117 articles from TUESDAY 7.9.2021

Research delves into role of turkeys to Ancestral Pueblo peoples

Research recently published by adjunct assistant professor Cyler Conrad from the Department of Archaeology at The University of New Mexico examines the importance of turkeys to the Ancestral Pueblo people and how they have managed the birds for more than 1,600 years. Evidence of turkeys and various methods of enclosing them is evident in the ancient pueblos all over New Mexico and surrounding...

New data gained on double perovskite oxides

The Journal of Alloys and Compounds has published an article coauthored by the Institute of Solid State Chemistry and Mechanochemistry (the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences), the Donostia International Physics Centre, and the HSE Tikhonov Moscow Institute of Electronics and Mathematics on the characteristics of cubic double perovskite oxides. To date, experimental measurements of the...

Natural archive reveals Atlantic tempests through time

Atlantic hurricanes don't just come and go. They leave clues to their passage through the landscape that last centuries or more. Rice University scientists are using these natural archives to find signs of storms hundreds of years before satellites allowed us to watch them in real time.

Coyotes studied as stand-ins for endangered ferrets

By testing easier-to-study coyotes, researchers from the Cornell Wildlife Health Lab at the College of Veterinary Medicine, in collaboration with the Cheyenne River Sioux tribe, have identified a range of lethal diseases threatening black-footed ferrets—one of the most endangered animals in North America.

New powerful laser passes field test

A powerful experimental laser developed by the European Southern Observatory (ESO), TOPTICA Projects and other industry partners passed a key test last month at the Allgaeuer Volkssternwarte Ottobeuren observatory in Germany. The adaptive-optics laser has important additional capabilities compared to existing systems. It is to be installed at the European Space Agency's (ESA) Optical Ground...

Scientists develop AI to predict the success of startup companies

A study in which machine-learning models were trained to assess over 1 million companies has shown that artificial intelligence (AI) can accurately determine whether a startup firm will fail or become successful. The outcome is a tool, Venhound, that has the potential to help investors identify the next unicorn.

Scientists simulate step in hepatitis B viral infection to help develop therapies targeted at capsid disassembly

With up to 2.4 million U.S. cases and over 250 million chronic cases globally, hepatitis B infection persists despite the availability of a vaccine. Vaccines work by immunizing the body against a virus to prevent infection; however, there is no cure for individuals who do become infected (for example, at birth). Hepatitis B infection can lead to liver damage and even cancer, posing a threat to...

Educational workshops may bolster women's empowerment

Researchers at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health and the University of Ibadan, Nigeria, led a randomized control trial in Ibadan, Nigeria, to evaluate educational programs to empower women by working with couples in three critical areas: Spousal relations, and financial and reproductive decision-making.

Viruses, even alien ones, are delicate things | Letter

The Sars-CoV-2 virus cannot keep going beyond about two metres from its host, writes Martin Yuille Prof Paul Davies’s headline-grabbing proposal of an invasion by alien viruses (Viruses may exist ‘elsewhere in the universe’, warns scientist, 6 September) may well raise a scientific eyebrow or two.We can be confident that living cells emerged before viruses (on any planet) because viruses...

Freshwater ecosystems at risk due to glyphosate use

A series of recent research papers from a McGill-led team has found that the herbicide glyphosate—commonly sold under the label Roundup—can alter the structure of natural freshwater bacterial and zooplankton communities. Notably, the researchers found that for zooplankton, aquatic concentrations of 0.1 mg/L glyphosate were sufficient to cause diversity loss.

Making catalytic surfaces more active to help decarbonize fuels and chemicals

Electrochemical reactions that are accelerated using catalysts lie at the heart of many processes for making and using fuels, chemicals, and materials—including storing electricity from renewable energy sources in chemical bonds, an important capability for decarbonizing transportation fuels. Now, research at MIT could open the door to ways of making certain catalysts more active, and thus...

Evidence for how a key transcription factor manages access to DNA

CTCF is a transcription factor that has been a research target due to its role in regulating a critical oncogene called MYC. Scientists at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital have found direct evidence that CTCF governs chromatin accessibility, the process of opening tightly spooled DNA so that genes can be expressed. The findings were published in Genome Biology.

Simple creation of a super multi-element catalyst homogeneously containing 14 elements

A joint research group has successfully developed a "nanoporous super multi-element catalyst" that contains 14 elements which are mixed uniformly at the atomic level and used as a catalyst. This catalyst was found to show excellent properties as an electrode material for water electrolysis due to the multi-element superposition effect (cocktail effect). The researchers are expecting it will be...

AI-fueled software reveals accurate protein structure prediction

"The dream of predicting a protein shape just from its gene sequence is now a reality," said Paul Adams, Associate Laboratory Director for Biosciences at Berkeley Lab. For Adams and other structural biologists who study proteins, predicting their shape offers a key to understanding their function and accelerating treatments for diseases like cancer and COVID-19.