For scientists, especially graduate students, who conduct fieldwork, every day is precious. Researchers meticulously prepare their equipment, procedures and timelines to make sure they get the data they need to do good science. So you can imagine the collective anxiety that fell across academia in spring 2020 when COVID-19 struck and many universities suspended in-person activities, including fieldwork. But for Austin Green, a doctoral student in the School of Biological Sciences and 2019 recipient of a National Geographic Society Early Career Grant, who studies the wildlife that lives in the canyons of the Wasatch Front, that anxiety was tempered by the knowledge that pandemic or no pandemic, his network of automated ...

The largest flightless bird ever to live weighed in up to 600kg and had a whopping head about half a metre long - but its brain was squeezed for space. Dromornis stirtoni, the largest of the 'mihirungs' (an Aboriginal word for 'giant bird'), stood up to 3m high and had a cranium wider and higher than it was long due to a powerful big beak, leading Australian palaeontologists to look inside its brain space to see how it worked. The new study, just published in the journal Diversity, examined the brains of the extinct giant mihirungs or dromornithid birds that were a distinctive part of the Australian fauna for many millions of years, before going extinct around 50,000 ...

During the COVID-19 pandemic, people have grown accustomed to wearing facemasks, but many coverings are fragile and not easily disinfected. Metal foams are durable, and their small pores and large surface areas suggest they could effectively filter out microbes. Now, researchers reporting in ACS' Nano Letters have transformed copper nanowires into metal foams that could be used in facemasks and air filtration systems. The foams filter efficiently, decontaminate easily for reuse and are recyclable. When a person with a respiratory infection, such ...

Nature produces a startling array of patterned materials, from the sensitive ridges on a person's fingertip to a cheetah's camouflaging spots. Although nature's patterns arise spontaneously during development, creating patterns on synthetic materials is more laborious. Now, researchers reporting in ACS Central Science have found an easy way to make patterned materials having complex microstructures with variations in mechanical, thermal and optical properties -- without the need for masks, molds or printers. In animals, patterns form before birth ...

Honeybees play a scent-driven game of telephone to guide members of a colony back to their queen, according to a new study led by University of Colorado Boulder. The research, published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, highlights how insects with limited cognitive abilities can achieve complex feats when they work together--even creating what looks like a miniature and buzzing version of a telecommunications network. The findings also serve as a testament to a honeybee's love for its queen. These matriarchs are the most important members of any hive: They're the only females able ...

Given the finite nature of fossil fuel reserves and the devastating environmental impacts of relying on fossil fuels, the development of clean energy sources is among the most pressing challenges facing modern industrial civilization. Solar energy is an attractive clean energy option, but the widescale implementation of solar energy technologies will depend on the development of efficient ways of converting light energy into chemical energy. Like many other research groups, the members of Professor Takehisa Dewa's research team at Nagoya Institute of Technology in Japan have turned to biological photosynthetic apparatuses, which ...

[Background] Decreasing the emission and efficient utilization (fixation) of carbon dioxide (CO2) are worldwide issues to prevent global warming. Promotion of the use of renewable energy is effective in reducing CO2 emissions. However, since there are large time-dependent fluctuations and large regional differences in renewable energy production, it is necessary to establish a fixation technology to allow efficient energy transportation and storage. Thus, there is increasing interest in technologies for synthesizing useful chemicals from CO2 using electricity derived from renewable energy. ...

A new study suggests that Sargramostim, a medication often used to boost white blood cells after cancer treatments, is also effective in treating and improving memory in people with mild-to-moderate Alzheimer's disease. This medication comprises of a natural human protein produced by recombinant DNA technology (yeast-derived rhu GM-CSF/Leukine®). The study, from the University of Colorado Alzheimer's and Cognition Center at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus (CU Anschutz), presents evidence from their clinical trial that shows that Sargramostim may ...

