157 articles from TUESDAY 10.5.2022

Exposing liars by distraction

It is well documented that lying during interviews takes up more cognitive energy than telling the truth.  A new study found that investigators who used this finding to their advantage by asking a suspect to carry out an additional, secondary, task while being questioned were more likely to expose lie tellers. The extra brain power needed to concentrate on a secondary task (other than lying) was...

What makes some creatures more afraid of change than others?

Humans are undoubtedly altering the natural environment. But how wild animals respond to these changes is complex and unclear. In a new study published today, scientists have discovered significant differences in how the brain works in two distinct personality types: those who act fearless and those who seem afraid of new things. Being fearless can help wildlife, specifically birds, find new food...

Wildlife: What makes some animals more afraid of change than others?

Humans are undoubtedly altering the natural environment. But how wild animals respond to these changes is complex and unclear. Scientists have now discovered significant differences in how the brain works in two distinct personality types: those who act fearless and those who seem afraid of new things. Being fearless can help wildlife, specifically birds, find new food sources, explore new nesting...

There are reasons girls don't study physics, and they don't include not liking math

"From my own knowledge of these things, physics is not something that girls tend to fancy. They don't want to do it … There's a lot of hard math in there that I think that they would rather not do," Katharine Birbalsingh, chair of the U.K. government's Social Mobility Commission and a secondary school head teacher, told the Commons Science and Technology Committee on April 27 2022.

The role of changing dietary habits in mitigating global warming

When we think of tools to achieve climate goals such as limiting the average temperature increase to 1.5 degrees above that of the pre-industrial age, most of us visualize wind turbines, solar panels and electric cars. Even the climate policy models currently in use, the so-called Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs), which aim to borrow and combine insights from climate science, engineering, and...

Scientists show reduced heavy metal toxicity in goldfish using hard water

When industrial effluents containing high levels of heavy metals are discharged into fish bodies, they pose a serious threat to aquatic ecosystems. One such heavy metal, zinc, is required by organisms in miniscule amounts, but if it accumulates in higher concentrations, zinc can trigger oxidative stress in the fish body. This causes metabolic, physiological, and cellular damage, including protein...

New report highlights issues surrounding the future of the care economy.

As society continues to emerge from COVID-19 into a recovery economy, questions about the future of care also emerge. In Canada, the pandemic revealed existing problems with the care economy such as the poor conditions in long-term care homes and the dearth of affordable and high-quality early childhood education as well as the low pay and poor working care workers face on a daily basis.  

Photosynthesis unaffected by increasing carbon dioxide channels in plant membranes

Modifying photosynthesis has increasingly been a research target to improve crop yields to feed a growing global population in the face of climate change and other environmental factors. In a recent study, published in the Journal of Experimental Botany, a team from the Australian National University (ANU) investigated the effects of increasing the number of carbon dioxide channels in plant...

Engineers develop fast and accurate COVID-19 sensor

Engineers at Johns Hopkins University, supported in part by the U.S. National Science Foundation, have developed a COVID-19 sensor that addresses the limitations of the two most widely used types of COVID-19 tests: PCR tests that require sample preparation, and the less accurate rapid antigen tests.

Cells take out the trash before they divide

Researchers have discovered that before cells start to divide, they toss waste products. Using a new method they developed for measuring the dry mass of cells, the researchers found cells suddenly lose mass as they enter cell division.

Scientists advance renewable hydrogen production method

Perovskite materials may hold the potential to play an important role in a process to produce hydrogen in a renewable manner, according to a recent analysis. Hydrogen has emerged as an important carrier to store energy generated by renewable resources, as a substitute for fossil fuels used for transportation, in the production of ammonia, and for other industrial applications.