287 articles from WEDNESDAY 2.12.2020

Supernova surprise creates elemental mystery

Michigan State University (MSU) researchers have discovered that one of the most important reactions in the universe can get a huge and unexpected boost inside exploding stars known as supernovae.

New Yorkers believe pandemic will persist, but express hope in wake of election

As COVID-19 surges nationwide, 78% of New York City residents believe it is likely or very likely the city will again experience a resurgence of cases similar to that seen last April. However, the November Presidential election appears to have triggered an optimism among New Yorkers: more than half feel "more hopeful" about the country's economic recovery (55%) and the government's ability to...

Climate change as a catalyst in Greater Cahokia

Water and air are highly mutable resources that exist in a myriad of physical states and dimensions, and due to their affectivity, these entities participate in a multitude of interactions capable of sustaining life, transforming environments, and shaping human behavior. As air and water circulate between the atmosphere and the landscape through the process of evapotranspiration, humans interact...

A combined strategy in catalyst design for Suzuki cross-couplings

The Suzuki cross-coupling reaction is a widely used technique for combining organic compounds and synthesizing complex chemicals for industrial or pharmaceutical applications. The process requires the use of palladium (Pd) catalysts and, as of today, two main types of Pd-based materials are used in practice as heterogeneous catalysts.

New platform generates hybrid light-matter excitations in highly charged graphene

Graphene, an atomically thin carbon layer through which electrons can travel virtually unimpeded, has been extensively studied since its first successful isolation more than 15 years ago. Among its many unique properties is the ability to support highly confined electromagnetic waves coupled to oscillations of electronic charge—plasmon polaritons—that have potentially broad applications in...

Flightless birds more common globally before human-driven extinctions

There would be at least four times as many flightless bird species on Earth today if it were not for human influences, finds a study led by UCL researchers.The study, published in Science Advances, finds that flightlessness evolved much more frequently among birds than would be expected if you only looked at current species.

African trade routes sketched out by mediaeval beads

The chemical composition of glass beads and their morphological characteristics can reveal where they come from. Archaeologists from the University of Geneva analyzed glass beads found at rural sites in Mali and Senegal from between the 7th and 13th centuries AD. The scientists demonstrate that the glass they are made of probably came from Egypt, the Levantine coast and the Middle East. The...

The making of mysterious mazes: How animals got their complex colorations

Why do leopards have spots and zebras have stripes? Many biologists have tried to answer these questions and have provided interesting hypotheses, including camouflage, thermoregulation, and insect repellent. But how did animals get these skin patterns? It is still difficult to answer this question. Evolutionary mechanisms underlying the diversity of animal colorations, especially complex and...

Piers Corbyn found guilty of breaching regulations at lockdown protest

Brother of former Labour leader spoke at May event in London’s Hyde Park Piers Corbyn, the brother of the former Labour party leader, has been found guilty of breaching emergency health regulations at an anti-lockdown protest in London’s Hyde Park.During the two-day trial in Westminster magistrates court, the 73-year-old weather forecaster and climate change denier argued that his rights to...

The Guardian view on a vaccination programme: keep politics out of it | Editorial

There is a job of public reassurance ahead that will be made harder if partisanship and ministerial grandstanding get in the wayCoronavirus – latest updatesSee all our coronavirus coverageWhen the history of the pandemic is written, the tragic cost will be balanced with stories of human ingenuity and resilience. The speed with which effective vaccines have been developed will feature prominently...

'The scientists have done it': Boris Johnson hails Covid vaccine

PM says news brings ‘sure and certain knowledge’ that people can reclaim their livesCoronavirus – latest updatesSee all our coronavirus coverageBoris Johnson has declared that the nation is no longer resting on the hope of a return to normality by spring but instead has the “certain knowledge” that people can reclaim their lives, as he hailed the arrival of the newly approved Covid-19...

Astronauts Harvest First Radish Crop on International Space Station

Portal origin URL: Astronauts Harvest First Radish Crop on International Space StationPortal origin nid: 466645Published: Wednesday, December 2, 2020 - 13:13Featured (stick to top of list): noPortal text teaser: Astronauts Harvest First Radish Crop on International Space Station.Portal image: NASA astronaut and Expedition 64 Flight Engineer Kate Rubins checks out...

