120 articles from WEDNESDAY 22.3.2023

Branching worm named after Godzilla's nemesis

Branching marine worms are extremely rare: bizarre creatures with one head but a body that branches repeatedly into multiple posterior ends. Only three such species are known, and one of these worm species has just been awarded a place in the top-ten marine species from 2022 by the World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS). Named Ramisyllis kingghidorahi after King Ghidorah, Godzilla's monster...

How industrial companies can survive deglobalization

Deglobalization and the unpredictability of global business have led technology-based industries to review their overall strategies. Current geopolitical changes—the war in Ukraine, effects of the pandemic, and greenhouse gas emission targets—revived discussions about the value of globalization. However, international trade of goods and services has been slowing down significantly since 2011,...

Observing group-living animals with drones and computer vision

A drone is flying over a herd of plains zebras in central Kenya. It is flying quite high so that the animals are not bothered by it. These zebras are really interesting for collective and spatial behavior studies, according to the researchers Ben Koger and Blair Costelloe, who are monitoring the drone.

Smaller, denser, better illuminators for computational microscopy

Seeking to expand the possibilities offered by programmable illumination, a group of researchers at the University of Connecticut developed a strategy for constructing and calibrating freeform illuminators offering greater flexibility for computational microscopy. Their calibration method uses a blood-coated sensor for reconstruction of light source positions.

New method shrinks 3D images of cells for faster storage and retrieval

Single-cell analysis is a powerful biomedical technique used in various fields of biology and medicine to identify rare cell populations, track cell development and differentiation, understand disease mechanisms and develop personalized therapies, but it generates large amounts of data that can be difficult to manage.

Understanding the mechanism of non-uniform formation of diamond film on tools

Tools coated with diamond film (diamond-coated tools) are used for difficult-to-machine materials such as CFRP. In the manufacture of diamond-coated tools, a pretreatment is required to remove cobalt from the tool using a liquid in order to achieve a uniform diamond film surface. However, there are concerns about the environmental impact of liquid waste from liquid pretreatment (wet processing),...

Boris Johnson had a lot to say about Partygate – but did any of it stack up?

Nowhere to hide for former PM as he was finally cross-examined on lockdown gatherings in No 10After 16 months, Boris Johnson was finally forensically cross-examined over Partygate – live on TV and for nearly four hours.Previous attempts to do so in brief media interviews or through questions posed in the Commons chamber allowed him to obfuscate or run down the clock. Continue...

Measuring the greenhouse effect accurately

Solar radiation enters the Earth's atmosphere without any hindrance and should normally leave it as heat. Unfortunately, this is impeded by the thickening "greenhouse roof" consisting of carbon dioxide and other gases.

Biologists report on alternative life-history strategy in Colias butterflies

Have you ever marveled at the vast diversity of life on our planet, from tiny creatures living only a few hours to majestic beings that can survive for centuries? These differences in lifespan, size, and reproductive age are known as life-history strategies, and they have evolved over time as organisms adapt to their environments.

Researchers identify novel human-specific mechanism of skin barrier regeneration

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet, Department of Medicine, Solna, have identified HOXC13-AS, a human skin-specific long noncoding RNA (lncRNA), that plays a crucial role in epidermal differentiation. Their study highlighting lncRNA's physiological importance in the epidermal barrier's maintenance and reconstruction is published in the journal Cell Death & Differentiation.

A new mission will search for habitable planets at Alpha Centauri

Alpha Centauri is our closest stellar neighbor, a binary star system located just 4.376 light-years away. Despite its proximity, repeated astronomical surveys have failed to find hard evidence of extrasolar planets in this system. Part of the problem is that the system consists of two stars orbiting each other, which makes detecting exoplanets through the two most popular methods very challenging....

How terrorism affects our language and the vote for the radical right

The experience of the jihadist terrorist attacks that plagued Western Europe between 2015 and 2017 shows that perceived threats from ethnic and religious minorities affect the tone of public discourse about immigration and the support for radical right parties, according to a new study published in the American Journal of Political Science, which uses German data, including more than 10 million...

Scientists Solve the Mystery Behind the Oumuamua ‘Alien Spacecraft’ Comet

The astronomers operating the Pan-STARRS1 telescope on the island of Maui were not expecting to hit cosmic paydirt on Oct. 19, 2017—but they did. On what was otherwise an ordinary night of skygazing, they suddenly spotted what is easily the oddest comet ever detected. Its high speed—87 km per second (54 mi. per second)—and highly elliptical angle indicated that it originated...

Sweets change our brain

Chocolate bars, chips and fries - why can't we just ignore them in the supermarket? Researchers have now shown that foods with a high fat and sugar content change our brain: If we regularly eat even small amounts of them, the brain learns to consume precisely these foods in the future.