According to the World Health Organization, about 785 million people around the world lack a clean source of drinking water. Despite the vast amount of water on Earth, most of it is seawater and freshwater accounts for only about 2.5% of the total. One of the ways to provide clean drinking water is to desalinate seawater. The Korea Institute of Civil Engineering and Building Technology (KICT) has announced the development of a stable performance electrospun nanofiber membrane to turn seawater into drinking water by membrane distillation process. Membrane wetting is the most challenging ...

CORVALLIS, Ore. - Research by a graduate student in Oregon State University's College of Science has upended the conventional wisdom that for a century has incorrectly guided the study of a toad listed as endangered in part of its range. Anne Devan-Song used spotlighting - shining a light in a dark spot and looking for eye reflections - to find large numbers of the eastern spadefoot toad. The study illustrates how confirmation bias - a tendency to interpret new information as ratification of existing theories - can hamper discovery and the development of better ones. Her findings, which show that the toad spends much more time above ground than commonly believed, were published in the Journal ...

Chestnut Hill, Mass. (6/29/2021) -- A new, first-of-its-kind study led by researchers from Boston College has found that personal networks in India could play an important role in advancing the adoption of a cleaner cooking fuel, in this case liquefied petroleum gas, according to a report published in the journal Environmental Research Letters. "This is the first report in clean cooking research to show that just like with tobacco use, obesity, or physical activity -- where our networks play a role in shaping our behaviors and decisions -- we find that personal networks are also associated with what kinds of stoves rural poor use.," said study co-author ...

The tiny mouse embryo has a heart that beats. Its muscles, blood vessels, gut and nervous system are beginning to develop. But this embryo is unusual: It was made in a lab, out of mouse embryonic stem cells, and represents the most sophisticated in vitro (in a dish) model of a mammal ever so created. This new model, developed at the University of Virginia School of Medicine by Christine and Bernard Thisse, is a major step forward in scientists' efforts to mimic the natural development of a mammal by using stem cells. Its existence is a wonder that will help scientists understand mammalian development, battle diseases, create new drugs and, eventually, grow tissues and organs for people in need of transplants. "We found a way to instruct aggregates of stem cells to initiate ...

Immunologists at McMaster University have discovered a previously unknown mechanism which acts like a spider web, trapping and killing pathogens such as influenza or SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for COVID-19. The researchers have found that neutrophils, the most abundant white blood cells in the human body, explode when they bind to such pathogens coated in antibodies and release DNA outside of the cell, creating a sticky tangle which acts as a trap. The findings, published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, are significant because little is understood about how antibodies neutralize viruses in the respiratory tract. The discovery has ...

One of the key mutations seen in the 'Alpha variant' of SARS-CoV-2 - the deletion of two amino acids, H69/V70 - enables the virus to overcome chinks in its armour as it evolves, say an international team of scientists. SARS-CoV-2 is a coronavirus, so named because spike proteins on its surface give it the appearance of a crown ('corona'). The spike proteins bind to ACE2, a protein receptor found on the surface of cells in our body. Both the spike protein and ACE2 are then cleaved, allowing genetic material from the virus to enter the host cell. The virus manipulates the host cell's machinery to allow the virus to replicate and spread. As SARS-CoV-2 ...

A conclusive narrative review has found physical punishment of children is not effective in preventing child behavior problems or promoting positive outcomes and instead predicts increases in behavior problems and other poor outcomes over time. The study by an international group of scientists including a researcher from The University of Texas at Austin was published today in The Lancet. Caregivers in many parts of the world use physical punishment as a response to children's perceived misbehavior: 63% of children between the ages of 2 and 4 worldwide - approximately 250 million children - are regularly subjected ...

Phase 1/2 clinical trial of CoronaVac in 550 children and adolescents aged 3-17 years in China suggests two doses of the vaccine are safe and generate a strong antibody response. First published data on safety and immune response generated by a COVID-19 vaccine in children as young as 3-years-old supports use of CoronaVac - which was recently approved for emergency use in China among children over 3-years-old - in further studies to inform immunisation strategies. Two doses of CoronaVac are safe and provoke a strong antibody response among children and adolescents ...

