Leipzig/Jena/Ilmenau. Mobile apps like Flora Incognita that allow automated identification of wild plants cannot only identify plant species, but also uncover large scale ecological patterns. These patterns are surprisingly similar to the ones derived from long-term inventory data of the German flora, even though they have been acquired over much shorter time periods and are influenced by user behaviour. This opens up new perspectives for rapid detection of biodiversity changes. These are the key results of a study led by a team of researchers from Central Germany, which has recently been published in Ecography. With the help of Artificial Intelligence, plant species ...

The gopher tortoise (Gopherus polyphemus) is declining because of habitat loss and fragmentation, human interaction including collisions with vehicles, predation by domestic animals, and disease. These long-lived reptiles are found throughout Florida and are affected by various diseases including upper respiratory tract disease. A number of pathogens such as Mycoplasma spp., Herpesvirus, and Ranavirus are known to cause upper respiratory tract disease in gopher tortoises. Chronic disease resulting from these pathogens can lead to reduced reproduction, abnormal growth and development, increased susceptibility to secondary ...

Lysophospholipids are phospholipids that have just one fatty acid chain, and in recent years, the role of lysophospholipids in physiology and pathophysiology has attracted attention. Lysophosphatidylethanolamine (LPE) is a type of lysophospholipid that are reportedly present in the brain that consist of many species with different fatty acid chain lengths and degrees of unsaturation. The latest studies in animal models have reported elevated levels of LPE in the brain after traumatic brain injury and cerebral ischemia. Fluctuations in LPE concentration have also been reported in the plasma of patients with major depression and Alzheimer's disease. Although these reports suggest the involvement of LPE in brain function, the role of LPE in the brain has remained unclear. Therefore, ...

Smaller, faster, more energy-efficient: future requirements to computing and data storage are hard to fulfill and alternative concepts are continuously explored. Small magnetic textures, so-called skyrmions, may become an ingredient in novel memory and logic devices. In order to be considered for technological application, however, fast and energy-efficient control of these nanometer-sized skyrmions is required. Magnetic skyrmions are particle-like magnetization patches that form as very small swirls in an otherwise uniformly magnetized material. In particular ferromagnetic thin films, skyrmions are stable at room temperature, with diameters down to the ten-nanometer range. It is known that skyrmions can be created and moved by short pulses of electric current. Only recently it was discovered ...

Researchers have recently extracted the proton mass radius from the experimental data. A research group at the Institute of Modern Physics (IMP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) presented an analysis of the proton mass radius in Physical Review D on May 11. The proton mass radius is determined to be 0.67 ± 0.03 femtometers, which is obviously smaller than the charge radius of the proton. In the Standard Model, the proton is a composite particle made of quarks and gluons and it has a non-zero size. The radius of the proton is a global and fundamental property of the proton. It is related to the color confinement radius -- a property governed by quantum chromodynamics (QCD). The radius of the proton is approximately 100,000 times smaller ...

Atoms are the basic building blocks for all materials. To tailor functional properties, it is essential to accurately determine their atomic structures. KAIST researchers observed the 3D atomic structure of a nanoparticle at the atom level via neural network-assisted atomic electron tomography. Using a platinum nanoparticle as a model system, a research team led by Professor Yongsoo Yang demonstrated that an atomicity-based deep learning approach can reliably identify the 3D surface atomic structure with a precision of 15 picometers (only about 1/3 of a hydrogen atom's radius). The atomic displacement, strain, and facet analysis revealed that the surface atomic structure and strain are ...

The study conducted by the University of Turku and the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare together with an international research team is so far the largest population-level study in the world examining the connection between human gut microbiota and health and mortality in the following decades. The composition of the research subjects' gut microbiota was analysed from stool samples collected in 2002. The researchers had access to follow-up data on the subjects' mortality until 2017, i.e., close to the present day. "Many bacterial strains that are known ...

Acetone, a volatile solvent used for everything from removing nail polish and cleaning textiles to manufacturing plastics, could get a sustainability boost from a new strain of bacteria engineered by a research team based in Japan. They published the details of the heat-loving, acetone-producing bacteria called Moorella thermoacetica on April 23 in AMB Express. Acetone is typically produced through the widely used cumene method, which is cost-effective but not sustainable. The process, developed in 1942, involves converting two non-renewable resources into acetone and phenol, another chemical ...

