152 articles from MONDAY 21.11.2022

Hubble views a billowing cosmic cloud

A small, dense cloud of gas and dust called CB 130-3 blots out the center of this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. CB 130-3 is an object known as a dense core, a compact agglomeration of gas and dust. This particular dense core is in the constellation Serpens and seems to billow across a field of background stars.

Nitrogen deposition promotes tree growth and drives photosynthate allocation into wood in temperate and boreal forests

Human activities have greatly increased reactive nitrogen (N) emissions to the atmosphere, resulting in an increasing global atmospheric nitrogen deposition. Existing stimulated nitrogen deposition experiments are carried out mostly in forests with low background nitrogen deposition, whose treatment durations are often short. In China, nitrogen deposition levels have remained steady in the last...

A path to faster and more cost-effective drug development

Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) have published research in Molecular Pharmaceutics predicting how proteins interact in drug development. The research is a collaboration between Amgen and the University of Michigan–Ann Arbor. In the paper, researchers use a mathematical model to predict the viscosity of solutions of proteins to be used as drugs. This is critical in drug...

Early disinterest in school snowballs into academic, social problems

The first years of school are pivotal because academic habits are unformed and peer relationships are fluid. A national assessment has shown troubling setbacks in both math and reading. A Florida Atlantic University study last year suggests that students who are not interested in academics when they begin school, struggle to find their footing, academically and socially.

'SharkGuard' reduces bycatch of endangered sharks, sea trials show

For sharks living in the open ocean, longline fishing is the number-one threat, with an estimated 20 million pelagic sharks caught annually by fishers looking for tuna and other desired species. Now, a new studyshows that a new technology, known as 'SharkGuard,' could allow longline fishing to continue while reversing the dramatic decline of endangered sharks around the world.

Arctic carbon conveyor belt discovered

Every year, the cross-shelf transport of carbon-rich particles from the Barents and Kara Seas could bind up to 3.6 million metric tons of CO2 in the Arctic deep sea for millennia. In this region alone, a previously unknown transport route uses the biological carbon pump and ocean currents to absorb atmospheric CO2 on the scale of Iceland's total annual emissions, as researchers report.

Measuring organ development

Organs in the human body have complex networks of fluid-filled tubes and loops. They come in different shapes and their three-dimensional structures are differently connected to each other, depending on the organ. During the development of an embryo, organs develop their shape and tissue architecture out of a simple group of cells. Due to a lack of concepts and tools, it is challenging to...

Short gamma-ray bursts traced farther into distant universe

Astronomers have developed the most extensive inventory to date of the galaxies where short gamma-ray bursts (SGRBs) originate. Using several highly sensitive instruments and sophisticated galaxy modeling, the researchers pinpointed the galactic homes of 84 SGRBs and probed the characteristics of 69 of the identified host galaxies.

The phenotypic costs of animal captivity

Animals bred in captivity can experience significant changes to their bodies, behavior and health, which affects their chances of survival when they're released into the wild, a new review from The Australian National University (ANU) has shown.

It's time-out for leap seconds

Meeting in Versailles, France, on Friday, the Bureau International des Poids et Mesures (BIPM) has called time-out on "leap seconds"—the little jumps occasionally added to clocks running on Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), to keep them in sync with Earth's rotation.

New hope for novel therapies has emerged from computational models

In the war between good and evil, I was there seeking to design powerful selfish strategies for investigating the defense mechanisms of cooperators. Surprisingly, the results serve a different domain of science. It gave me the hope to develop novel therapies using selfish strains as traitors betray their original species in favor of us. They commit treason inside cancer and microbial pathogen...

Exploring the deep: Drones offer new ways to monitor sea floor

Measuring the position and topography of the Earth's crust is critical for understanding earthquake risk. Now, researchers led by the Institute of Industrial Science, The University of Tokyo have developed a novel method for monitoring the position of the seafloor with a drone-based observation device that could revolutionize oceanographic observation.

Charged porphyrins: The key to investigating the properties of stacked ion pairs

Ions are created when an atom or molecule either loses or gains electrons, thus gaining a charge. When two oppositely charged ions are combined, it can lead to the creation of an ion pair. The influence of different ion pairs on the physical properties of the material they are present in has been widely studied as it can lead to the creation of new functional electronic materials.

New study on school pedagogy: Announcements of performance tests promote learning success

To this day, there is a debate about whether performance tests in schools ought to be announced. A new study conducted under the direction of Prof. em. Dr. Ludwig Haag (University of Bayreuth) and Prof. Dr. Thomas Götz (University of Vienna) has come to the conclusion that the practice of not announcing performance assessments increases students' anxiety, reduces their enjoyment of learning, and...

Ice Age temperatures and precipitation reconstructed from earthworm granules

Scientists from an international research project led by Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) have applied a new method to reconstruct past climate. As they report in the current issue of Communications Earth & Environment, they have determined temperatures and precipitation during the last Ice Age, which peaked about 25,000 years ago, by analyzing earthworm granules.

'SharkGuard' reduces bycatch of endangered sharks, sea trials show

For sharks living in the open ocean, longline fishing is the number-one threat, with an estimated 20 million pelagic sharks caught annually by fishers looking for tuna and other desired species. Now, a new study reported in Current Biology on November 21 shows that a new technology, known as SharkGuard, could allow longline fishing to continue while reversing the dramatic decline of endangered...

Connectivity of 3D structures in tissues provides metrics for organ development

Organs in the human body have complex networks of fluid-filled tubes and loops. They come in different shapes, and their three-dimensional structures are differently connected to each other, depending on the organ. During the development of an embryo, organs develop their shape and tissue architecture out of a simple group of cells. It has been challenging to understand how shape and the complex...

Arctic carbon conveyor belt discovered

Every year, the cross-shelf transport of carbon-rich particles from the Barents and Kara Seas could bind up to 3.6 million metric tons of CO2 in the Arctic deep sea for millennia. In this region alone, a previously unknown transport route uses the biological carbon pump and ocean currents to absorb atmospheric CO2 on the scale of Iceland's total annual emissions, as researchers from the Alfred...