many parts of the world, particularly in tropical countries. All three viruses are transmitted by...