174 articles from WEDNESDAY 15.6.2022

Dead Star Caught Ripping Up Planetary System

Portal origin URL: Dead Star Caught Ripping Up Planetary SystemPortal origin nid: 480650Published: Wednesday, June 15, 2022 - 17:15Featured (stick to top of list): noPortal text teaser: Both rocky and icy bodies were identified among the debris on the surface of a white dwarf starPortal image: Bright white dwarf star at center of the image, a disk of dust and rocks...

Giving metal to microbes could reduce greenhouse gas

Like you and me, microbes need some metals in their diet to stay healthy. The metals help the microbes fully "digest" food. After a good meal, the microbes that gain energy by chemically reducing nitrate release a harmless byproduct: nitrogen, the gas that makes up 78% of Earth's atmosphere.

Deadly heatwaves threaten economies too

More frequent and intense heatwaves are the most deadly form of extreme weather made worse by global warming, with death tolls sometimes in the thousands, but they can also have devastating economic impacts too, experts say.

NASA’s ECOSTRESS Sees Las Vegas Streets Turn Up the Heat

Portal origin URL: NASA’s ECOSTRESS Sees Las Vegas Streets Turn Up the HeatPortal origin nid: 480720Published: Wednesday, June 15, 2022 - 16:49Featured (stick to top of list): noPortal text teaser: An instrument on the space station documented how built and natural surfaces responded to record heat in Las Vegas.Portal image: NASA’s ECOSTRESS instrument recorded...

The signals that make cells self-destruct

Most human hearts look nearly identical—muscle cells in the same places, blood vessel structures in the same orientations. Organs such as hearts or stomachs look alike and function the same across individual organisms in a species because cells follow rigorous processes during development that get them precisely where they need to go.

Diffuse optics for medical diagnostics: Progress toward standardization

Among the various optics-based tools used in diagnostics, diffuse optics (DO) is rapidly emerging as one of the most attractive technologies. The technique is based on analyzing how light is absorbed and scattered by biological tissues, which relates to the tissue chemical composition and structure. One of the key advantages of DO is that it is non-invasive (it uses low-power near-infrared light)....

NASA’s Chandra Catches Pulsar in X-ray Speed Trap

Portal origin URL: NASA’s Chandra Catches Pulsar in X-ray Speed TrapPortal origin nid: 480699Published: Wednesday, June 15, 2022 - 16:00Featured (stick to top of list): noPortal text teaser: A young pulsar is blazing through the Milky Way at a speed of over a million miles per hour. This stellar speedster, witnessed by NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, is one of the...

Co-existing mangrove-coral habitats have a new global classification system

On any given day between 2016 and 2019, Heather Stewart could be found snorkeling in between mangroves in the Bocas del Toro archipelago along Panama's Caribbean coast. For years she visited these forests at the interface between land and sea, trying to understand what drove corals to grow inside them. Corals and mangroves often grow near each other in tropical coastal environments, but finding...

Trade the chair for fresh air: Sitting time and cardio health

New research is adding further weight to the argument that prolonged sitting may be hazardous to your health. An international study surveying more than 100,000 individuals in 21 countries found that people who sat for six to eight hours a day had a 12-13 per cent increased risk for early death and heart disease, while those who sat for more than eight hours daily increased that to a sobering 20...

Quantum electrodynamics tested 100 times more accurately than ever

Using a newly developed technique, scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics (MPIK) in Heidelberg have measured the very small difference in the magnetic properties of two isotopes of highly charged neon in an ion trap with previously inaccessible accuracy. Comparison with equally extremely precise theoretical calculations of this difference allows a record-level test of quantum...

Research shows that weekly markets in Catalonia are a space for creativity and diversity

As part of the European project Moving Marketplaces, the postdoctoral researcher Maria Lindmäe, a member of the Culture and Socio-Ecological Dynamics Research Group (CaSEs) of the Universitat Pompeu Fabra—Barcelona (UPF) Department of Humanities, is the author of an article that investigates the soundscape of different weekly markets in Catalonia. In the study, the author examines the acoustic...