The human brain is a vast network of billions of biological cells called Neurons which fires electrical signals that process information, resulting in our sense and thoughts. The ion channels of atomic scale in each neuron cell membrane plays a key role in such firings that opens and closes the ion flow in an individual cell by the electrical voltage applied across the cell membrane, acting as a "biological transistor" similar to electronic transistors in computers. For decades, scientists have learned that biological ion channels are life's transistors capable to gate extremely fast and precisely selective permeation of ions through the atomic-scale selectivity filters to maintain vital living functions. However, ...

Researchers from the £12 million Developing Human Connectome Project have used the dramatic advances in medical imaging the project has provided to visualise and study white matter pathways, the wiring that connects developing brain networks, in the human brain as it develops in the womb. Published today in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of The United States of America, the study used magnetic resonance images (MRI) with unprecedented resolution from more than 120 healthy fetuses across the second and third trimesters of pregnancy to define how the structural connections in their ...

Strawberry production is one of the driving forces in the Spanish agriculture sector, as strawberries are highly valued for their organoleptic characteristics and health benefits. These two factors, their economic relevance, and the value that consumers assign them, make this fruit an object of scientific research from multiple perspectives, including that of food safety. A research project headed by Liliana Pérez-Lavalle, Elena Carrasco, Pedro Vallesquino-Laguna, Manuel Cejudo, Guiomar Denisse Posada and Antonio Valero has aimed to evaluate whether the Salmonella Thompson bacteria, one of the pathogens that can contaminate the fruit through sewage and/or the soil, could penetrate through the roots ...

Gold leaf -- gold metal hammered into thin sheets -- is used by artists and crafters to gild picture frames, artwork and clothing. Despite its luxurious appearance, the material is affordable and available at most craft stores. Now, researchers reporting in ACS Central Science have developed gold leaf electrodes that, in combination with a CRISPR-based assay, could sensitively detect human papillomavirus (HPV) DNA in human samples. The method also could be modified to diagnose other viral infections. Previous research indicates that about 80% of new cases of sexually transmitted infections, such as HPV and human immunodeficiency virus (known ...

Earthworms improve the soil by aerating it, breaking down organic matter and mineralizing nutrients. Now, researchers reporting in ACS' Environmental Science & Technology have dug up another possible role: reducing the number and relative abundance of antibiotic-resistance genes (ARGs) in soils from diverse ecosystems. These results imply that earthworms could be a natural, sustainable solution to addressing the global issue of antibiotic resistance, the researchers say. The overuse of antibiotics in humans and animals has caused ARGs to accumulate in soils, which could contribute to the rise in antibiotic-resistant infections. Earthworms consume tons of soil per year worldwide, and their guts have a unique combination of low-oxygen conditions, neutral pH and native microbial ...

Coal combustion by power plants and industry pollutes the air, causing many governments to implement mitigation actions and encourage cleaner forms of energy. Now, a new study in ACS' Environmental Science & Technology indicates that in China, indoor air pollution from residential coal burning causes a disproportionate number of premature deaths from exposure to tiny, inhalable pollutants known as PM2.5. In China, coal is still the largest source of energy, although recent mitigation actions have replaced some coal-fired power plants with petroleum- or natural gas-powered plants. Also, many coal-fired power plants and industrial boilers have installed equipment that reduces ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Kindergartners from low-income families spent more than six hours a day in front of screens during two early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, a small Ohio study suggests. That is nearly double the screen time found before the pandemic in similar children, according to other research. Caregivers from low-income households may have faced more difficulties than those from more advantaged families in managing the time their children spent watching TV and using computers, phones and tablets when child care was shut down, according to the researchers. Still, the results are concerning, said Rebecca Dore, lead author of the study and senior research ...

Everyone has at some point been charmed by the sound of a person's voice: but can we believe our ears? What can a voice really reveal about our character? Now an international research team led by the University of Göttingen has shown that people seem to express at least some aspects of their personality with their voice. The researchers discovered that a lower pitched voice is associated with individuals who are more dominant, extrovert and higher in sociosexuality (more interested in casual sex). The findings were true for women as well as for men. The results were published in the Journal of Research in Personality. The researchers analysed data from over 2,000 participants and included ...

In Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), the progressive death of neurons that control body movement leads to paralysis of muscles in the limbs and gradually of the whole body, which ultimately makes it impossible to breathe. ALS is currently untreatable, and its cause is unknown. It is known, however, that in 10% of affected individuals there is a strong genetic component, which causes the disease to occur in several members of a single family. In about half of these cases of familial ALS, the origin lies in a gene called C9ORF72. But why do mutations in this gene kill motor neurons? The answer may have been found by the Genomic Instability Group headed by Óscar Fernández-Capetillo at the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO), who discovered ...

