147 articles from WEDNESDAY 28.9.2022

NASA-Built Weather Sensors Capture Vital Data on Hurricane Ian

Portal origin URL: NASA-Built Weather Sensors Capture Vital Data on Hurricane Ian Portal origin nid: 483063Published: Wednesday, September 28, 2022 - 17:40Featured (stick to top of list): noPortal text teaser: A pair of microwave radiometers collected data on the storm as they passed over the Caribbean Sea aboard the International Space Station.Portal image: Hurricane...

Team designs system to create bioplastics

A team of Texas A&M AgriLife Research scientists has developed a system that uses carbon dioxide, CO2, to produce biodegradable plastics, or bioplastics, that could replace the nondegradable plastics used today. The research addresses two challenges: the accumulation of nondegradable plastics and the remediation of greenhouse gas emissions.

A bionic pancreas could solve one of the biggest challenges of diabetes

In a recent trial, a bionic pancreas that automatically delivers insulin proved more effective than pumps or injections at lowering blood glucose levels in people with type 1 diabetes. Type 1 diabetes is a serious condition that causes a person’s level of glucose, or sugar, to become too high because the pancreas can’t produce enough insulin, a hormone that keeps blood glucose under...

Two new discoveries shed light on the mystery of how cells manage stress

In new research recently published in the journal Cell Reports, a team of scientists from the University of Massachusetts Amherst delved into the mysteries of how cells weather stress. Using bacterial cells, the researchers discovered that a damage-repairing enzyme, called ClpX, can not only mutate to fix multiple cellular issues but can respond to changing levels of cellular energy to help keep a...

New study evaluates 'urban-wildland juxtapositions' of 36 US cities

For some, the great outdoors is nothing but a short walk away, while for others escaping the city is an odyssey in itself. While jogging in the wildlands surrounding Salt Lake City, Professor Jeff Rose wondered if there was a way to measure the border between undeveloped land and urban areas.

Team reports on a fungus that simultaneously combats two of the worst threats to banana plantation yields

The banana borer Cosmopolites sordidus and the disease Fusarium wilt, caused by the soil-borne fungus Fusarium oxysporum, are among the most harmful pests that threaten the livelihoods of banana growers, who face major challenges in attempting to control them. The former is a species of weevil that bores into the plant's rhizome (the underground stem that produces roots and shoots), weakening its...

Engineering robust and scalable molecular qubits

The concept of "symmetry" is essential to fundamental physics: a crucial element in everything from subatomic particles to macroscopic crystals. Accordingly, a lack of symmetry—or asymmetry—can drastically affect the properties of a given system.

Hubble detects protective shield defending a pair of dwarf galaxies

For billions of years, the Milky Way's largest satellite galaxies—the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds—have followed a perilous journey. Orbiting one another as they are pulled in toward our home galaxy, they have begun to unravel, leaving behind trails of gaseous debris. And yet—to the puzzlement of astronomers—these dwarf galaxies remain intact, with ongoing vigorous star formation.

Encouraging girls to roleplay as successful female scientists could help close the gender gap in STEM

Make-believe doesn't usually have a place in laboratory settings, but research just published in Psychological Science suggests that girls may persist longer in science activities when they pretend to be successful female scientists. This kind of play-based intervention could help close the gender gap in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields by boosting girls' early engagement...

Understanding virtual memory CD8+ T Cells

Virtual memory CD8+ T cells (TVM) are a relatively recent discovery in humans. A new review discusses what is known about them from mouse models and their cellular equivalents in humans, as described in the Journal of Interferon & Cytokine Research (JICR).

Unlocking the doors to effective COVID-19 treatments

A team of interdisciplinary researchers from the Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique (INRS) is hoping to identify effective COVID-19 therapeutics. With help from the Canadian Light Source (CLS) at the University of Saskatchewan, the team has been able to visualize the interaction between inhibitory molecules and viral proteins. This allows researchers to see if their drug designs work...

Can a focus on politicians make the EU seem more human?

Individual politicians and their messages increasingly matter for our interest and trust in politics. Think only of the political figures in your country and how they influence your opinion. But little is known how the personalization of politics works out in European Union politics. Do we find personalization of politics at the EU level and does this influence our opinion of the EU? With a wealth...

Can gold mining be more sustainable?

In a review paper recently published in the journal Land Degradation and Development, Shrabya Timsina and Nora Hardy focused on the effects of surface gold mining in tropical regions, a growing environmental concern in recent years. According to a 2012 study, mining accounts for 7% of deforestation in developing nations and large-scale and artisanal, small-scale gold mining techniques such as...

'Optical magic': New flat glass enables optimal visual quality for augmented reality goggles

As anyone who has recently tried out an augmented reality headset knows, the technology is not yet ready to be part of our everyday lives. Researchers have been working to perfect high-performing augmented reality (AR) glasses, but there are a number of challenges. One major problem with conventional AR glasses is that there is a tradeoff in terms of quality and brightness between the external...

Potential first traces of the universe's earliest stars

The very first stars likely formed when the universe was only 100 million years old, less than one percent its current age. These first stars—known as Population III—were so titanically massive that when they ended their lives as supernovae they tore themselves apart, seeding interstellar space with a distinctive blend of heavy elements. Despite decades of diligent searching by astronomers,...

When dangerous toxins teach fundamental biology

"What our work shows is how a complex in the center of the cell, the ER-Golgi interaction region, controls plasma membrane cholesterol, which is essential for many cellular functions, if not essential for multicellular life," says Professor Gisou van der Goot at EPFL's School of Life Sciences. Her group, working with the group of Giovanni D'Angelo at EPFL, has published a study in Developmental...

Compostable bioleather offers sustainable solutions for the clothing industry and beyond

Since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, clothing production has been on an unsustainable path. Like most manufacturing, textiles are produced in a linear fashion with a cradle-to-grave model. Fabrics like cotton are farmed, worn, used, then thrown away. The textile industry as a whole is responsible for 10% of global carbon emissions, with leather being especially harmful.

Ruff day? Dogs can detect if people are stressed, research finds

Study finds stress response changes people’s ‘odour profile’ – which dogs can sniff outWhether it’s a tricky maths problem or an unexpected bill, daily life is full of stressful experiences. Now researchers have found that humans produce a different odour when under pressure – and dogs can sniff it out.While previous studies have suggested canines might pick up on human emotions,...

Covid might have changed people’s personalities, study suggests

Younger adults became more prone to stress and less trusting, say US researchersThe impact of the Covid pandemic may have been so deep that it altered people’s personalities, according to research.Previously psychologists have failed to find a link between collective stressful events, such as earthquakes or hurricanes, and personality change. However, something about the losses experienced or...

Dogs can smell when we're stressed, study suggests

The physiological processes associated with an acute psychological stress response produce changes in human breath and sweat that dogs can detect with an accuracy of 93.75%, according to a new study published this week in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Clara Wilson of Queen's University Belfast, U.K., and colleagues.

Studying for SATs? Strategic self-control may beat pure willpower

In two surveys of nearly 20,000 high schoolers, students who reported using at least one self-control strategy—such as turning off their phone—tended to spend more time practicing for the SAT and had higher SAT scores than students who relied purely on willpower. Chayce Baldwin of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Angela Duckworth of the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, and...

Brazilian soybean growers' use of biofertilizer examined

Using biofertilizer on 80% of their planted area, Brazilian soybean growers are enjoying the environmental and economic benefits of employing the microbiome instead of chemical fertilizers. The microbiome is the community of fungi, bacteria and other microorganisms in a given environment. In farming, it provides the nutrients required by crops and boosts yields. Its use has many economic and...