In first-of-its kind research led by a University of Massachusetts Amherst psychotherapy researcher, mental health care patients matched with therapists who had a strong track record of treating the patients' primary concerns had better results than patients who were not so matched. In addition, this "match effect" was even more beneficial and pronounced for patients with more severe problems and for those who identified as racial or ethnic minorities. The findings are published in JAMA Psychiatry and the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology. "One of the things we've been learning in our field ...

PULLMAN, Wash. - A research team led by Washington State University has created a computer model to understand how plants store energy in the thylakoid membrane, a key structure to photosynthesis in plant leaves. The team confirmed the accuracy of the mathematical model with lab experiments. Their work was recently published in the journal Nature Plants. "We provided an important piece to the overall puzzle of plant metabolism," said Helmut Kirchhoff, a professor in WSU's Institute of Biological Chemistry and leader of the team who made this discovery. "If we integrate our model into the bigger picture, it may provide a good path for how to improve plants for ...

Two recent collaborative publications by CU Cancer Center members provide insights into how chronic inflammation can serve as a key factor in the development of leukemia and other blood cancers. Eric Pietras, PhD, CU Cancer Center member and assistant professor in the CU School of Medicine Division of Hematology, and James DeGregori, PhD, deputy director of the CU Cancer Center and professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics, were corresponding authors on both papers. Both papers provide support for the theory of adaptive oncogenesis, which was developed by DeGregori. The theory stipulates that chronic inflammation (such ...

AMES, Iowa - During the course of a criminal investigation, it is common for investigators to interview individuals who are exhausted and have had little sleep. While unavoidable in some cases, a new Iowa State University study found sleep disruption or deprivation may limit the amount of information provided during an interview. The study, published in the academic journal SLEEP, is one of the first to look at how sleep affects behavior during interrogations or interviews. Zlatan Krizan, an ISU professor of psychology, says while beliefs about the impact of sleep on interrogation subjects have existed for decades, he and co-authors, ISU professor Christian Meissner and graduate student Anthony Miller, found little direct scientific evidence related to its effectiveness. Krizan ...

A new national study finds that children in the United States with greater screen time usage at ages 9-10 are more likely to gain weight one year later. The study, publishing in Pediatric Obesity on June 28, found that each additional hour spent on virtually all forms of screen time was associated with a higher body mass index (BMI) one year later. In particular, researchers found that each extra hour spent watching or streaming television, YouTube videos, video games, video chat, and texting led to a higher risk of weight gain one year later. At the start of the study, 33.7% of children were considered overweight ...

Scientists isolated a molecule, extracted from the leaves of the European chestnut tree, with the power to neutralize dangerous, drug-resistant staph bacteria. Frontiers in Pharmacology published the finding, led by scientists at Emory University. The researchers dubbed the molecule Castaneroxy A, after the genus of the European chestnut, Castanea. The use of chestnut leaves in traditional folk remedies in rural Italy inspired the research. "We were able to isolate this molecule, new to science, that occurs only in very tiny quantities in the chestnut leaves," says Cassandra Quave, senior author of the paper and associate professor in Emory's Center for the Study of Human Health and the School of Medicine's ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Mountaintop glacier ice in the tropics of all four hemispheres covers significantly less area -- in one case as much as 93% less -- than it did just 50 years ago, a new study has found. The study, published online recently in the journal Global and Planetary Change, found that a glacier near Puncak Jaya, in Papua New Guinea, lost about 93% of its ice over a 38-year period from 1980 to 2018. Between 1986 and 2017 the area covered by glaciers on top of Kilimanjaro in Africa decreased by nearly 71%. The study is the first to combine NASA satellite imagery with data from ice cores drilled during field expeditions on tropical ...

Cunjiang Yu, Bill D. Cook Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Houston, is reporting the development of a camera with a curvy, adaptable imaging sensor that could improve image quality in endoscopes, night-vision goggles, artificial compound eyes and fish-eye cameras. "Existing curvy imagers are either flexible but not compatible with tunable focal surfaces, or stretchable but with low pixel density and pixel fill factors," reports Yu in Nature Electronics. "The new imager with kirigami design has a high pixel fill factor, before stretching, of 78% and can retain its optoelectronic performance while being biaxially stretched by 30%." Modern digital camera systems using conventional rigid, flat imaging sensors require ...