The property that makes fluorescent lights buzz could power a new generation of more efficient computing devices that store data with magnetic fields, rather than electricity. A team led by University of Michigan researchers has developed a material that's at least twice as "magnetostrictive" and far less costly than other materials in its class. In addition to computing, it could also lead to better magnetic sensors for medical and security devices. Magnetostriction, which causes the buzz of fluorescent lights and electrical transformers, occurs when a material's shape and magnetic field are linked--that is, a change in shape causes a change in magnetic field. The property could be key to a new generation of computing devices called ...

Trained to see patterns by analyzing thousands of chest X-rays, a computer program predicted with up to 80 percent accuracy which COVID-19 patients would develop life-threatening complications within four days, a new study finds. Developed by researchers at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, the program used several hundred gigabytes of data gleaned from 5,224 chest X-rays taken from 2,943 seriously ill patients infected with SARS-CoV-2, the virus behind the infections. The authors of the study, publishing in the journal npj Digital Medicine online May 12, cited the "pressing need" ...

The 'missing link' that helped our ancestors to begin communicating with each other through language may have been iconic sounds, rather than charades-like gestures - giving rise to the unique human power to coin new words describing the world around us, a new study reveals. It was widely believed that, in order to get the first languages off the ground, our ancestors first needed a way to create novel signals that could be understood by others, relying on visual signs whose form directly resembled the intended meaning. However, an international research team, led by experts from the University of Birmingham and the Leibniz-Centre General Linguistics (ZAS), Berlin, have discovered that iconic ...

Lancaster scientists have demonstrated that other physicists' recent "discovery" of the field effect in superconductors is nothing but hot electrons after all. A team of scientists in the Lancaster Physics Department have found new and compelling evidence that the observation of the field effect in superconducting metals by another group can be explained by a simple mechanism involving the injection of the electrons, without the need for novel physics. Dr Sergey Kafanov, who initiated this experiment, said: "Our results unambiguously refute the claim of the electrostatic field effect ...

Touchscreens are notoriously difficult to type on. Since we can't feel the keys, we rely on the sense of sight to move our fingers to the right places and check for errors, a combination of efforts we can't pull off at the same time. To really understand how people type on touchscreens, researchers at Aalto University and the Finnish Center for Artificial Intelligence (FCAI) have created the first artificial intelligence model that predicts how people move their eyes and fingers while typing. The AI model can simulate how a human user would type any sentence on any keyboard design. It makes errors, detects them -- though not always immediately -- and corrects them, very much like ...

Philadelphia, May 12, 2021 - The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in an abrupt change in healthcare delivery, including a shift from in-person visits to telemedicine. However, a Canadian survey found that a significant proportion of cardiology trainees are uncomfortable with using telemedicine and feel that better preparation for new-tech medicine is needed. Experts draw attention to the need for a telemedicine curriculum that includes supervision to prepare trainees for the expanding role of telemedicine in cardiovascular care. Survey results are published in the Canadian Journal of Cardiology. "Our outpatient care shifted almost overnight from in-person visits to providing care to patients via telephone or video platforms (known as telemedicine) as a result ...

Philadelphia, May 12, 2021 - In recent years there has been an increased interest in the consumption of kefir, a fermented dairy beverage, because there is some evidence that it has health benefits and its affordability. A new study by researchers from the University of Illinois and The Ohio State University, published in JDS Communications, found that 66 percent of the commercial kefir products studied overstated microorganism density and 80 percent contained bacterial species that were not included on the label, potentially misleading consumers. Senior author Kelly S. Swanson, PhD, University of Illinois, Urbana, ...

A new study led by the Centre for Nutraceuticals in the University of Westminster shows that pink drinks can help to make you run faster and further compared to clear drinks. The researchers found that a pink drink can increase exercise performance by 4.4 per cent and can also increase a 'feel good' effect which can make exercise seem easier. The study, published in the journal Frontiers in Nutrition, is the first investigation to assess the effect of drink colour on exercise performance and provides the potential to open a new avenue of future research in the field of sports drinks and exercise. During the study participants were asked to run on a treadmill for 30 minutes at a self-selected speed ensuring their rate of exertion remained consistent. Throughout the exercise ...