- BBC Science/Nature
- 21/11/12 22:54
Divisions remain over continuing subsidies for fossil fuels and financial help to poorer nations.
110 articles from FRIDAY 12.11.2021
Divisions remain over continuing subsidies for fossil fuels and financial help to poorer nations.
Some species in Brazil have shrunk by nearly 10% over 40 years of measurements, say researchersBirds in the Amazon are becoming smaller but growing longer wings, a study has found, with scientists saying global heating is the most likely explanation.Several recent papers have reported birds getting smaller, but as their subjects were migratory birds there were many confounding factors that could...
MIT biologists have answered an important biological question: Why do cells control their size?
The most pristine parts of the Amazon rainforest devoid of direct human contact are being impacted by human-induced climate change, according to new research by LSU scientists. New analyses of data collected over the past four decades show that not only has the number of sensitive resident birds throughout the Amazon rainforest declined, but the body size and wing length have changed for most...
Researchers show how borophene, the 2D form of boron, can be grown to simplify its use for applications.
In a new study designed to better understand and combat these structures, scientists identified some of the key proteins in biofilms of the fungus Candida albicans that control both how they resist antifungal drugs and how they become dispersed throughout the body.
By merging two or more sources of light, interferometers create interference patterns that can provide remarkably detailed information about everything they illuminate, from a tiny flaw on a mirror, to the dispersion of pollutants in the atmosphere, to gravitational patterns in far reaches of the Universe.
Borophene may be done tantalizing materials scientists and start serving their ambitions, if a new approach by Rice University researchers can be turned into practice.
Testing rationality of decision-making and choice by evaluating the mathematical property of transitivity has a long tradition in biology, economics, psychology, and zoology. However, this paradigm is fraught with conceptual, mathematical, and statistical pitfalls. A new article published in The Quarterly Review of Biology provides a tutorial review for animal scientists in testing whether animal...
With commitments to restore more than 47.5 million hectares of degraded land and forests by 2030, the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia and India hope to become exemplar land custodians. While commitments ending deforestation are critical to obtaining that image—Indonesia is one of the world's poster children for forest loss—even a full halt to natural landscape destruction is only part of the...
Panel of 200 scientists tells Cop26 Indigenous people, business, governments and scientists must collaborateCop26 – latest updatesThe world’s approach to the Amazon rainforest must be transformed to avoid an irreversible, catastrophic tipping point, according to the most comprehensive study of the region ever carried out.More than 200 scientists collaborated on the new report, which finds that...
The microbes that make us sick often have ways to evade our attacks against them. Perhaps chief among these strategies is a sticky, armor-like goo, called the biofilm matrix, that encases clusters of disease-causing organisms.
In one of the mysteries of mammalian development, every cell in the early female embryo shuts down one of its two copies of the X chromosome, leaving just one functional. For years, the mechanics behind this X chromosome inactivation have been murky, but scientists from the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research at UCLA have now taken a major step forward in...
Crop and varietal diversity are critically important for global food and nutrition security, as well as the livelihoods of millions of people, especially those living in marginal areas. This diversity includes many different crop species and farmer varieties, many of which have been cultivated and safeguarded by farmers and indigenous peoples for millennia on their farms. Each one contains unique...
The changes made at COP26 in Glasgow could have implications for the way we live.
Clotting problems and resulting complications are common in COVID-19 patients. Researchers have now shown that a member of the anticoagulant group of drugs not only has a beneficial effect on survival of COVID-19 patients, but also influences the duration of active infection with the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus.
Even though most COVID-19 cases come from exposure to airborne coronavirus, a new study points to the importance of surfaces as a reservoir of risk in nursing homes -- especially certain objects close to the beds of patients who have COVID-19.
Green hydrogen production from solar water splitting has attracted a great deal of interest in recent years because hydrogen is a fuel of high energy density. A research team discovered the quantum confinement effect in a photocatalyst of a 3D-ordered macroporous structure. The quantum confinement effect was found to enable hydrogen production under visible light. The findings offer an option for...
U.S. government attorneys will appear before a federal judge Friday to defend a decision from the waning days of the Trump administration that lifted protections for gray wolves across most of the country, as Republican-led states have sought to drive down wolf numbers through aggressive hunting and trapping.
