93 articles from FRIDAY 26.11.2021

How warm weather or bright lights can influence tree greening

Lin Meng has been named the grand prize winner of this year's Science & SciLifeLab Prize for Young Scientists for research she conducted on how both global warming and bright city lights can impact phenology in trees (when they begin to grow leaves in the spring). In her paper published in the journal Science, Meng outlines her study of satellite data showing green areas in cities along with...

US to restrict travel from southern Africa over Omicron Covid variant fears

WHO names variant found in Belgium and Israel Omicron White House adviser Fauci: no indication variant is in USBioNTech says vaccine can be tweaked in 100 days if neededJoe Biden’s chief medical adviser, Anthony Fauci, said on Friday there was “no indication” the new “Omicron” coronavirus variant discovered in southern Africa had reached the US.Nonetheless, the the Biden administration...

Researchers hope to breed Great Barrier Reef corals more resilient to extreme heat events – video

Researchers from the Australian Institute of Marine Science are hoping to breed corals that are more resilient to extreme heat events. The researchers collected hundreds of coral samples from the northern part of the Great Barrier Reef that have survived three mass bleaching events since 2016. The samples have to be collected before they spawn which occurs only once a year, several days after a...

COVID-19: The coronavirus's tangled strands of RNA could offer new ways to treat people who get infected

To the untrained eye, the loops, kinks and folds in the single strand of RNA that makes up the coronavirus genome look like a jumble of spaghetti or tangled yarn. But to researchers like Amanda Hargrove, a chemistry professor at Duke University, the complex shapes that RNA takes on as it folds upon itself could have untapped therapeutic potential in the fight against COVID-19.

The Guardian view on the Omicron variant: caution needed | Editorial

We do not yet know how much of a threat it poses, but the pandemic has already shown it is better to act earlyCoronavirus – latest updatesSee all our coronavirus coverageHearts are sinking. Many had hoped the worst of the pandemic was over, enjoying a return to quasi-normality despite warnings that this winter could prove punishing. Now Covid cases are surging across Europe; rates are rising in...

Researchers reconstruct historical non-growing-season precipitation in southeastern Tibetan Plateau

A joint research team led by researchers from the Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography (XIEG) and the Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences (RCEES) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has reconstructed the historical non-growing-season (from November of the previous year to February of the current year) precipitation in the southeastern Tibetan Plateau using tree rings.

Scientists fling model stars at a virtual black hole to see who survives

Watch as eight stars skirt a black hole 1 million times the mass of the Sun in these supercomputer simulations. As they approach, all are stretched and deformed by the black hole's gravity. Some are completely pulled apart into a long stream of gas, a cataclysmic phenomenon called a tidal disruption event. Others are only partially disrupted, retaining some of their mass and returning to their...

Study finds a growing appreciation of the benefits provided by hoofed animals

The benefits to humans most commonly associated with wild ungulates—such as deer, hippos, wild boar, or giraffes—are hunting (and the food-source it represents for many communities) and their aesthetic value. This is one of the conclusions of a scientific literature review led by researchers from the Ecology Area of the Miguel Hernández University of Elche (MHU), in which scientists from the...

Quantifying phosphorus needs of smallholder farms in tropical regions

Smallholder farms in tropical regions can double their crop production by 2030 compared to 2015, finds a study to which José Mogollón (Institute of Environmental Sciences) contributed. But to achieve this, the farmers must increase the input of phosphorus beyond what is currently foreseen. The study is published in Nature Sustainability.