How can we ensure that as many households as possible adopt not only solar panels, but also their own battery to store solar energy, a heat pump, and an electric car? Researchers at the Universities of Basel and Geneva have looked into just this question. Climate protection and the energy revolution must continue to make progress, and private households could make a significant contribution to this goal if they would use environmentally friendly technologies such as solar panels, electric vehicles, and heat pumps. Dr. Mart van der Kam and Professor Ulf Hahnel at the University of Basel, Switzerland, conducted research into the political measures that would be necessary to fully realize ...

A new scientific study published in the journal Foresight concludes that human civilisation is on the brink of the next ‘giant leap’ in evolution. However, progress could be thwarted by centralised far-right political projects such as the incoming Donald Trump administration.  "Industrial civilisation is facing 'inevitable' decline as it is replaced by what could turn out to be a far more advanced ‘postmaterialist’ civilisation based on distributed superabundant clean energy. The main challenge is that industrial civilisation is facing such rapid decline that this could derail the emergence of a ...

Endocannabinoids in the brain play a key role in food intake and energy use. Modulating the action of these molecules could help fight obesity, say researchers at Université de Montréal’s affiliated hospital research centre (CRCHUM). For years, Université de Montréal medical professor Stephanie Fulton and her team have been unravelling the mechanisms in the human nervous system that control people’s need to eat and to engage in physical activity, and how their metabolism affects their mood. Their latest ...

Trappist-1 b is one of seven rocky planets orbiting the star Trappist-1, located 40 light-years away. The planetary system is unique because it allows astronomers to study seven Earth-like planets from relatively close range, with three of them in the so-called habitable zone. This is the area in a planetary system where a planet could have liquid water on the surface. To date, ten research programmes have targeted this system with the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) for 290 hours. The current study, in which researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy (MPIA) ...

When one tectonic plate sinks beneath another, it generates magmas rich in volatiles such as water, sulphur and chlorine. As these magmas ascend, they release magmatic fluids, in which sulphur and chlorine bind to metals such as gold and copper, and transport these metals towards the surface of the Earth. As the extreme conditions relevant to natural magmas are very difficult to reproduce in the laboratory, the precise role of the different forms of sulphur in metal transport remains highly debated. However, an innovative approach ...

New TRAPPIST-1 observations with JWST underscore the complexities of confirming a planet's atmosphere using only broadband thermal emission data. This insight takes on added significance with the newly approved "Rocky Worlds" observation program by Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) which plans to apply this very method to study numerous rocky exoplanets orbiting cool stars.   The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is revolutionizing the study of exoplanets (planets orbiting stars other than the Sun), notably by enabling detailed spectroscopic studies of small rocky planets, but only if ...

Statement Highlights: About 800,000 people experience a stroke each year in the U.S., and due to recent advances in acute treatment, more people survive. Many stroke survivors experience long-term physical, mental and emotional health challenges. Palliative care is both a specialty and an approach to care that focuses on helping stroke survivors and their caregivers cope with these challenges by offering symptom management and improving communication about goals of care and quality of life. For a variety of reasons, palliative care is often underused, especially among Black, Hispanic and Asian patients.  A new scientific statement from the American Heart Association outlining palliative ...

Philadelphia, December 16, 2024 – Law enforcement provides critical community services, yet Black autistic youth often face elevated risk of negative outcomes during police interactions. In an effort to learn more about these encounters within the autistic community, researchers at the Center for Autism Research at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) conducted a study to examine perceptions and concerns of Black caregivers of Black autistic children regarding police interactions. The findings, published online today by the journal Autism, revealed important changes that could be made to improve the quality of interactions between police and Black autistic youth. Autistic ...

ANN ARBOR, Mich. – When young children’s behavior becomes challenging, many parents resort to threats – from taking away toys to threatening that Santa will skip their house, a national poll suggests. Parents of children ages three to five were most likely to say they use threats to address misbehavior – with a fourth threatening their child with no Santa or gifts – according to the University of Michigan Health C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital National Poll on Children’s Health. Many parents have also threatened to leave an activity or place, take away toys or not get dessert while nearly half of parents polled ...

The order Primates consists of not only our closest relatives on earth, the seven great apes, but also over 450 species of monkeys, lemurs, lorises, and galagos. Primates are fantastically diverse, from 400-pound gorillas to mouse lemurs (Microcebus) weighing just a single ounce. They exhibit some of the most remarkable behaviors observed in nature; chimpanzees ‘fish’ for termites in hollow logs using specially selected sticks, while orangutans use leaves as gloves to handle spiky durian fruit. They are some of the most intensely studied species on Earth, and yet there is no comprehensive molecular phylogenetic hypothesis of primate evolutionary history that summarizes the pattern ...

Hamilton, ON, Dec. 16, 2024 – Researchers at McMaster University have uncovered unexpected diversity in the genetic processes that determine the sex of the African clawed frog, a significant discovery in what was already one of the most widely studied amphibians in the world. A genomic analysis has uncovered a total of eight different sex chromosomes in just 11 species of the frog, many or all of which may contain unique and newly evolved genes that trigger male or female sexual differentiation.   Previously, researchers had known of only three different sex chromosomes ...