Researchers probing the gut -- 'the inner tube of life' -- have for the first time discovered specific factors in its workings that in the future may help improve treatment for patients facing gut damage or gastrointestinal disease.
Daily record keeping was introduced during World War One in the British Expeditionary Forces (BEF), designed to record the bare minimum of facts. However, soldiers were also able to express the trauma and chaos of war.
Here's the recipe to decontaminate a disposable facemask: Heat it at 160 degrees Fahrenheit in an oven for five minutes. You can use your own oven.
New York City ZIP codes with a higher percentage of Black residents had significantly higher rates of COVID-19-specific criminal court summonses and public health and nuisance arrests in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a new study by Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. Pandemic policing also mirrored the discretionary nature of the New York stop-and-frisk...
The reduction of harmful ground-level ozone across most of the U.S. over the past several decades has been an air pollution success story. But in some parts of the country, especially in the heavily populated mountain valleys of the West, the odorless, colorless gas has remained stubbornly difficult to reduce to safe levels.
Scientists have engineered bacteria that can detect specific molecules in the gut.
A team of researchers has developed a new technique to open the blood-brain barrier temporarily to deliver medication to the brain. Getting medication past the brain's unique and protective blood vessels, known as the blood-brain barrier, is one of the biggest challenges in treating brain and central nervous system diseases, according to researchers. The technique uses light and nanoparticles to...
A team has developed a digital tool to better monitor a condition known as Barrett's esophagus, which affects more than 3 million people in the United States. Barrett's occurs when the mucosal lining of the lower esophagus deteriorates, altering its cellular structure, and is most common in those with chronic acid reflux.
Imagine a world in which smart packaging for supermarket ready meals updates you in real-time to tell you about carbon footprints, gives live warnings on product recalls, and instant safety alerts because allergens were detected unexpectedly in the factory. But how much extra energy would be used powering such a system? And what if an accidental alert meant you were told to throw away your food...
When you have become immune to malaria after having contracted the disease, it seems that the body uses a more efficient protection than if you have been vaccinated against the deadly disease. The researchers believe the new findings may be used to improve existing malaria vaccines.
Grand global commitments to plant trees to fight climate change are welcome. Healthy landscapes that suck planet-heating carbon out of the atmosphere—locking it into forests and soils—are among the best technologies there are yet to bend the Keeling Curve in a new direction. Tree planting is no alternative to ending the burning of fossil fuels, but along with zero deforestation, restoration...
That feeling in your gut? Well, it's in your head, but some of it does truly start in the gastrointestinal tract.
As the United Nations climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland, enters its final day Friday, global leaders can point to signs of real progress. But the Earth is still headed for a dangerous level of warming.
In the weeks leading up to COP26, the U.N. climate conference now in its final hours in Glasgow, youth climate activists consistently expressed dismay at the lack of progress decarbonizing the global economy. Negotiators from countries around the world seemed poised to rebuff the youth demands for a dramatic intervention to avert the worst of climate change, and, in doing so, condemn them to...
A space object with an intimidating name—"earthgrazer"—zoomed over Georgia and Alabama this week, offering witnesses a glimpse of something rare, NASA says.
Providing light with tailored properties through ultrafast supercontinuum generation represents an active field of nonlinear science research. A German-Australian research collaboration has presented a new concept that includes a longitudinally varying thickness nano-films in microstructured exposed core fibers. This offers low input energy, broadband and spectrally flattened spectra in the near...
Chris Talbot is in favour of compulsory vaccinations for frontline NHS staff, but Karen Jacob fears it could exacerbate a recruitment crisis. Plus letters from Brian Lawrence, Ben Ashford and Dr Simon RobertsFrances Ryan is correct in focusing on the potential risks to vulnerable patients from unvaccinated NHS staff (Mandatory Covid jabs shouldn’t be controversial – NHS staff have a duty to do...
Billionaires may spend fortunes on trying to cheat death, but there’s a much easier way, writes Paul Martinez. Plus letters from Luce Gilmore, George Baugh and Geoff ReidJohn Harris is surely right to scorn the grotesque sums being spent on “transhumanism” (If the super-rich want to live for ever our planet is truly doomed, 7 November), but not all of us can afford, or want to move into,...