A research team from the University of Massachusetts Amherst has created an electronic microsystem that can intelligently respond to information inputs without any external energy input, much like a self-autonomous living organism. The microsystem is constructed from a novel type of electronics that can process ultralow electronic signals and incorporates a device that can generate electricity "out of thin air" from the ambient environment. The groundbreaking research was published June 7 in the journal Nature Communications. Jun Yao, an assistant professor in the electrical and computer engineering (ECE) and an adjunct professor in biomedical engineering, ...

DURHAM, N.C. - Using drones and artificial intelligence to monitor large colonies of seabirds can be as effective as traditional on-the-ground methods, while reducing costs, labor and the risk of human error, a new study finds. Scientists at Duke University and the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) used a deep-learning algorithm--a form of artificial intelligence--to analyze more than 10,000 drone images of mixed colonies of seabirds in the Falkland Islands off Argentina's coast. The Falklands, also known as the Malvinas, are home to the world's largest colonies of black-browed albatrosses (Thalassarche melanophris) and second-largest ...

Researchers from the University of Liège (Belgium) have recently developed a new artificial neuron inspired by the different modes of operation of human neurons. Called a Bistable Recurrent Cell (BRC), this process has enabled recurrent networks to learn temporal relationships of more than a thousand discrete time units where classical methods failed after only a hundred time units. These important results are published in the journal PLOS One. The enormous interest in artificial intelligence (AI) in recent years has led to the development of extremely powerful machine learning techniques. For example, time series - any series of data where a time component is ...

The speed of water flow is a limiting factor in many membrane-based industrial processes, including desalination, molecular separation and osmotic power generation. Researchers at The University of Manchester's National Graphene Institute (NGI) have published a study in Nature Communications showing a dramatic decrease in friction when water is passed through nanoscale capillaries made of graphene, whereas those with hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) - which has a similar surface topography and crystal structure as graphene - display high friction. The team also demonstrated that water velocity could be selectively controlled by covering the high friction hBN channels with graphene, opening ...

DURHAM, N.H.--Why did the deer cross the road? According to research from the University of New Hampshire to keep going and going and going. Researchers have discovered the longest distance ever recorded by an adult male white-tailed deer--300 kilometers, or close to 200 miles, in just over three weeks. The finding has important implications for population management and the transmission of disease, especially chronic wasting disease, a fatal neurological disease. "Deer are one of the most abundant, well-known and intensely managed species of wildlife in the United States," said Remington Moll, assistant ...

The bad odors produced by the Waste Water Treatment Plants, known as WWTPs, have become a growing concern in the cities and towns that host these facilities and are considered by citizens to be the main cause of the perception of pollution, along with the dust and noise. Now, and thanks to a collaboration between the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC) and the company DAM, a new way is being opened to detect and treat these odors. According to the researchers, "the results obtained in the SNIFFDRONE project (Odor monitoring by drones for environmental purposes) are very positive and represent a significant advance ...

- Most high-value chemicals are currently produced using fossil fuels - industrial chemistry's use of petroleum accounts for 14% of all greenhouse gas emissions. - An exciting alternative is to engineer bacteria as "cell-factories" with a genetic switch that reroutes their chemistry to produce high-value chemicals, such as biofuels, polymers and pharmaceuticals. - The use of expensive chemicals to switch them on severely limits their commercial potential, researchers have used mathematical models to develop a new genetic switch that can use a cheap natural ...

JUNE 8, 2021, NEW YORK - A study conducted by researchers at the Ludwig Center at Harvard has demonstrated how a drug screening method known as dynamic BH3 profiling can be used to quickly identify potentially effective combinations of existing drugs for personalized cancer therapy. "We know that cancer cells and healthy cells have different metabolisms," said Ludwig Harvard investigator Anthony Letai who, with former postdoctoral researcher Veerle Daniels, led the study reported in the current issue of Science Signaling. "Using BH3 profiling, we found a specific metabolic dependency in triple ...

