Order up! AI finds the right material
Engineers are always looking for materials with very specific properties for their projects. Unfortunately, there are way too many options for researchers to simply guess-and-check until they find what they're looking for. Even if they were to simulate materials, instead of testing them in the lab, it would take far too long to find a suitable material.
Those funky cheese smells allow microbes to 'talk' to and feed each other
Researchers at Tufts University have found that those distinctly funky smells from cheese are one way that fungi communicate with bacteria, and what they are saying has a lot to do with the delicious variety of flavors that cheese has to offer. The research team found that common bacteria essential to ripening cheese can sense and respond to compounds produced by fungi in the rind and released...
Enzymatic DNA synthesis sees the light
According to current estimates, the amount of data produced by humans and machines is rising at an exponential rate, with the digital universe doubling in size every two years. Very likely, the magnetic and optical data-storage systems at our disposal won't be able to archive this fast-growing volume of digital 1s and 0s anymore at some point. Plus, they cannot safely store data for more than a...
Deep-sea corals reveal secrets of rapid carbon dioxide increase as the last ice age ended
The Southern Ocean played a critical role in the rapid atmospheric carbon dioxide increase during the last deglaciation that took place 20,000 to 10,000 years ago, according to a new report by Boston College geochemist Xingchen (Tony) Wang and an international team in the online edition of Science Advances.
Groundbreaking discovery finally proves rain really can move mountains
A pioneering technique that captures precisely how mountains bend to the will of raindrops has helped to solve a long-standing scientific enigma.
Fats fighting back against bacteria
Droplets of fat inside our cells are helping the body's own defence system fight back against infection, University of Queensland researchers have discovered.
A controllable membrane to pull carbon dioxide out of exhaust streams
A new system developed by chemical engineers at MIT could provide a way of continuously removing carbon dioxide from a stream of waste gases, or even from the air. The key component is an electrochemically assisted membrane whose permeability to gas can be switched on and off at will, using no moving parts and relatively little energy.
Arctic Ocean sediments reveal permafrost thawing during past climate warming
Sea floor sediments of the Arctic Ocean can help scientists understand how permafrost responds to climate warming. A multidisciplinary team from Stockholm University has found evidence of past permafrost thawing during climate warming events at the end of the last ice age. Their findings, published in Science Advances, caution about what could happen in the near future: That Arctic warming by only...
In specially coated tubes, the more viscous a liquid is, the faster it flows
It's widely known that thick, viscous liquids—like honey—flow more slowly than low-viscosity liquids, like water. Researchers were surprised to find this behavior flipped on its head when the liquids flow through chemically coated capillaries. In fact, through these specially coated tubes, liquids a thousand times more viscous flow ten times faster.
Scientists develop model to identify best lentils for climate change impacts
With demand for lentils growing globally and climate change driving temperatures higher, a University of Saskatchewan-led international research team has developed a model for predicting which varieties of the pulse crop are most likely to thrive in new production environments.
Study finds that red maples were more productive in an environment with more urbanization
A team of researchers have examined whether urban red maples—a resilient native tree known to thrive in urban environments—acclimate to environmental shifts and whether that response is impacted by the size of the city.
Calcium bursts kill drug-resistant tumor cells
Multidrug resistance (MDR)—a process in which tumors become resistant to multiple medicines—is the main cause of failure of cancer chemotherapy. Tumor cells often acquire MDR by boosting their production of proteins that pump drugs out of the cell, rendering the chemotherapies ineffective. Now, researchers reporting in ACS' Nano Letters have developed nanoparticles that release bursts of...
Justice for all: How race and American identity may affect politics
Allegiance and loyalty to your country is highly valued in America, but what if you feel America doesn't love you back? New research examined whether feeling like you belong in America—or not—affected how members of different races and ethnicities participated in politics.
NASA supercomputing study breaks ground for tree mapping, carbon research
Scientists from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and international collaborators demonstrated a new method for mapping the location and size of trees growing outside of forests, discovering billions of trees in arid and semi-arid regions and laying the groundwork for more accurate global measurement of carbon storage on land.
New species of the listeria genus discovered and baptised
It is estimated that only 1% of bacteria are pathogenic for humans or animals. Among them, the bacterial genus Listeria has been widely studied as it contains two species, Listeria monocytogenes and Listeria ivanovii, which are pathogenic, causing the disease known as listeriosis. Until now, the genus Listeria consisted of a total of 20 species. Researchers from the CEU Cardenal Herrera University...
Microbial biomass change shifts the role of iron oxides in organic C mineralization in anoxic paddy soil
In paddy fields, water management creates long-term anaerobic conditions in which soil organic carbon (SOC) mineralisation is largely coupled with redox processes. Iron oxides are one of the main minerals in paddy soils, and over 80% of soil anaerobic respiration depends on iron reduction.
Why scooping an asteroid sample is harder than it looks
When NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft descends toward the surface of Bennu on Oct. 20, it will be the first time that a U.S.-led mission attempts to pick up a sample of pristine material from an asteroid. Bennu is likely an extraterrestrial accumulation of the original leftovers from the formation of our solar system.
Natural nanodiamonds in oceanic rocks
Natural diamonds can form through low pressure and temperature geological processes on Earth, as stated in an article published in the journal Geochemical Perspectives Letters. The newfound mechanism, far from the classic view on the formation of diamonds under ultra-high pressure, is confirmed in the study, which draws on the participation of experts from the Mineral Resources Research Group of...
More than 200 million Americans could have toxic PFAS in their drinking water
A peer-reviewed study by scientists at the Environmental Working Group estimates that more than 200 million Americans could have the toxic fluorinated chemicals known as PFAS in their drinking water at a concentration of 1 part per trillion, or ppt, or higher. Independent scientific studies have recommended a safe level for PFAS in drinking water of 1 ppt, a standard that is endorsed by EWG.
A study analyzes the ergonomic relationship between hand and Lower Paleolithic tools
Emiliano Bruner, a paleoneurologist at the Centro Nacional de Investigación sobre la Evolución Humana (CENIEH), has coordinated a study published recently in the journal Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences, on the ergonomic relationship between hand and Lower Paleolithic stone tools, in particular for choppers and handaxes.
How is STEM children's programming prioritizing diversity?
Children's television programming not only shapes opinions and preferences, its characters can have positive or negative impacts on childhood aspiration, says a new study from Michigan State University.
Two planets found orbiting a red dwarf
Red dwarfs are the coolest kind of star. As such, they potentially allow liquid water to exist on planets that are quite close to them. In the search for habitable worlds beyond the borders of our solar system, this is a big advantage: the distance between an exoplanet and its star is a crucial factor for its detection. The closer the two are, the higher the chance that astronomers can detect the...
World's greatest mass extinction triggered switch to warm-bloodedness
Mammals and birds today are warm-blooded, and this is often taken as the reason for their great success.
Gel instrumental in 3-D bioprinting biological tissues
The eventual creation of replacement biological parts requires fully three-dimensional capabilities that two-dimensional and three-dimensional thin-film bioprinting cannot supply. Now, using a yield stress gel, Penn State engineers can place tiny aggregates of cells exactly where they want to build the complex shapes that will be necessary to replace bone, cartilage and other tissues.
Explaining teamwork in male lions
Animal cooperation typically involves sharing crucial resources—and the rules of sharing get complicated, especially when males are involved.