The world's human population is expanding, which means even more agricultural land will be needed to provide food for this growing population. However, choosing which areas to convert is difficult and depends on agricultural and environmental priorities, which can vary widely. A study led by Princeton University illustrates this challenge by using several different approaches to solve the same puzzle: Given a target amount of food, where should new croplands be put to minimize environmental or biodiversity impacts? The researchers used the country of Zambia as a case study given that it currently harbors a significant ...

PHILADELPHA--Patients who had their wisdom teeth extracted had improved tasting abilities decades after having the surgery, a new Penn Medicine study published in the journal Chemical Senses found. The findings challenge the notion that removal of wisdom teeth, known as third molars, only has the potential for negative effects on taste, and represent one of the first studies to analyze the long-term effects of extraction on taste. "Prior studies have only pointed to adverse effects on taste after extraction and it has been generally believed that those effects dissipate over time," said senior author Richard L. Doty, PhD, ...

Annapolis, MD; June 28, 2021--Drones keep getting smaller and smaller, while their potential applications keep getting bigger and bigger. And now unmanned aircraft systems are taking on some of the world's biggest small problems: insect pests. From crop-munching caterpillars to disease-transmitting mosquitoes, insects that threaten crops, ecosystems, and public health are increasingly being targeted with new pest-management strategies that deploy unmanned aircraft systems (UAS, or drones) for detection and control. And a variety of these applications are featured in a new special collection published this week in ...

A new study has found baby coral reef fishes can outpace all other baby fishes in the ocean. Lead author Adam Downie is a PhD candidate at the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies at James Cook University (Coral CoE at JCU). Mr Downie said when considering aquatic athletes, young coral reef fishes shine: they are some of the fastest babies, swimming around 15-40 body lengths per second. As a comparison, herring babies swim up to two body lengths per second, and the fastest human in the water, Olympic gold medalist Michael Phelps, can only swim 1.4 body lengths ...

The year 2020 was a period of economic hardship and significant change in a wide range of sectors for most countries. A team of authors from HSE University has explored how Russia will recover from this crisis and which industries will be affected by the economic recovery. Their study was published in the journal Voprosy ekonomiki. Last year, the global economy experienced a crisis due to the coronavirus pandemic, with output falling by 3.5% compared to 2019. Russia's decline from the coronavirus measures was more moderate than in many developed countries (industrial ...

Almost all of the nitrogen that fertilizes life in the open ocean of the Gulf of Mexico is carried into the gulf from shallower coastal areas, researchers from Florida State University found. The work, published in Nature Communications, is crucial to understanding the food web of that ecosystem, which is a spawning ground for several commercially valuable species of fish, including the Atlantic bluefin tuna, which was a focus of the research. "The open-ocean Gulf of Mexico is important for a lot of reasons," said Michael Stukel, an associate professor in the Department of Earth, ...

LAWRENCE -- Despite facing cultural and political pushback, the evidence remains clear: Face masks made a difference in Kansas. "These had a huge effect in counties that had a mask mandate," said Donna Ginther, the Roy A. Roberts Distinguished Professor of Economics and director of the Institute for Policy & Social Research at the University of Kansas. "Our research found that masks reduced cases, hospitalizations and deaths in counties that adopted them by around 60% across the board." Ginther's article "Association of Mask Mandates and COVID-19 ...

Washington, DC--Location, location, location--when it comes to the placement of wind turbines, the old real estate adage applies, according to new research published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by Carnegie's Enrico Antonini and Ken Caldeira. Turbines convert the wind's kinetic energy into electrical energy as they turn. However, the very act of installing turbines affects our ability to harness the wind's power. As a turbine engages with the wind, it affects it. One turbine's extraction of energy from the wind influences the ability of its neighbors to do the same. "Wind is never going to 'run dry' as an energy resource, but our ability to harvest it isn't infinitely scalable either," Antonini explained. "When wind turbines ...

The ability to precisely control the various properties of laser light is critical to much of the technology that we use today, from commercial virtual reality (VR) headsets to microscopic imaging for biomedical research. Many of today's laser systems rely on separate, rotating components to control the wavelength, shape and power of a laser beam, making these devices bulky and difficult to maintain. Now, researchers at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences have developed a single metasurface that can effectively tune the different properties of laser light, ...