179 articles from TUESDAY 31.1.2023

New telescope project completion in sight

The construction of the Fred Young Submillimeter Telescope (FYST) being developed by CCAT Observatory Inc., an international consortium of universities led by Cornell, is drawing to a close.

Researchers uncover the diversity of viroids and viroid-like agents

A team of researchers from the National Library of Medicine (NLM) and collaborating academic research institutions have developed a computational pipeline to identify and better understand viroids and viroid-like covalently closed circular RNAs (cccRNAs, also referred to simply as circular RNAs). This is a type of single-stranded RNA, which unlike linear RNA, forms a covalently closed, continuous...

Postdocs need raises. But who will foot the bill?

Postdocs—the Ph.D.s who do much of the labor of science—are notoriously underpaid. But the problem has intensified over the past year as postdocs struggle to get by amid soaring inflation and professors report problems recruiting Ph.D. graduates to fill positions. Several institutions and states have recently implemented policies to increase their pay. But these...

Postdocs need raises. But who will foot the bill?

Postdocs—the Ph.D.s who do much of the labor of science—are notoriously underpaid. But the problem has intensified over the past year as postdocs struggle to get by amid soaring inflation and professors report problems recruiting Ph.D. graduates to fill positions. Several institutions and states have recently implemented policies to increase their pay. But these...

Frescoes, in a flash: Researchers create frescoes in a single day

In medieval Europe, before the rise of oil paintings, fresco was a popular religious painting technique. Many artworks across Europe, hundreds of years old, utilize this method and constitute an important part of cultural heritage. Michelangelo's famous Sistine Chapel ceiling and Fra Angelo's Annunciation in Italy are perhaps two of the most well-known examples of frescoes. But how exactly does...

Elucidation of electrolyte decomposition behavior in all-solid-state lithium-sulfur batteries

A research group of the Department of Electrical and Electronic Information Engineering at Toyohashi University of Technology—consisting of Hirotada Gamo, a doctoral course student; Kazuhiro Hikima, assistant professor; and Atsunori Matsuda, professor—has elucidated the decomposition behavior of electrolytes in the cathode composites of all-solid-state lithium-sulfur batteries (ASSLSB).

A new catalyst that transforms carbon dioxide into added-value chemical products

Global warming is an increasingly worrying problem. Although the greenhouse effect is a necessary process to maintain living conditions on Earth, our current societies are increasing the emission of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and increasing its temperature by retaining more heat than necessary. Nature is trying to counteract this situation: plants are able to capture energy from sunlight...

Genetic engineering sheds light on ancient evolutionary questions

Cyanobacteria are single-celled organisms that derive energy from light, using photosynthesis to convert atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) and liquid water (H2O) into breathable oxygen and the carbon-based molecules like proteins that make up their cells. Cyanobacteria were the first organisms to perform photosynthesis in the history of Earth, and were responsible for flooding the early Earth with...

Recreating the natural light-harvesting nanorings in photosynthetic bacteria

Nearly all the chemical energy available to Earth's lifeforms can be traced back to the sun. This is because light-harvesting (LH) supramolecules (two or more molecules held together by intermolecular forces) enable plants and some types of bacteria (typically at the base of the food chain) to leverage sunlight for driving photosynthesis. For these supramolecules to be effective, they need to have...

Estimating organic carbon stocks of mineral soils in Denmark: Impact of bulk density and content of rock fragments

Soil can store carbon. Therefore, there is also an increasing focus on soil organic carbon content and how to either increase or maintain it. This is because soil can also lose carbon in the form of climate gases from microbial decomposition, in which case soil suddenly contributes to climate change rather than mitigating it. But to maintain or even increase the amount of carbon, farmers need to...

Warmer climate may drive fungi to be more dangerous to our health

A new study finds that raised temperatures cause a pathogenic fungus known as Cryptococcus deneoformans to turn its adaptive responses into overdrive. Heat increases its number of genetic changes, some of which might presumably lead to higher heat resistance, and others perhaps toward greater disease-causing potential.

With rapidly increasing heat and drought, can plants adapt?

As deserts expanded their range over the past 5-7 million years, many plants invaded the new biome and rapidly diversified, producing amazing adaptations to drought and heat. Can plants continue to adapt to increasing aridity caused by climate change? A new study that addressed the origins of desert adaptation concluded that one group of desert plants, rock daisies, came preadapted to aridity,...

Copying nature to help plants resist viruses

For thousands of years, crops have been shaped by domestication processes. Farmers cross-breed and select new varieties, adapted to constantly changing environments. Although efficient, this process is time consuming. Moreover, the desired trait must be present somewhere within the diversity of the species to be improved.

With rapidly increasing heat and drought, can plants adapt?

At a time when climate change is making many areas of the planet hotter and drier, it's sobering to think that deserts are relatively new biomes that have grown considerably over the past 30 million years. Widespread arid regions, like the deserts that today cover much of western North America, began to emerge only within the past 5 to 7 million years.

More than half of cocoa from the world's largest producer cannot be traced to its origin

Published today in the journal Environmental Research Letters, a new study investigates the transparency and traceability of cocoa supply chains in Côte d'Ivoire, the world's largest cocoa producer. The results show that less than 45% of cocoa from Côte d'Ivoire can be traced back to the first buyer. The remaining 55% cannot, either because it is indirectly sourced by traders from intermediaries...

Future space telescopes could be 100 meters across, constructed in space, and bent into a precise shape

It is an exciting time for astronomers and cosmologists. Since the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), astronomers have been treated to the most vivid and detailed images of the universe ever taken. Webb's powerful infrared imagers, spectrometers, and coronagraphs will allow for even more in the near future, including everything from surveys of the early universe to direct imaging studies of...

NASA has simulated a tiny part of the moon here on Earth

Before going to the moon, the Apollo astronauts trained at various sites on Earth that best approximated the lunar surface, such as the volcanic regions Iceland, Hawaii and the U.S. Southwest. To help prepare for upcoming robotic and human Artemis missions, a newly upgraded "mini-moon" lunar testbed will allow astronauts and robots to test out realistic conditions on the moon including rough...

Scientists examine geological processes of Monad Regio on Neptune's largest moon, Triton

In a recent study published in the journal Icarus, a team of researchers at the International Research School of Planetary Science (IRSPS) located at the D'Annunzio University of Chieti-Pescara in Italy conducted a geological analysis of a region on Neptune's largest moon, Triton, known as Monad Regio to ascertain the geological processes responsible for shaping its surface during its history, and...

Scorpius X-1: Astronomers may soon detect extreme objects producing gravitational waves continuously

The cosmic zoo contains objects so bizarre and extreme that they generate gravitational waves. Scorpius X-1 is part of that strange collection. It's actually a binary pair: a neutron star orbiting with a low-mass stellar companion called V818 Scorpii. The pair provides a prime target for scientists hunting for so-called "continuous" gravitational waves. Those waves should exist, although none have...

How non-native tree species affect biodiversity

Non-native forest tree species can reduce native species diversity if they are planted in uniform stands. In contrast, the effects of introduced species on soil properties are small. This was found by an international review study with the participation of the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research WSL.

'Snapshots' of translation could help us investigate cellular proteins

Advances in molecular biology have revealed that pep-tRNAs—nascent polypeptides inside the ribosome that are covalently attached to transfer RNA—are involved in myriad cell functions, including gene expression. All proteins exist as pep-tRNAs at some point, and studying these translation intermediates is vital as they possess properties of both RNA and protein, and can help researchers better...