- BBC Science/Nature
- 21/10/12 23:16
An image of a bursting cloud of eggs and sperm as groupers mate in the Pacific is the judges' pick.
183 articles from TUESDAY 12.10.2021
An image of a bursting cloud of eggs and sperm as groupers mate in the Pacific is the judges' pick.
Gas turbine engines in planes provide the required thrust by sucking in air, heating it to very high temperatures in a combustion chamber, and finally exhausting it at high velocities. As they operate, small inorganic particles such as volcanic ash get sucked in along with the air. These particles melt in the high-temperature zones in the combustion chamber and solidify onto the cooler zones in...
Although educational outreach programs sometimes get short shrift in academic circles in terms of prioritizing, funding and staffing, a new Texas A&M University study indicates they are a solid investment with benefits far beyond the institutional bottom line when it comes to physics.
Nine out of 10 startups fail, and even among venture-backed fledgling companies, the success rate is only about 25%. It's even tougher for women entrepreneurs, who face challenges their male counterparts don't, according to new Cornell University research.
Where do our elements come from? And how are they made? Michael Famiano's new research is flipping the script on those age-old nuclear astrophysics questions. The truth is out there—several light years away among the stars, to be exact.
E-commerce shopping has risen sharply over the last decade, and most consumers are now reading product reviews prior to making their purchase decisions. Sites like Amazon use reviews to instill shopper confidence and boost product sales, and they often highlight specific reviews that are considered especially helpful. "Top reviews" and "helpful reviews" have become very popular labels on these...
With warming climate, summer sea ice in the Arctic has been shrinking fast, and now consistently spans less than half the area it did in the early 1980s. This raises the question: It this keeps up, in the future will year-round sea ice—and the creatures who need it to survive—persist anywhere?
An international team of physicists led by researchers at Indiana University Bloomington has announced the world's most precise measurement of the neutron's lifetime.
The interior of the Earth is a mystery, especially at greater depths (> 660 km). Researchers only have seismic tomographic images of this region and, to interpret them, they need to calculate seismic (acoustic) velocities in minerals at high pressures and temperatures. With those calculations, they can create 3D velocity maps and figure out the mineralogy and temperature of the observed regions....
Researchers at the University of California San Diego conducted a broad student experience survey to learn which factors most impact student success in early computing courses, a field that has historically seen high failure rates and poor student retention. They found that lower-performing students reported higher stress levels on multiple factors—including cognitive, socio-economic, and...
Urban areas may be at greater risk for precipitation-triggered landslides than rural areas, according to a new study that could help improve landslide predictions and hazard and risk assessments.
A team of researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst has announced a major new advance in understanding how our genetic information eventually translates into functional proteins—one of the building blocks of human life. The research, recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), elucidates how chaperones display "selective promiscuity" for the...
A new study by Environmental Working Group scientists finds almost 42,000 potential sources of the toxic "forever chemicals" known as PFAS that could be polluting surface water or drinking water in communities across the U.S.
In a 14-year analysis of air quality across California, Stanford researchers observed higher levels of air pollutants within 2.5 miles of oil and gas wells, likely worsening negative health outcomes for nearby residents.
A new high-oil corn product offers greater amino acid and energy digestibility in growing pigs, according to new research from the University of Illinois.
For more than a decade, a team of University of Montana researchers and students have studied the dynamics of the Greenland Ice Sheet as it responds to a warming climate. University of Montana (UM) Department of Geosciences researchers Toby Meierbachtol and Joel Harper said water has always been central to their research.
Some aspects of military culture and lifestyle contribute to experiences of intimate partner violence and abuse (IPVA) in civilian partners of military personnel, according to a new report.
New research estimates the chances that the USS university pension scheme has enough assets to pay pensions that have been promised.
Researchers found increased concentrations of air pollutants downwind from oil and gas wells in California, likely affecting millions of Californians who live near them.
In underwater acoustics, deep learning may improve sonar systems to help detect ships and submarines in distress or in restricted waters. However, noise interference can be a challenge. Researchers now explore an attention-based deep neural network to tackle this problem. They tested two ships, comparing their results with a typical deep neural network, and found the ABNN increases its predictions...
