146 articles from TUESDAY 9.5.2023

How the ancient messengers cAMP and cGMP deliver their messages

Two highly similar molecules with essential but often contrasting signaling roles in most life forms exert their distinct effects through subtle differences in their bindings to their signaling partners, according to a new study led by researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine.

Researchers switch from helium to hydrogen weather balloons

Hundreds of miles north of the Arctic Circle, Sandia National Laboratories researchers ensure the collection of important weather and climate data. By switching the gas used in their weather balloons, they have reduced their metaphorical footprint on the fragile Arctic ecosystem.

Fake scientific papers are alarmingly common

When neuropsychologist Bernhard Sabel put his new fake-paper detector to work, he was “shocked” by what it found. After screening some 5000 papers, he estimates up to 34% of neuroscience papers published in 2020 were likely made up or plagiarized; in medicine, the figure was 24%. Both numbers, which he and colleagues report in a medRxiv preprint posted on 8 May, are...

Possible meteorite crashes into New Jersey home, no injuries

A metallic object believed to be a meteorite punched a hole in the roof of a central New Jersey home this week, smashing into a hardwood floor and bouncing around a bedroom. The family who owns the home discovered the black, potato-sized rock in a corner—still warm.

Mexico’s ‘salamander of the gods’ edges toward extinction

Mexico City— It’s not yet noon on a Wednesday at Lake Xochimilco, a mosaic of ponds and canals to the south of this sprawling metropolis, but revelers on a brightly colored tourist boat have already broken out the beer and are whooping it up. On another boat, a mariachi band tunes up. Carlos Uriel Sumano Arias, paddling a flat-bottomed chalupa belonging to...

The UAE’s transition to a net-zero future

As the impacts of climate change like desertification, biodiversity loss, pollution, and severe weather persist, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is approaching the green transition and decarbonization with a great sense of urgency. Between its ratification of the 2015 Paris Agreement, its $160 billion investment in renewables over the next 30 years, and its green…

Extending the life of a lithium metal anode using a protective layer made of an extremely tough gel electrolyte

A research team has succeeded in substantially improving the cycling performance of a lithium metal battery by developing a mechanically very strong polymeric gel electrolyte and integrating it into the battery as a layer to protect the lithium metal anode. This achievement may greatly facilitate efforts to put lithium metal anodes -- a potentially very high performance anode material -- into...

French felines found to be less responsive to cat calls with faster attraction to visual cues

Researchers Charlotte de Mouzon and Gérard Leboucher of the Laboratoire Ethologie Cognition Développement, Université Paris Nanterre in France, have examined preferred feline etiquette when faced with an unfamiliar human. In the paper, "Multimodal Communication in the Human–Cat Relationship: A Pilot Study," published in Animals, researchers examined four modes of human interactions—vocal,...

NASA’s Plant Science is Rooted in Earth and Shoots for the Stars

NASA supports USDA plant science research that benefits life on our home planet and beyond! This image shows the USDA Biotechnology Lab at EPCOT, located within Walt Disney World Resort. The two illuminated white squares stacked one over the other above the Biotechnology Lab sign are plant growing chambers developed by NASA’s Biological and Physical Sciences Division at Kennedy Space...

Can a city store as much carbon as a forest?

A team of researchers at Aalto University has developed a new tool to help urban planners keep urban developments in line with climate goals. The tool provides a metric that planners can use to improve carbon-neutral planning of urban growth, which is essential for meeting carbon emission targets.

Using two fiber-optic cables to track whales as they cruise the Arctic

Fiber-optic cables line the coasts of the continents and crisscross the oceans, carrying signals that are the backbone of communication in the modern world. While their main job is telecommunications, researchers have been exploring ways to use this giant network to eavesdrop on everything from storms to earthquakes to whales.

Can lions coexist with cattle in Africa?

Protecting lions and the interests of cattle producers in Kenya is a difficult balancing act. In a recent Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution article, Dr. Laurence G Frank, a researcher at the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology at the University of California, Berkeley, and the Mpala Research Centre in Laikipia, Kenya, explored how protecting livestock can help protect endangered lions.

Study: Spanish courts hand down milder sentences for rapes if they are committed by the victim's partner or ex-partner

Just four years ago, the Spanish Supreme Court pointed out in a ruling that there is no such thing as a "conjugal debt." In other words, a woman is not obliged to satisfy her husband's sexual needs. It may come as a surprise that this point still needs to be made, but the statistics speak for themselves. According to a national survey carried out in 2019, 7.5% of Spanish women over 16 years old...

Study: No need for a leaky mode at the picometer level for microtapers

The precision of obtaining abundant light-matter-interact information with a snapshot measurement makes optical spectroscopy indispensable for modern industries and scientific research. The miniaturization of traditionally bulky spectrometers has been strongly motivated by the vast applications, including bio/medical sensing, material analysis, optical communication, and light source...

The impact of thermal drawdown-induced alterations in rock thermal properties on heat recovery

Geothermal energy, found in subsurface hot dry rocks, is a viable option instead of fossil fuels. Enhanced geothermal systems (EGS) enable us to use the plentiful amounts of energy in the hot rocks. The optimization and risk management of this process necessitate the accurate predictions of long-term thermal performance under different scenarios, which are usually done through numerical modeling.

Re‐examining the underground connections between trees

Fungal networks interconnecting trees in a forest is a key factor that determines the nature of forests and their response to climate change. These networks have also been viewed as a means for trees to help their offspring and other tree-friends, according to the increasingly popular "mother tree hypothesis." An international group of researchers re-examined the evidence for and against this...

LISA will be a remarkable gravitational-wave observatory, but there's a way to make it 100 times more powerful

The first-time detection of Gravitational Waves (GW) by researchers at the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) in 2015 triggered a revolution in astronomy. This phenomenon consists of ripples in spacetime caused by the merger of massive objects and was predicted a century prior by Einstein's Theory of General Relativity. In the coming years, this burgeoning field will...