(Boston)--Being persistently lonely during midlife (ages 45-64) appears to make people more likely to develop dementia and Alzheimer's Disease (AD) later in life. However, people who recover from loneliness, appear to be less likely to suffer from dementia, compared to people who have never felt lonely. Loneliness is a subjective feeling resulting from a perceived discrepancy between desired and actual social relationships. Although loneliness does not itself have the status of a clinical disease, it is associated with a range of negative health outcomes, including sleep disturbances, depressive symptoms, cognitive impairment, and stroke. Still, feeling lonely may happen to anyone at some point in life, ...

A new study shows that if the population were fixed at current levels, the risk of population displacement due to river floods would rise by ~50% for each degree of global warming. However, if population increases are taken into account, the relative global flood displacement risk is significantly higher. The research, by an international team from Switzerland, Germany, and the Netherlands, used a global climate-, hydrology- and inundation-modelling chain, including multiple alternative climate and hydrological models, to quantify the effect of global warming on displacement ...

Extremely hot and dry conditions that currently put parts of the UK in the most severe danger of wildfires once a century could happen every other year in a few decades' time due to climate change, new research has revealed. A study, led by the University of Reading, predicting how the danger of wildfires will increase in future showed that parts of eastern and southern England may be at the very highest danger level on nearly four days per year on average by 2080 with high emissions, compared to once every 50-100 years currently. Wildfires need a source of ignition which ...

Deforestation, certain types of reforestation and commercial palm plantations correlate with increasing outbreaks of infectious disease, shows a new study in Frontiers in Veterinary Science. This study offers a first global look at how changes in forest cover potentially contribute to vector-borne diseases--such as those carried by mosquitos and ticks--as well as zoonotic diseases, like Covid-19, which jumped from an animal species into humans. The expansion of palm oil plantations in particular corresponded to significant rises in vector-borne ...

Research shows that children prefer to befriend, listen to, and imitate people who speak similarly to them. While most of this research has been conducted on monolingual (speaking only one language) children from Western societies, a growing subset of research has begun examining whether this pattern holds for children from more diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds. A new meta-analysis including studies with monolingual as well as bilingual children helps to shed light on the range of factors that contribute to the development of linguistic-based biases in early childhood. Understanding these patterns can eventually guide efforts to diminish biases based on how one speaks. The findings were published in a Child Development article written by researchers ...

Throughout the world, societies discriminate against and mistreat members of certain social groups. Young children may express intergroup biases that lead to such outcomes, demonstrating preferences for their own over other groups. How these biases develop is an important topic of study in today's climate. A new longitudinal study mimicked a situation in which children might overhear derogatory messages about a new social group. The study revealed that overhearing a stranger's negative claims about a social group, even in a brief comment, can have a lasting influence on children's attitudes towards the group. The findings were published in a Child ...

80% of jobs are communicated to people informally and these communications are often riddled with gender bias, providing a female (versus male) candidate with a less positive description of a leadership position, especially when the decision maker is more conservative. These are the findings of a new study by Ekaterina Netchaeva, of Bocconi University's Department of Management and Technology, looking at the role gender bias may play in the leadership gap between men and women. The persistence of a gender wage gap indicates that while discrimination is ending, bias lingers. The World Economic Forum's Global Gender Gap Report 2020 found "there is still a 31.4% average gender gap that remains to be closed globally." With this ...

Researchers from University of Minnesota, New York University, University of Pennsylvania, BI Norwegian Business School, University of Michigan, National Bureau of Economic Research, and University of North Carolina published a new paper in the Journal of Marketing that examines how advances in machine learning (ML) and blockchain can address inherent frictions in omnichannel marketing and raises many questions for practice and research. The study, forthcoming in the Journal of Marketing, is titled "Informational Challenges in Omnichannel Marketing Remedies and ...

The study, building on cooperation between climate scientists from the MENA region, aimed at assessing emerging heatwave characteristics. The research team used a first-of-its-kind multi-model ensemble of climate projections designed exclusively for the geographic area. Such detailed downscaling studies had been lacking for this region. The researchers then projected future hot spells and characterised them with the Heat Wave Magnitude Index. The good match among the model results and with observations indicates a high level of confidence in the heat wave projections. "Our results for a business-as-usual ...

