158 articles from MONDAY 1.8.2022

Surprise climate bill will meet ambitious goal of 40% cut in U.S. emissions, energy models predict

For climate advocates in the United States, the past month felt like a roller coaster. In early July, negotiations in Congress on clean energy legislation of historic proportions collapsed, and the effort seemed doomed. But backroom talks continued and last week key senators suddenly announced an agreement on a $369 billion bill that would provide the most climate funding...

Study finds cable news networks have grown more polarized

Even though it seems that Americans are constantly on their phones, studies have shown that the majority of Americans still get their news from television. At the beginning of 2020, the average American adult consumed around nine-and-a-half hours of television news per week, according to Nielsen.

AI can reveal new cell biology just by looking at images

Humans are good at looking at images and finding patterns or making comparisons. Look at a collection of dog photos, for example, and you can sort them by color, by ear size, by face shape, and so on. But could you compare them quantitatively? And perhaps more intriguingly, could a machine extract meaningful information from images that humans can't?

Signaling 'stressed-out' plants

As plants experience multiple stressors from heat, drought and flooding because of extreme weather events, a plant scientist recently discovered a new way of measuring whether they are stressed out.

Research finds mechanically driven chemistry accelerates reactions in explosives

Scientists at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) Energetic Materials Center and Purdue University Materials Engineering Department have used simulations performed on the LLNL supercomputer Quartz to uncover a general mechanism that accelerates chemistry in detonating explosives critical to managing the nation's nuclear stockpile. Their research is featured in the July 15 issue of...

What's new under the sun? Offering an alternate view on how 'novel' structures evolve

New research provide evidence that the crustacean carapace, along with other plate-like structures in arthropods (crustaceans, insects, arachnids, and myriapods) all evolved from a lateral leg lobe in a common ancestor more than 500 million years ago. This work further supports their proposal for a new concept of how novel structures evolve -- one which suggests that they aren't so novel, after...

Climate endgame: risk of human extinction ‘dangerously underexplored’

Scientists say there are ample reasons to suspect global heating could lead to catastropheThe risk of global societal collapse or human extinction has been “dangerously underexplored”, climate scientists have warned in an analysis.They call such a catastrophe the “climate endgame”. Though it had a small chance of occurring, given the uncertainties in future emissions and the climate...

Legacy of ancient ice ages shapes how seagrasses respond to environmental threats today

Deep evolution casts a longer shadow than previously thought, scientists report in a new paper published the week of Aug. 1 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Smithsonian scientists and colleagues looked at eelgrass communities—the foundation of many coastal marine food webs along the north Atlantic and Pacific coasts—and discovered their ancient genetic history can play a...

Automating neutron experiments with AI

Oak Ridge National Laboratory researchers are developing a first-of-its-kind artificial intelligence device for neutron scattering called Hyperspectral Computed Tomography, or HyperCT. The fully automated, AI-driven platform can rotate a sample in almost any direction, eliminating the need for human intervention and significantly reducing lengthy experiment times.

Fires increase in Brazilian Amazon in July

The number of forest fires in the Brazilian Amazon increased by eight percent last month compared with July 2021, according to official figures released Monday, the latest alarm bell for the world's biggest rainforest.

The many versions of a female scientist

Depictions of women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) are powerful sources of inspiration for young women who aspire to a career in those fields. But stereotypes of female scientists persist, and we have some way to go to vanquish them, say the authors of a new paper.

Advancing dynamic brain imaging with AI

New research introduces a novel, AI-based dynamic brain imaging technology alternative which could map out rapidly changing electrical activity in the brain with high speed, high resolution, and low cost.

Using iPSCs, researchers create cells that represent the airways of cystic fibrosis patients

Cystic fibrosis (CF) is caused by a mutation of the CFTR gene. While there are many hundreds of known mutations, not all of them are currently treatable which means a significant number of CF patients lack targeted therapies. In an effort to identify new treatments for these patients, researchers from Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) set out to use blood cells from individuals with CF...

New dog food? Study shows Fido's gut bacteria could turn over within a week

When a dog starts a new diet, the community of microbes in its gut changes. Wallflower bacteria multiply to dominate the scene, with the old guard slinking off in defeat. As microbial species jostle for control, their metabolic byproducts, many of which are critical for Fido's overall health, change as well. The dynamic dance between nutrients, microbes, and their chemical products is well...

Scientists uncover mechanism that shapes centromere distribution

Since the 1800s, scientists have observed the configuration of centromeres -- a special chromosomal region that is vital during certain types of cell division -- in the nucleus. Up until this point, however, the determining mechanisms and the biological significance of centromere distribution were poorly understood. A team has recently proposed a two-step regulatory mechanism that shapes...

Fewer people tried to quit smoking during COVID-19 pandemic, study shows

A new study shows serious smoking cessation activity declined among adults in the United States immediately after the onset of COVID-19 and persisted for over a year. Declines in attempts to quit smoking were largest among persons experiencing disproportionately negative outcomes during COVID-19, including Black people, people with comorbidities, middle-aged people, and lower educated people.

Nickelate superconductors are intrinsically magnetic

Scientists embedded elementary particles called muons into a many-layered nickel oxide superconductor to learn more about its magnetic properties. They discovered that waves of flip-flopping electron spins create magnetic excitations that sweep through the nickel layer of the compound whether it's superconducting or not. This is in sharp contrast to what happens in the best-known family of...

US hails ‘Antipodean Adventure’ and Australia silent as second spy satellite set to launch from New Zealand

Some in space industry bewildered by Australia’s lack of fanfare about the launch of the satellites, which will be used to collect intelligence for allied nationsGet our free news app, morning email briefing and daily news podcastA second spy satellite built by Australia and the United States is scheduled for liftoff on Tuesday from a launch site in New Zealand.The first of the two satellites,...