Making the workplace safer with innovative covid-19-fighting solutions

As businesses of all sizes welcome a fearful and anxious workforce back to the office, they are simultaneously challenged with ensuring a safe work environment. The stark reality facing business owners still navigating the covid-19 pandemic is the diligence required to limit infectious spread.  Corporations are taking note: plexiglass barriers, clearly marked walkways, and hand-sanitizing...

Ozone breaks down THC deposited on surfaces from thirdhand cannabis smoke

Second- and thirdhand tobacco smoke have received lots of attention, but much less is known about the compounds deposited on surfaces from cannabis smoke. Now, researchers reporting in ACS' Environmental Science & Technology have discovered that ozone—a component of outdoor and indoor air—can react with tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the psychoactive component of cannabis, on glass or cotton...

Greenland ice sheet faces irreversible melting

In a study published this week in The Cryosphere, researchers from the National Centre for Atmospheric Science and University of Reading demonstrate how climate change could lead to irreversible sea level rise as temperatures continue to rise and the Greenland ice sheet continues to decline.

Plant-inspired alkaloids protect rice, kiwi and citrus from harmful bacteria

Plants get bacterial infections, just as humans do. When food crops and trees are infected, their yield and quality can suffer. Although some compounds have been developed to protect plants, few of them work on a wide variety of crops, and bacteria are developing resistance. Now, researchers reporting in ACS' Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry have modified natural plant alkaloids into new...

No face, no service

Facial recognition technology is being deployed in housing projects, homeless shelters, schools, even across entire cities—usually without much fanfare or discussion. To some, this represents a critical technology for helping vulnerable communities gain access to social services. For others, it’s a flagrant invasion of privacy and human dignity. In this episode, we speak to the…

Researchers determine how the SARS-CoV-2 virus hijacks and rapidly causes damage to human lung cells

In a multi-group collaborative involving the National Emerging Infectious Disease Laboratories (NEIDL), the Center for Regenerative Medicine (CReM), and the Center for Network Systems Biology (CNSB), scientists have reported the first map of the molecular responses of human lung cells to infection by SARS-CoV-2. By combining bioengineered human alveolar cells with sophisticated, highly precise...

An archaeological project analyzes informal commerce in the colonial Caribbean

The historical archaeologist Konrad A. Antczak, a Marie Skłodowska-Curie researcher with the UPF Department of Humanities and member of the Research Group on Colonialism, Gender and Materialities (CGyM), has recently returned from archaeological fieldwork in the Dutch islands of Curaçao and Bonaire, in the southern Caribbean. He has conducted excavations in this region locating a camp with a...

Researchers develop new class of plant nanobionic sensor to monitor arsenic levels in soil

Scientists from Disruptive & Sustainable Technologies for Agricultural Precision (DiSTAP), an Interdisciplinary Research Group (IRG) at the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART), MIT's research enterprise in Singapore, have engineered a novel type of plant nanobionic optical sensor that can detect and monitor, in real-time, levels of the highly toxic heavy metal arsenic in the...

Carbon dioxide converted to ethylene—the 'rice of the industry'

In recent times, electrochemical conversion (e-chemical) technology—which converts carbon dioxide to high-value-added compounds using renewable electricity—has gained research attention as a carbon capture utilization (CCU) technology. This green carbon resource technology employs electrochemical reactions using carbon dioxide and water as the only feedstock chemical to synthesize various...

A machine learning solution for designing materials with desired optical properties

Understanding how matter interacts with light—its optical properties—is critical in a myriad of energy and biomedical technologies, such as targeted drug delivery, quantum dots, fuel combustion, and cracking of biomass. But calculating these properties is computationally intensive, and the inverse problem—designing a structure with desired optical properties—is even harder.

Electronic waste on the decline, new study finds

A new study, led by a researcher at the Yale School of the Environment's Center for Industrial Ecology and published recently in the Journal of Industrial Ecology, has found that the total mass of electronic waste generated by Americans has been declining since 2015. In an age when most of us can't imagine life without our digital devices, this surprising finding has ramifications for both how we...

Protein molecules in cells function as miniature antennas

Researchers led by Josef Lazar of the Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry of the Czech Academy of Sciences (IOCB Prague) have demonstrated that molecules of fluorescent proteins act as antennas with optical properties (i.e. the ability to absorb and emit light) dependent on their spatial orientation. First discovered in jellyfish, fluorescent proteins are nowadays widely used in...