March 24, 2021 -- Perhaps the most frustrating limitation of owning an all-electric car is how long it takes to fully charge the battery. For a Tesla, for example, it takes about 40 minutes to charge it to 80% capacity using the most powerful charging station. Scientists have long thought the laws of physics limited how fast you could safely recharge a battery, but new research by University of Utah chemical engineering assistant professor Tao Gao has opened the door to creating a battery that can be recharged in just a fraction of the time. Gao's research was detailed in a new paper published in the scientific journal Joule. The study was conducted while Gao was a postdoctoral researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology under ...

VANCOUVER, Wash. - Most people rely on family members to help them learn how to open a bank account, find a job or create a budget, but that's often not an option for youth in foster care, according to a recent study in Child & Family Social Work. "Foster kids have distinctive challenges," said Amy Salazar, lead author on the study and an assistant professor at Washington State University Vancouver. "They need more support in several areas, and financial capability is one of them, especially when they're transitioning out of the foster care system and into adulthood." For the study, Salazar and her co-authors surveyed 97 foster care youths aged 14 to 20. They found that those who were age 18 and over had more ...

Florida has experienced a relatively mild winter, which typically translates to more mosquitoes in the summer and more birds on which they can feast. If history repeats itself, it's likely there will be an uptick in West Nile virus cases this year, especially in the outer fringes of the suburbs where much of the nighttime illumination emanates from the skyglow of nearby cities. A new study from the University of South Florida (USF) is the first to provide direct evidence that light pollution is driving infectious disease patterns in nature. The research team previously determined mosquitoes and birds are attracted to light, greatly enhancing the likelihood ...

The first personalised advice on the most effective exercise to lower blood pressure is published today in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology, a journal of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC).1 The ESC consensus document recommends specific activities according to an individual's current blood pressure level. One in four heart attacks are caused by high blood pressure. It is estimated that by 2025, around 60% of the world's population will have hypertension. While it is widely accepted that exercise lowers blood pressure, until now recommendations have focused on the amount of exercise per week, without considering an individual's starting blood ...

New research led by the University of Bristol has revealed that crocodiles once flourished on land and in the oceans as a result of fast evolution. Modern crocodiles are predators living in rivers, lakes and wetlands, grabbing fish, reptiles, birds and mammals with their conspicuous snouts and powerful jaws. However, new research published today in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, shows that ancient crocodiles were once much more varied because of rapid evolution. In the time of the dinosaurs, some crocodiles experimented with dolphin-like adaptations to living in the oceans, and others lived on land as fast-moving plant-eaters. The researchers studied over 200 skulls and jaws, including ...

SINGAPORE, 23 March 2021 - Scientists from Duke-NUS Medical School, the National Centre for Infectious Diseases (NCID) and the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) Infectious Diseases Labs found that antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 wane at different rates, lasting for mere days in some individuals, while remaining present in others for decades. The study, published in The Lancet Microbe, shows that the severity of the infection could be a deciding factor in having longer-lasting antibodies. Individuals with low levels of neutralising ...

A University of Birmingham-led study of top-flight UK rugby players - carried out in collaboration with the Rugby Football Union (RFU), Premiership Rugby, and Marker Diagnostics - has identified a method of accurately diagnosing concussion using saliva, paving the way for the first non-invasive clinical test for concussion for use in sport and other settings. Following the team's previous research, which identified that the concentration of specific molecules in saliva changes rapidly after a traumatic brain injury, the researchers embarked on a three-year study in elite rugby to establish if these 'biomarkers' could be used as a diagnostic test ...

Potentially paves way for non-invasive diagnostic test at all levels of participation On a par with the assessment currently provided in professional sports Could work alongside 'gold standard' head injury protocol used in elite sports Distinct chemical 'signatures' for concussion have been identified in the spit of elite male rugby players, reveals research published online in the British Journal of Sports Medicine. This potentially paves the way for a non-invasive and rapid diagnostic test for the condition that could be used pitch side and after the game at all levels of participation, suggest the researchers. This is especially important because ...