Simulations of agriculture on Mars using pea, carrot and tomato plants suggest that intercropping, growing different crops mixed together, could boost yields in certain conditions

Earth System Models – complex computer models which describe Earth processes and how they interact – are critical for predicting future climate change. By simulating the response of our land, oceans and atmosphere to manmade greenhouse gas emissions, these models form the foundation for predictions of future extreme weather and climate event scenarios, including those issued by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). However, climate modellers have long faced a major problem. Because Earth System Models integrate many complicated processes, they cannot immediately run a simulation; they must first ensure that it has reached a stable equilibrium ...

Weather-related power outages in the United States have become nearly twice as common in the last ten years compared to the previous decade. These outages, which can last most of a day, are more than an inconvenience: lack of power and related indoor temperature discomfort can exacerbate health conditions; lack of power also endangers the lives of people who are reliant on electricity-powered medical devices and/or elevators.   A new study led environmental health scientists at Columbia University ...

DURHAM, N.C. -- Duke researchers have opened a new avenue in the attack against influenza viruses by creating a vaccine that encourages the immune system to target a portion of the virus surface that is less variable. Their approach worked well in experiments with mice and ferrets and may lead to more broadly-protective influenza vaccines and less reliance on an annual shot tailored to that year’s versions of the virus. Even with vaccines, influenza kills about a half-million people each year around the world. This new vaccine approach, described May 1 in the journal Science Translational ...

EMBARGOED: Not for Release Until 14:00 U.S. Eastern Time (19:00 UK Time) on Wednesday, 01 May 2024 Mystery behind huge opening in Antarctic sea ice solved Researchers have discovered the missing piece of the puzzle behind a rare opening in the sea ice around Antarctica, which was nearly twice the size of Wales and occurred during the winters of 2016 and 2017. A study published today [1 May 2024] in Science Advances reveals a key process that had eluded scientists as to how the opening, called a polynya, was able to form and persist for ...

Human consciousness requires arousal (i.e., wakefulness) and awareness  Brain imaging studies over the last decade have produced connectivity maps of the cortical networks that sustain awareness, but maps of the subcortical networks that sustain wakefulness are lacking, due to the small size and anatomic complexity of subcortical structures such as the brainstem In a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) study that integrated high-resolution structural and functional connectivity data, researchers mapped a subcortical brain network that is believed to integrate arousal and awareness in human consciousness In a paper titled, “Multimodal ...

A new study by Northwestern University researchers and coworkers explains a puzzling problem with maps of future earthquake shaking used to design earthquake-resistant buildings. Although seismologists have been making these maps for about 50 years, they know very little about how well they actually forecast shaking, because large damaging earthquakes are infrequent in any area. To learn more, the Northwestern research team compiled shaking data from past earthquakes. These include CHIMP (California Historical Intensity Mapping Project) ...

AI holds the potential to help doctors find early markers of disease and policymakers to avoid decisions that lead to war. But a growing body of evidence has revealed deep flaws in how machine learning is used in science, a problem that has swept through dozens of fields and implicated thousands of erroneous papers. Now an interdisciplinary team of 19 researchers, led by Princeton University computer scientists Arvind Narayanan and Sayash Kapoor, has published guidelines for the responsible use of machine learning in science. “When we graduate from traditional statistical methods to machine learning methods, there are a vastly ...

BUFFALO, N.Y. – Truth Social was more effective at driving news attention toward Donald Trump during the 2022 midterm election cycle than Twitter (now known as X) was during the 2016 primary election season, a pattern driven mostly by partisan media on the left and the right, according to a new paper by a University at Buffalo communication researcher. But that success had limits. Journalists covered Trump’s social media use differently during those times and across those platforms, directly embedding his Truth Social posts into their stories far less frequently than was the case with his tweets in 2016. The findings published in the Journal of Information ...

RICHLAND, Wash.--A major approach to achieving net-zero carbon emissions relies on converting various parts of the economy, such as personal vehicles and heating, to run via electricity generated from renewable sources. But carbon cannot be removed from all parts of society. Plastics, ubiquitous in the modern world, cannot be decarbonized because they are made of carbon-based molecules. Led by chemist Wendy Shaw of Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), a multi-institutional effort has produced a new roadmap to reducing emissions in hard-to-electrify segments of the economy. The multifaceted approach includes developing non-carbon fuels, ...

LOS ANGELES, CA – The Protein Society, the premier international society dedicated to supporting protein research, announces the winners of the 2024 Protein Society Awards, which will be conferred at the 38th Anniversary Symposium, July 23 – 26, 2024, in Vancouver, Canada. Plenary talks from select award recipients will take place throughout the 3.5-day event. The winners’ scientific accomplishments, described by their nominators below, demonstrate their lasting impact on protein science. The ...