Published monthly, the journal CHEST® features peer-reviewed, cutting-edge original research in chest medicine: Pulmonary, critical care, sleep medicine and related disciplines. Journal topics include asthma, chest infections, COPD, critical care, diffuse lung disease, education and clinical practice, pulmonology and cardiology, sleep and thoracic oncology. The June issue of CHEST includes 95 articles, clinically relevant research, reviews, case series, commentary and more. Each month, the journal also offers END ...

A new Alzheimer's disease drug will hit the market soon, the first in nearly two decades. But some experts say the evidence for it isn't terribly strong and worry that it may cost a lot. Still, the announcement of its approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration made headlines nationwide. The attention reflects the toll dementia takes on patients, families and society, and the lack of good treatment options. Meanwhile, millions of adults could lower the chance that they'll ever need a drug like that. To do so, they will need to work with their primary care providers and use the power ...

There is a growing body of evidence supporting airborne transmission of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. Despite updates from the World Health Organization, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Public Health Agency of Canada that the virus can be transmitted by short- and long-range aerosols, Canada's public health guidance has not been adequately updated to address this mode of transmission, argue authors of a commentary published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) Canadian public health guidance and practices should be updated to include more emphasis on the following airborne mitigation measures: ventilation, filtration and better masks. "Ventilation is a key element in the fight against airborne transmission. We need clear guidelines ...

Researchers at the University of Illinois Chicago have shown that even after lung tissue has been damaged, it may be possible to reverse fibrosis and promote tissue repair through treatment with microgel-coated mesenchymal stromal cells. Pulmonary fibrosis is a chronic disease caused by environmental toxins, medications or medical conditions like pneumonia and rheumatoid arthritis. It is characterized by the formation of scar tissue due to damage or an unchecked immune response, and it can cause mild to severe difficulty breathing and oxygen deprivation. Fibrosis ...

 Most cities in São Paulo state (Brazil) have low potential capacity to adapt to climate change in terms of the ability to formulate public policy that facilitates the revamping of their housing and transportation systems, for example, to account for the impact of climate change. This is the main conclusion of a study conducted by researchers at the University of São Paulo (USP) in partnership with colleagues at the University of Campinas (UNICAMP) and the Federal University of Itajubá (UNIFEI) in Brazil, and the University of Michigan in the United States.  Researchers linked to a project supported by FAPESP participated in the study. The results ...

If your idea of conspiracy theories entails aliens, UFOs, governmental cover-ups at Roswell Air Force base, and the melody of The X-Files--you're not alone. That was, indeed, the classic notion, says END ...

The spectacularly colorful aurora borealis -- or northern lights -- that fills the sky in high-latitude regions has fascinated people for thousands of years. Now, a team of scientists has resolved one of the final mysteries surrounding its origin. Scientists know that electrons and other energized particles that emanate from the sun as part of the "solar wind" speed down Earth's magnetic field lines and into the upper atmosphere, where they collide with oxygen and nitrogen molecules, kicking them into an excited state. These molecules then relax by emitting light, producing the beautiful green and red hues of the aurora. What ...

MELVILLE, N.Y., June 8, 2021 -- Many voice actors use a variety of speech vocalizations and patterns to create unique and memorable characters. How they create those amazing voices could help speech pathologists better understand the muscles involved for creating words and sounds. During the 180th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, which will be held virtually June 8-10, Colette Feehan, from Indiana University, will talk about how voice actor performances can lead to better understanding about the speech muscles under our control. The session, "Articulatory and acoustic phonetics of voice actors," will take place Tuesday, June 8, at 2:40 p.m. Eastern U.S. Just like any professional of any field that requires some sort of physical skill, voice actors certainly put in time and ...

New research published in the journal Psychological Science reveals a pervasive but unfounded stereotype: that women (but not men) who engage in casual sex have low self-esteem. This finding was consistent across six separate experiments with nearly 1,500 total participants. "We were surprised that this stereotype was so widely held," said Jaimie Arona Krems, an assistant professor of psychology at Oklahoma State University and first author on the paper. "This stereotype was held by both women and men, liberals and conservatives, and across the spectrum in terms of people's levels of religiosity and sexism." But across the studies, Krems also observed that the stereotype was unfounded: There was virtually no relationship ...

