363 articles from THURSDAY 4.2.2021

Fractals can help AI learn to see more clearly—or at least more fairly

Most image-recognition systems are trained using large databases that contain millions of photos of everyday objects, from snakes to shakes to shoes. With repeated exposure, AIs learn to tell one type of object from another. Now researchers in Japan have shown that AIs can start learning to recognize everyday objects by being “pretrained” first on computer-generated fractals. The approach...

Surface effect of electrodes revealed by operando surface science methodology

Surface and interface play critical roles in energy storage devices, thus calling for in-situ/operando methods to probe the electrified surface/interface. However, the commonly used in-situ/operando characterization techniques such as X-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray spectroscopy and topography, and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) are based on the structural,...

Imaging the first moments of a body plan emerging in the embryo

Egg cells start out as round blobs. After fertilization, they begin transforming into people, dogs, fish, or other animals by orienting head to tail, back to belly, and left to right. Exactly what sets these body orientation directions has been guessed at but not seen. Now researchers at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) have imaged the very beginning of this cellular rearrangement, and their...

Imaging technique provides link to innovative products

When we think about the links to the future—the global transition to solar and wind energy, tactile virtual reality or synthetic neurons—there's no shortage of big ideas. It's the materials to execute the big ideas—the ability to manufacture the lithium-ion batteries, opto-electronics and hydrogen fuel cells—that stand between concept and reality.

The strange impact of the first consumer review

If you're about to buy something online and its only customer review is negative, you'd probably reconsider the purchase, right? It turns out a product's first review can have an outsized effect on the item's future—it can even cause the product to fail.

Mysterious organic scum boosts chemical reaction efficiency, may reduce chemical waste

Chemical manufacturers frequently use toxic solvents such as alcohols and benzene to make products like pharmaceuticals and plastics. Researchers are examining a previously overlooked and misunderstood phenomenon in the chemical reactions used to make these products. This discovery brings a new fundamental understanding of catalytic chemistry and a steppingstone to practical applications that...

Switching nanolight on and off

A team of researchers led by Columbia University has developed a unique platform to program a layered crystal, producing imaging capabilities beyond common limits on demand.

In symbiosis: Plants control the genetics of microbes

Researchers from the University of Ottawa have discovered that plants may be able to control the genetics of their intimate root symbionts—the organism with which they live in symbiosis—thereby providing a better understanding of their growth.

An optical coating like no other

For more than a century, optical coatings have been used to better reflect certain wavelengths of light from lenses and other devices or, conversely, to better transmit certain wavelengths through them. For example, the coatings on tinted eyeglasses reflect, or "block out," harmful blue light and ultraviolet rays.

NASA Awards Launch Services Contract for SPHEREx Astrophysics Mission

Portal origin URL: NASA Awards Launch Services Contract for SPHEREx Astrophysics MissionPortal origin nid: 468084Published: Thursday, February 4, 2021 - 16:21Featured (stick to top of list): noPortal text teaser: NASA has selected Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) of Hawthorne, California, to provide launch services for the Spectro-Photometer for the History of the...

Edge of Space: The Science of AIM

Portal origin URL: Edge of Space: The Science of AIMPortal origin nid: 348922Published: Thursday, February 4, 2021 - 15:15Featured (stick to top of list): noPortal text teaser: Over the course of its two-year mission, AIM will help answer these questions by documenting for the first time the entire complex life cycle of these clouds.Portal image: Artist's concept of...

Molecule from nature provides fully recyclable polymers

Plastics are among the most successful materials of modern times. However, they also create a huge waste problem. Scientists from the University of Groningen (The Netherlands) and the East China University of Science and Technology (ECUST) in Shanghai produced different polymers from lipoic acid, a natural molecule. These polymers are easily depolymerized under mild conditions. Some 87 percent of...

Ultimately, beneficial fungi could be more effective than pesticides against nematodes

Over the past 30 years, the use of soil fumigants and nematicides used to protect cole crops, such as broccoli and Brussel sprouts, against cyst nematode pathogens in coastal California fields has decreased dramatically. A survey of field samples in 2016 indicated the nematode population has also decreased, suggesting the existence of a natural cyst nematode controlling process in these fields.

Scientists find a way to accelerate DNA surface hybridization

Scientists globally aim to control chemical reactions—an ambitious goal that requires identifying the steps taken by initial reactants to arrive at the final products as the reaction takes place. While this dream remains to be realized, techniques for probing chemical reactions have become sufficiently advanced to render it possible. In fact, chemical reactions can now be monitored based on the...

Molecule from nature provides fully recyclable polymers

Plastics are among the most successful materials of modern times. However, they also create a huge waste problem. Scientists produced different polymers from lipoic acid, a natural molecule. These polymers are easily depolymerized under mild conditions. Some 87 percent of the monomers can be recovered in their pure form and re-used to make new polymers of virgin quality.

Social interactions after isolation may counteract cravings

Social interaction may help reverse food and cigarette cravings triggered by being in social isolation, a study in rats has found. The study used an animal model of drug addiction to show that a return to social interaction gives the same result as living in a rich, stimulating environment in reducing cravings for both sugar and nicotine rewards.