153 articles from TUESDAY 24.8.2021

Understanding Antarctic ice historic changes could reveal future changes

The Antarctic Ice Sheet, Earth's southern polar ice sheet, has grown and receded and grown again over millions of years. This changing mass influences the planet's climate and sea levels, with historic data recorded in sediment, meltwater and surrounding oceans. However, the remote and difficult nature of the sheet leaves researchers with limited access to collect samples and data that may reveal...

Rise of the robo-drama: Young Vic creates new play using artificial intelligence

Inspired by a Guardian article, the theatre’s surreal and spellbinding show AI is a collaboration between humans and the system GPT-3Last autumn, a deep-learning computer programme wrote an essay for the Guardian. The GPT-3 system argued that humans had nothing to fear from robots. Kwame Kwei-Armah, artistic director of the Young Vic, read it and felt inspired. Could there be a future in...

Cosmic rays may be key to understanding galactic dynamics

Cosmic rays are charged subnuclear particles that move close to the speed of light, constantly raining down on the Earth. These particles are relativistic, as defined by Albert Einstein's special relativity, and manage to generate a magnetic field that controls the way they move within the galaxy.

Geneticists map the rhinoceros family tree

There's been an age-old question going back to Darwin's time about the relationships among the world's five living rhinoceros species. One reason answers have been hard to come by is that most rhinos went extinct before the Pleistocene. Now, researchers reporting in the journal Cell on August 24 have helped to fill the gaps in the rhino evolutionary family tree by analyzing genomes of all five...

Women leaders less likely than men to receive support following major terrorist attacks

After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, U.S. President George W. Bush's approval ratings shot up from near 50 percent to over 80 percent. High-profile, international terrorist attacks typically produce this effect, which political scientists call a "rally 'round the flag"—constituents increase their support for incumbent presidents and prime ministers when their country is met with a serious national...

Helping engineers better predict clay landslides

Norway experiences dangerous landslides due to its clay-rich soil. For her Master's thesis in civil engineering at EPFL, Mathilde Metral outlined steps that the country's geotechnical engineers can take to improve the predictive computer model they're currently developing.

Age-related decline in two sirtuin enzymes alters mitochondrial dynamics, weakens cardiac contractions

The potential protective effect of sirtuin enzymes in age-related diseases, including cardiovascular diseases, remains an area of intense investigation. Now, researchers has determined that sirtuin 1 (SIRT1) and sirtuin 3 (SIRT3) levels decline in aging hearts, disrupting the ability of cardiac muscle cells (cardiomyocytes) to contract in response to ischemia-reperfusion injury.

Food claiming to have 'wild mushrooms' rarely does, study finds

Harvesting wild mushrooms requires an expert eye to distinguish between the delicious and the poisonous, which makes products with truly wild mushrooms expensive. However, due to minimal regulations around the harvest and sale of wild fungi, it's nearly impossible to know what mushroom species are included in the product. A new study used DNA barcoding to show that 16 food products labeled with...

Viruses leave traces long after infection, research finds

Viruses do not always kill the cells they infect. Researchers have discovered in experiments with mice that cells have the power to self-heal and eliminate viruses. However, these cells undergo long-term changes. The findings may provide a hint as to why cured hepatitis C patients are more susceptible to liver cancer for years after.

How adolescents used drugs during the COVID-19 pandemic

Among adolescents ages 10 to 14 in the U.S, the overall rate of drug use remained relatively stable in the first six months of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, one change was a decreased use of alcohol, but an increased use of nicotine and misuse of prescription drugs.

In situ extraction and detection of DNA using nanopores

Being able to detect DNA from a single cell is important for the detection of diseases and genetic disorders. Measuring single DNA molecules has been possible for some time; however, directly detecting samples at the point of extraction with no need for subsequent steps has not. Now, researchers at SANKEN, Osaka University have demonstrated a method of releasing DNA at the point of measurement....

With a focus on deterrence, the first police force was a success

The world's first professional police force, The London Metropolitan Police, deterred crime and brought a significant reduction in violent crimes when it was introduced nearly 200 years ago. By using historical data, a new economics study examines the relationship between policing and crime levels.

One Year Out: NASA’s Psyche Mission Moves Closer to Launch

Portal origin URL: One Year Out: NASA’s Psyche Mission Moves Closer to Launch Portal origin nid: 473463Published: Tuesday, August 24, 2021 - 10:33Featured (stick to top of list): noPortal text teaser: As part of NASA’s Discovery Program, the mission to explore a metal-rich asteroid is well on its way to an August 2022 launch.Portal image: NASA’s Psyche...

I’m Supposed To Be in a Wedding. Will I Risk Bringing COVID-19 Home to My Kids?

Welcome to COVID Questions, TIME’s advice column. We’re trying to make living through the pandemic a little easier, with expert-backed answers to your toughest coronavirus-related dilemmas. While we can’t and don’t offer medical advice—those questions should go to your doctor—we hope this column will help you sort through this stressful and confusing time. Got...

Male Y chromosome facilitates the evolution of sex differences in body size

Females and males differ in many ways and yet they share the same genome. The only exception is the male Y chromosome. Using beetles as a study system, new research from Uppsala University, now published in Nature Ecology & Evolution, shows that despite the Y chromosome containing very few genes, it can dramatically change male body size and thus facilitate the evolution of sex differences.