During the COVID-19 pandemic, food systems faced disruptions from staff shortages and supply chain issues. Now, a Virginia Tech researcher is assisting with efforts to help plants themselves from facing their own pandemic. Just like human diseases, plant diseases don't have arbitrary boundaries. These diseases don't stop at a border crossing or a port of entry. That's why plant disease surveillance, improved plant disease detection systems, and predictive plant disease modeling - integrated at the global scale - are necessary to mitigate future plant disease outbreaks and protect the global food supply, according to a team of researchers in a new commentary published in "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences." "The ...

That internal nagging feeling that drives you to seek sleep at night and wake in the morning to eat, work, and play, is, it turns out, genetic, and it's not just in people. Nearly every living organism - from animals to plants as well as several microorganisms and fungi - has an internal body clock, or a circadian rhythm. Yet, scientists have been perplexed out how these genes operate. Now, Virginia Tech scientists have taken a step closer to an answer thanks to the DNA of a mouse, a petri dish, and much patience. In a new study published in the journal Genes & Development, Shihoko Kojima, an assistant professor in the Department of Biological Sciences, part of the Virginia Tech College of Science, ...

In a study of healthy volunteers, National Institutes of Health researchers have mapped out the brain activity that flows when we learn a new skill, such as playing a new song on the piano, and discovered why taking short breaks from practice is a key to learning. The researchers found that during rest the volunteers' brains rapidly and repeatedly replayed faster versions of the activity seen while they practiced typing a code. The more a volunteer replayed the activity the better they performed during subsequent practice sessions, suggesting rest ...

Last year, Anupam Mazumdar, a physicist from the University of Groningen, jointly proposed an experiment together with colleagues from the UK that could conclusively prove whether gravity is a quantum phenomenon. This experiment would focus on observing two relatively large, entangled quantum systems in free fall. In a new article, published on 4 June in Physical Review Research, the scientists describe in more detail how two types of noise could be reduced. They suggest that quantum interference could be applied in the production of a sensitive instrument that could detect movements of objects ranging from butterflies to burglars and black holes. Is gravity a quantum phenomenon? That is one of the major outstanding questions ...

CORVALLIS, Ore. - Since the end of the long-running conflict in Colombia, large areas of forest have been rapidly converted to agricultural uses, suggesting the peace agreement presents a threat to conservation the country's rainforest, a new study from Oregon State University shows. In 2016, Colombia officially signed a peace agreement ending the country's six-decade civil war, which mainly took place within the Andes-Amazon region, an extremely biodiverse rainforest and a critical biological corridor. Some deforestation was expected after the peace accord was reached, but an analysis of 30 years of land transfers - a term used to describe changes in control and use of a parcel of land - showed a 40% increase in conversion from ...

Mining involves moving a lot of rock, so some mess is expected. However, mining operations can continue to affect ecosystems long after activity has ended. Heavy metals and corrosive substances leach into the environment, preventing wildlife and vegetation from returning to the area. Fortunately, this damage can be reversed. A team of scientists, including UC Santa Barbara's Dave Herbst, investigated how river ecosystems respond to remediation efforts. The team combined decades of data from four watersheds polluted by abandoned mines. It took creative thinking to simplify ...

Researchers at the University of Illinois Chicago have developed a novel continuous-flow microfluidic device that may help scientists and pharmaceutical companies more effectively study drug compounds and their crystalline shapes and structures, which are key components for drug stability. The device consists of a series of wells in which a drug solution - made up of an active pharmaceutical ingredient, or API, dissolved in solvent, such as water - can be mixed with an anti-solvent in a highly controlled manner. When mixed together, the two solutions allow for the API crystals to form a nucleus and grow. ...

According to estimates from the Children's Bureau, an agency within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, there were 673,000 children in or entering foster care in the United States in 2019. Data from the Minnesota Department of Human Services say that approximately 15,300 children experienced foster care in 2019. Minnesotan children of color were overrepresented compared to the general population, with Native American children 18 times more likely and Black children three times more likely to experience foster care than white children. Most children in the foster care system have medical and dental coverage through Medicaid. However, despite ...