The incredible stress parents experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic had a negative effect on the eating habits of their children, according to a new study.
Researchers believe zebrafish may provide clues to understanding how the human nervous system develops since this fish experiences new movements similarly to how babies do after birth. To understand how our nervous system enables us to move and learn new movements such as walking or swimming as we grow, researchers looked closely at the nervous system of zebrafish and built models of developing...
It's long been known that meditative mindful breathing helps with various health conditions, including pain.
Scientists have discovered a highly potent monoclonal antibody that targets the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein and is effective at neutralizing all variants of concern identified to date, including the delta variant.
The findings of a new study suggest that childhood adversity is a major contributor to early and preventable causes of mortality and a powerful determinant of long term physical and mental health. Researchers found that childhood adversity is associated with elevated risk for chronic disease including heart disease and cancer.
One of the best chances for proving beyond-the-standard-model physics relies on something called the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa (CKM) matrix. The standard model insists that the CKM matrix, which describes the mixing of quarks, should be unitary. But growing evidence suggests that during certain forms of radioactive decay, the unitarity of the CKM matrix might break.
Experiments have spotted anomalies hinting at a new type of neutrino, one that would go beyond the standard model of particle physics and perhaps open a portal to the dark sector. But no one has ever directly observed this hypothetical particle.
Early in animal evolution, complex life was mostly limited to the sea floor. But a few organisms evolved to move through the water, giving them a big competitive advantage over those left scuttling around in the mud.
Coastal regions and small ocean islands face significant risks from rising sea levels due to climate change, because waters can flood and inundate low-lying land surfaces.
Astronomers have imaged 42 of the largest objects in the asteroid belt, located between Mars and Jupiter. The observations reveal a wide range of peculiar shapes, from spherical to dog-bone, and are helping astronomers trace the origins of the asteroids in our Solar System.
Scientists report new evidence that some 5,000 years ago, a sloth smaller than a black bear roamed the forest floor of what is now the Dominican Republic in the Caribbean Sea, living a lowland life different from its cousins on the other side of the island.
The deposition of molten particles on the interior surface of jet engines can cause significant damage and degrade the performance of the engine. Now, scientists successfully simulated the solidification process of a molten droplet as it impinges on a cooler flat surface. This approach uses a mesh-less method to accurately predict the spread and the solidification of the droplet and could...
A multidisciplinary team of materials physicists and geophysicists combine theoretical predictions, simulations, and seismic tomography to find spin transition in the Earth's mantle. Their findings will improve understanding of the Earth's interior, and help elucidate the impact of this phenomenon on tectonic events including volcanic eruptions and earthquakes.
Where do our elements come from? And how are they made? New research is flipping the script on those age-old nuclear astrophysics questions. The truth is out there -- several light years away among the stars, to be exact.
Two University of Wyoming researchers have developed a machine learning model that improves the accuracy of detecting earthquakes by 14.5 percent compared to the most accurate current existing model.
A powerful 6.3-magnitude earthquake struck off the Greek island of Crete Tuesday, the Athens Observatory said, with initial media reports suggesting no one was hurt.
A new high-precision measurement of the neutron skin in doubly magic calcium-48 may help shed light on proton-neutron interactions inside nuclei. This is the first highly robust electroweak measurement of the neutron skin in a medium-weight nucleus. The results from this new measurement, made by the 48Ca Radius EXperiment (CREX) collaboration at DOE's Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator...
Blackworms (Lumbriculus variegatus) are distant relatives of rainworms, measuring up to 10 cm long. They live in shallow marshes, ponds, and swamps in Europe and North America, where they feed on microorganisms and debris. To protect themselves from drought, blackworms can aggregate as entangled, shape-shifting "blobs" composed of a few to hundreds of individuals. Just like swarms of bees, rafts...
After thousands of gallons of oil poured into the Pacific Ocean following the October 2 spill, agencies and volunteers have worked around the clock to mitigate the damage and stop the spread.