120 articles from THURSDAY 2.3.2023

Funding woes force 500 Women Scientists to scale back operations

The 7-year-old nonprofit organization 500 Women Scientists, which works to improve inclusion and diversity in STEM and medicine, is scaling back operations and eliminating its five paid staff positions after failing to secure stable funding. The organization, which detailed the changes in an email to supporters and journalists on Tuesday, will keep running its online...

Keppel corals show resilience following severe bleaching

Corals in the Keppel Islands of the southern Great Barrier Reef survived and recovered from a severe bleaching event in 2020, indicating the high resilience of corals in the region, new research by the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) has found.

Scientists use satellites to track Earth 'greening' amid climate change

North Carolina State University researchers have used satellite imagery and field sensors to estimate worldwide changes in plant leaf growth due to global warming. The researchers found that changes in "greening," or the amount of leaves plants are able to produce, will play a significant role in how much carbon dioxide plants capture and store.

Reaching superconductivity layer by layer

Imagine a sheet of material just one layer of atoms thick—less than a millionth of a millimeter. While this may sound fantastical, such a material exists: it is called graphene and it is made from carbon atoms in a honeycomb arrangement. First synthesized in 2004 and then soon hailed as a substance with wondrous characteristics, scientists are still working on understanding it.

Putting a price tag on the amenity value of private forests

When it comes to venturing into and enjoying nature, forests are the people's top choice—at least in Denmark. This is also reflected in the sales prices of properties with private forest. But beyond earnings potential, this first study of its kind, conducted by the University of Copenhagen, puts a price tag on the so-called amenity value of Danish private forests.

Now We Need to Worry About Harmful ‘Forever Chemicals’ in Our Toilet Paper Too

In case you’re counting, the average American will go through 26 kg (57 lbs) of toilet paper in a single year. Multiply that by the 332 million people in the U.S. and you get more than 19 billion pounds of waste paper being flushed away annually. All by itself that represents a massive disposal and sanitation challenge. But now, according to a paper just published in Environmental Science...

How consciousness in animals could be researched

There are reasons to assume that not only humans but also some non-human species of animal have conscious perception. Which species have consciousness and how the subjective experience of various species could differ is being investigated by Professor Albert Newen and Ph.D. student Leonard Dung from the Institute for Philosophy II at Ruhr University Bochum.

Testing the universality of the Feynman-Tan relation in interacting Bose gases using high-order Bragg spectra

The Feynman-Tan relation, obtained by combining Feynman energy relation with Tan's two-body contact, explained excitation spectra of strongly interacting quantum gases of 39K atoms. However, whether Feynman-Tan relation is universal for other atomic species has remained out of reach. Now, this problem has been confirmed by Chinese scientists using high-momentum excitation spectra of interacting...

Switzerland's citizens want a circular economy, but not to share products

Reuse, share, collect and recycle—in times of faltering supply chains, circular economies are in great demand. When products and materials circulate in closed material flows, it saves resources and avoids waste. Whether this succeeds also depends heavily on the attitudes and behavior of consumers, who use, repair, buy second-hand or share products for as long as possible.

Activation of peroxymonosulfate and photothermal for removal of phenolic organic pollutants and lignin derivatives

At present, the traditional ways to deal with phenolic organic pollutants and lignin derivatives are mainly physical adsorption and biodegradation. The main disadvantages of these methods are incomplete treatment and long treatment periods. Although new photocatalytic technology uses clean energy and has mild reaction conditions, it also has the disadvantages of slow reaction speed and incomplete...

New spider genus named after pop band ABBA

Spiders of the family Araneidae are known for building vertical orbicular webs to catch prey. They can be easily identified by their eye pattern, the abdomen normally overlapping the carapace, and complex genitalia. The family currently has 188 genera and 3,119 species worldwide.

Earlier take-off could lead to fewer bumblebees and less pollination

With the arrival of spring, bumblebee queens take their first wing beat of the season and set out to find new nesting sites. But they are flying earlier in the year, as a result of a warmer climate and a changing agricultural landscape, according to new research from Lund University in Sweden.

Home offices continue to affect our travel patterns

When countries shut down during the pandemic, many people stayed home. Some replaced their old habits with new ones, either temporarily until society opened up again or continuing post-pandemic. What do these changes in habit mean for our travel patterns?

Understanding The Link Between Climate Change and Colder Storms is Like Riding a Bike

When most people think about the jet stream, if they think about it at all, it’s usually in the context of the high-altitude, fast moving wind currents of the northern hemisphere that enable speedy west-to-east long-haul flights. But the polar jet stream also plays a major role in our daily lives: the weaker it gets, the wackier our weather is, from the Texan deep freeze of 2021 to the...

Researchers provide proof of the helical coiling of condensed chromosomes

The iconic X-shaped organization of metaphase chromosomes is frequently presented in textbooks and other media. The drawings explain in captivating manner that the majority of genetic information is stored in chromosomes, which transmit it to the next generation. "These presentations suggest that the chromosome ultrastructure is well-understood. However, this is not the case," says Dr. Veit...