162 articles from TUESDAY 17.1.2023

How did Dimorphos form?

The otherwise unremarkable double asteroid of Didymos and Dimorphos made headlines as the target of NASA's successful Double Asteroid Redirect Test (DART) mission. With new details about the system emerging, astronomers have put together a hypothesis of how this strange double asteroid came to be.

Andrew Bridgen’s Covid vaccine tweets could harm public health | Letter

We need a high booster uptake of Covid and flu vaccines, writes Dr Simon Williams; the fewer anti-vax messages the better It is wholly appropriate that Andrew Bridgen lost the Tory whip after comparing the use of Covid vaccines to the Holocaust (Report, 11 January). As well as being unethical and offensive, his comments are potentially harmful to public health and public trust in vaccines. It is...

Will the airline industry ever steer away from gender conformity?

Despite attempts by the airline industry to cultivate more diverse working environments, researchers from Surrey have found that gendered practices and pressures still persist—with female cabin crew encountering precise expectations on appearance that are not extended to their male counterparts.

Nanoparticles make it easier to turn light into solvated electrons

There are many ways to initiate chemical reactions in liquids, but placing free electrons directly into water, ammonia and other liquid solutions is especially attractive for green chemistry because solvated electrons are inherently clean, leaving behind no side products after they react.

World's oldest runestone found in Norway

Norwegian archaeologists believe they have found the world's oldest runestone inscribed almost 2,000 years ago, making it several hundred centuries older than previous discoveries, they announced on Tuesday.

Study shows clever birds need caring parents

Brains are key organs because they make sense of the world and help us successfully navigate through our lives. While all animals have brains, some species have rather large brains relatively to their body size—and this is very beneficial. A large brain gives species much more flexibility to deal with everyday problems and helps them make better decisions or find innovative solutions. However,...

New optical method to verify topological phases in magnetic materials

Topological phases are not restricted to electronic systems. They can also occur in magnetic materials whose properties are described in terms of magnetic waves—or so-called magnons. However, even though scientists have established techniques to generate and read out magnon currents, they have so far been unable to directly ascertain a magnon topological phase.

Understanding complex systems like the brain by analyzing the hidden geometry of their networks

A study published in Nature Communications and directed by Professor Carlo Vittorio Cannistraci, Director of the Center for Complex Network Intelligence (CCNI) at the Tsinghua Laboratory of Brain and Intelligence, proposes a fast algorithm to measure the relation between the variables space of an interconnected complex system, its geometry and its navigability, revealing how this can enhance our...

Blood stem cells found to not be in charge in an emergency

As long as we are healthy, our body keeps the number of blood and immune cells largely constant. However, any infection or other disorder that increases cell consumption results in cell loss, which must be replaced as quickly as possible to keep the immune system fully functional.

Study on pesticide toxicity in Germany calls for action

Pesticide risks in Germany have shown notable trends over the last 25 years, as a study of environmental scientists from the RPTU Kaiserslautern-Landau has recently found out. The risk for terrestrial vertebrates has decreased, whereas the risk for fish, terrestrial plants and soil organisms has increased. For other organism groups, the risk trends are inconclusive. These findings are of...