3,703 articles mezi dny 1.8.2022 a 31.8.2022

Treating antibiotic-resistant infections with peptides inspired by human saliva

Antibiotic resistance is a problem that impacts tens of millions of people each year worldwide. According to the CDC, "more than 2.8 million antibiotic-resistant infections occur in the United States each year, and more than 35,000 people die as a result." Drug-resistant infections are threatening advances in surgery, wound healing, cancer treatment, organ transplants and many other areas of...

American River Basin Study finds increasing temperatures will impact basin through rest of 21st century

The American River Basin in central California expects to see increasing temperatures and a declining snowpack through the end of the 21st century. The Bureau of Reclamation released the American River Basin Study today, which also found an increased variability of fall and winter precipitation that will amplify the severity of droughts and flooding in the basin. The report is available on...

Engineering atomic antennas for quantum sensing

Jennifer Choy makes atom-size antennas. They bear no resemblance to the telescoping rod that transmits pop hits through a portable stereo. But functionally, they're similar. They're quantum sensors, picking up tiny electromagnetic signals and relaying them in a way we can measure.

What you know changes how you see things

Researchers have gained important insight into how the human brain processes an object in the visual system and where in the brain this processing takes place. The study shows people perceive objects differently depending on their prior knowledge and experience with that object.

The story of evolution written in phosphorus

Phosphorus is one of the elements that is crucial for the construction of organisms and their metabolism. Its cycle across the environments is also one of the best understood. However, it occurred to the Czech paleontologists Peter Kraft and Michal Mergl that there could still be some white spaces on the map of our understanding of such a fundamental process. Their publication, which takes a new...

Developing coating materials that could make windows better insulators

A French-Japanese research collaboration has fabricated metal nanocomposite coatings that improve the insulating properties of window glasses. The new coating prevents a significant portion of near-infrared (NIR) and ultraviolet rays (UV) from passing through, while at the same time admitting visible light. The findings were reported in the journal Science and Technology of Advanced Materials.

Nasa’s Moxie instrument successfully makes oxygen on Mars

Researchers hope scaled-up version could one day generate oxygen to sustain humans on MarsAn instrument the size of a lunchbox has been successfully generating breathable oxygen on Mars, doing the work of a small tree.Since February last year the Mars oxygen in-situ resource utilisation experiment, or Moxie, has been successfully making oxygen from the red planet’s carbon dioxide-rich...

Old drugs hint at new ways to beat chronic pain

A new study points to possible new treatments for chronic pain with a surprising link to lung cancer. Findings of the research, conducted in laboratory mouse models, open up multiple therapeutic opportunities that could allow the world to improve chronic pain management and eclipse the opioid epidemic.

Short breaks can help boost energy at work, study suggests

Romanian research shows ‘micro-breaks’ of up to 10 minutes may help to reduce fatigueIt may not be long enough to pop to the shops or head out for a run, but taking a work break of less than 10 minutes could still boost wellbeing, research suggests.The team behind the analysis say “micro-breaks” appear to reduce fatigue and help workers feel more vigorous. Continue...

Researchers take aim at cancer drugs’ toxic side effects

The patient was a success story, his advanced melanoma erased by a popular new cancer treatment. Known as immune checkpoint inhibitors, the drugs coax the immune system to seek and destroy cancer cells—and in this case, they “worked beautifully,” says Kerry Reynolds, an oncologist at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) who helped care for the man. But about a month after...

New classification of the world's coastlines to improve climate action

A new classification of the world's coastlines has been released to improve coastal climate change adaptation at the local, regional and national level and strengthen coordinated climate action worldwide. The classification builds on the Coastal Hazard Wheel that is a universal coastal management framework and is developed by the Coastal Hazard Wheel initiative involving Deltares, the UN...

The power to change is a key driver for sustainable pension saving

Individuals who actively choose to save for retirement via so-called sustainable funds are not only driven by values of equality, justice and the environment. They also have a tendency to prioritize authority, and attach less importance to wealth. This is shown by a new study from the University of Gothenburg.

Novel technology to improve the high permselectivity and anti-biofouling properties of RO membranes

Reverse osmosis (RO) has attracted wide attention for its extensive applicability in brackish water and seawater desalination. Thin-film composite (TFC) polyamide (PA) RO membranes consisting of a dense separating layer and a porous support layer have been the leading products of this field. However, relatively low permeability-selectivity of PA RO membrane and membrane fouling of TFC RO membrane...

Marine Protected Areas in Antarctica should include young emperor penguins, scientists say

Scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and European research institutions are calling for better protections for juvenile emperor penguins, as the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service considers listing the species under the Endangered Species Act and the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) considers expanding the network of Marine...

Harnessing the power of saffron color for food and future therapeutics

Saffron is the world's most expensive spice. Usually obtained from the stigma of Crocus sativa flowers, it takes 150,000–200,000 flowers to produce one kilogram of saffron. Now, KAUST researchers have found a way to use a common garden plant to produce saffron's active ingredient, a compound with important therapeutic and food industry applications.

Four minutes of small talk can reveal key personality traits, study says

Exchanging pleasantries can leave lasting impression and affect future social interactions, research suggestsThe British may be mocked for their weather-related small talk but exchanging idle pleasantries can leave a lasting impression and affect future social interactions, research suggests.The study found just four minutes of chit-chat can give away aspects of our personality, such as whether we...

'Micro-breaks' from tasks show promise in boosting well-being

A review of 22 previously published studies suggests that taking micro-breaks—discontinuing a task for periods of 10 minutes or less—is generally associated with reduced fatigue and increased vigor. Patricia Albulescu of the West University of Timioara, Romania, and colleagues present these findings in the open-access journal PLOS ONE on August 31, 2022.

Corals can pass mutations acquired during their lifetimes to offspring

In a discovery that challenges over a century of evolutionary conventional wisdom, corals have been shown to pass somatic mutations—changes to the DNA sequence that occur in non-reproductive cells—to their offspring. The finding, by an international team of scientists led by Penn State biologists, demonstrates a potential new route for the generation of genetic diversity, which is the raw...

Push, pull or swirl: The many movements of cilia

Cilia are tiny, hair-like structures on cells throughout our bodies that serve a variety of functions including clearing our airways, circulating cerebrospinal fluid in our brains and transporting eggs in fallopian tubes. While researchers understand their function, they do not fully understand how they generate the specialized motions to carry out those functions.

Webb's first full-color images, data are set to sound

There's a new, immersive way to explore some of the first full-color infrared images and data from NASA's JWST—through sound. Listeners can enter the complex soundscape of the Cosmic Cliffs in the Carina Nebula, explore the contrasting tones of two images that depict the Southern Ring Nebula, and identify the individual data points in a transmission spectrum of hot gas giant exoplanet WASP-96 b.

UK downgrades Covid-19 alert level amid falling cases

Chief medical officers said the wave of Omicron variants was ‘subsiding’, although ‘further surges are likely’The UK’s Covid-19 alert level has been downgraded to level 2, meaning the virus is in “general circulation” but healthcare pressures and transmission are “declining or stable”.The chief medical officers of the UK nations and the national medical director of the NHS in...