177 articles from WEDNESDAY 8.3.2023

Research shows success of working from home depends on company health

While more businesses continue to shift to remote work, some well-known CEOs remain steadfast against the movement. Naresh Khatri, an associate professor of health management and informatics in the School of Medicine at the University of Missouri, said the success of shifting to remote work depends on the flexibility of the organization to adjust to individual employees and the technology...

What 'Chernobyl dogs' can tell us about survival in contaminated environments

In the first step toward understanding how dogs—and perhaps humans—might adapt to intense environmental pressures such as exposure to radiation, heavy metals, or toxic chemicals, researchers have found that two groups of dogs living within the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, one at the site of the former Chernobyl reactors, and another 16.5 km away in Chernobyl City, showed significant genetic...

New kind of transistor could shrink communications devices on smartphones

One month after announcing a ferroelectric semiconductor at the nanoscale thinness required for modern computing components, a team has now demonstrated a reconfigurable transistor using that material. Their work paves the way for single amplifiers that can do the work of multiple conventional amplifiers, among other possibilities.

Incident atrial fibrillation appears to heighten dementia risk

People with a recent diagnosis of atrial fibrillation (AF), the most common irregular heart rhythm, have a modestly higher risk of developing dementia than people without the condition, according to new research. The research involved nearly 197,000 patient records from Kaiser Permanente health systems in California. Half of the patients had been recently diagnosed with atrial fibrillation; their...

A pool at Yellowstone is a thumping thermometer

Doublet Pool's regular thumping is more than just an interesting tourist attraction. A new study shows that the interval between episodes of thumping reflects the amount of energy heating the pool at the bottom, as well as in indication of how much heat is being lost through the surface. Doublet Pool, the authors found, is Yellowstone's thumping thermometer.

A surprising way to trap a microparticle

New study finds obstacles can trap rolling microparticles in fluid. Through simulations and experiments, physicists attribute the trapping effect to stagnant pockets of fluid, created by hydrodynamics. Random motions of the molecules within the fluid then 'kick' the microroller into a stagnant pocket, effectively trapping it.

NASA-ISRO science instruments arrive in India ahead of 2024 launch

The NISAR Earth science mission has moved a step closer to its 2024 launch. Its science payload of two radar systems, one built by NASA and the other by the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), recently completed the journey from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California to ISRO's U R Rao Satellite Center in Bengaluru, India. Soon, teams at the facility will combine the radar...

Eyes in the sky: Using drones to assess the severity of crop diseases

Rice is one of the most important crops in the world and constitutes the primary food source for over half of Earth's population. Protecting rice plantations from disease is therefore an essential endeavor in modern agriculture. Of the many pathogens that can infect rice plants, the bacterium Xanthomonas oryzae, which is responsible for bacterial blight (BB), is among the worst. Hundreds of...

Researchers create world's first energy-saving paint—inspired by butterflies

University of Central Florida researcher Debashis Chanda, a professor in UCF's NanoScience Technology Center, has drawn inspiration from butterflies to create the first environmentally friendly, large-scale and multicolor alternative to pigment-based colorants, which can contribute to energy-saving efforts and help reduce global warming.

Powerful yet lonely: The distant quasar left alone in its group

Looking at the night sky with the naked eye, we can only see an infinitesimal part of what the Universe contains, and the largest part cannot even be "seen". Radio wavelengths have gifted us some of the most fascinating astronomical sources: radio-loud active galactic nuclei in the centers of galaxies, which can produce jets that extend way farther out from the optical galaxy itself.