Mention emulsifiers and many people might be unaware what they are used for, but they are present in many daily products, from food to cosmetics. They keep substances that don’t usually mix, like water and oil, from separating and are either synthetically made or derived from milk, eggs, and soybeans, which are known as major food allergens. Thus, Osaka Metropolitan University researchers are looking at yeast proteins as emulsifiers. A research group led by Graduate School of Engineering Professor Masayuki Azuma and Associate Professor Yoshihiro Ojima previously showed that three yeast cell wall proteins ...

In recent years, microplastics have garnered significant attention due to their detection in tap and bottled water, as well as in rivers, lakes, and oceans. Conventional filtering technologies for water treatment have difficulty effectively filtering out microplastics of various sizes and shapes and are prone to clogging. Additionally, recovering small particles requires extremely fine filter meshes, which increases pressure and drastically reduces filter efficiency. Furthermore, they are not effective in open spaces such as lakes, rivers, or oceans, where microplastic pollution is increasing. Dr. Seong Jin Kim ...

“Needle exchange programs are evidence-based strategies that prevent transmission of blood-borne viruses, reduce injection-related infections, improve access to medical care, and facilitate entry into substance dependence programs for people who inject drugs,” writes Dr. Farah Houdroge, Disease Elimination Program, Burnet Institute, Melbourne, Australia, with coauthors. The World Health Organization has set a target of reducing hepatitis C infections to fewer than 2 per 100 people who inject drugs per year as part of an elimination strategy for hepatitis C. In 2024, Canada unveiled its 2024–2030 Sexually Transmitted and ...

EMBARGOED UNTIL 00:01 UK TIME, Monday 16 December 2024 (19:01 ET Sunday 15 December 2024)  Volume 99 No 403 February 2025 We aim to have all papers online by 10:00 UK time. More images and an embargoed preview of the paper can be found here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1yMsUjDe7xuLWDCNgPH0XIX6dZtHkX2_c?usp=sharing Analysis of the remains of at least 37 individuals from Early Bronze Age England finds they were killed, butchered, and probably consumed before being thrown down a 15m-deep shaft. It is the largest-scale ...

It’s that time of the year when most of us get the chance to sit back and enjoy some well-deserved down time. But whether you reach for the TV controller, or a favourite book, your choice could have implications for your long-term brain health, say researchers at the University of South Australia.   Assessing the 24-hour activity patterns of 397 older adults (aged 60+), researchers found that the context or type of activity that you engage in, matters when it comes to brain health. And specifically, that some sedentary (or sitting) behaviours are better for cognitive function than others.   When looking at different sedentary behaviours, they found ...

Tokyo, Japan – Researchers from Tokyo Metropolitan University have made tungsten disulfide nanotubes which point in the same direction when formed, for the first time. They used a sapphire surface under carefully controlled conditions to form arrayed tungsten disulfide nanotubes, each consisting of rolled nanosheets, using chemical vapor deposition. The team’s technique resolves the long-standing issue of jumbled orientations in collected amounts of nanotubes, promising real world device applications for the exotic anisotropy of single nanotubes.   Nanotubes consist of sheets of atoms rolled into a nanoscale tube, turning a two-dimensional ...

Batteries have become an integral component of modern technology. Lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) can be found virtually everywhere, from handheld electronic devices and electric vehicles to the large power banks used in renewable energy generation systems. However, current LIB designs suffer from some crippling drawbacks, including low durability and the use of toxic liquid electrolytes. To address these limitations, scientists have been studying all-solid-state batteries for over a decade. Although silicon-based all-solid-state batteries should be theoretically more durable than conventional LIBs, ...

By Jenifer Fouch University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Causing an estimated $160 billion in damages globally each year, one of agriculture’s biggest enemies is too small to see without a microscope. Plant-parasitic nematodes feed on agricultural crops at their roots, reducing yields and profits for producers. In the U.S., soybean producers lose about 11 percent of their crops to soybean diseases, including the southern root-knot nematode, Meloidogyne incognita, or SRKN as it’s commonly known. The nematode forms abnormal growths — or knots — in soybean ...

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – Immune checkpoint blockades, or ICBs, have revolutionized treatment for various advanced cancers. However, their effectiveness has plateaued due to therapeutic resistance that renders tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes, or TILs, ineffective. Thus, finding ways to disarm that resistance and rejuvenate anti-cancer TILs — so they can kill tumor cells — is an important goal for cancer clinicians. Yet any potential intervention has to take place under unusual conditions — the cancer microenvironment nearly devoid of oxygen due to fast ...

A team of researchers at The Keck School of Medicine of USC have received a $3.4 million federal grant to advance research on an innovative approach to slowing age-related cognitive decline. The award is from the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H), an agency withing the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that funds transformational research to tackle tough health problems. The grant is part of ARPA-H’s Sprint for Women’s Health initiative to address critical unmet challenges in women’s health, champion transformative ...

Raw milk, hailed by some as a natural and nutritious alternative to pasteurized dairy, may come with hidden dangers, according to a new Stanford University study. The research, published December 12 in Environmental Science & Technology Letters reveals that influenza or flu virus can remain infectious in refrigerated raw milk for up to five days. The findings come at a time when outbreaks of bird flu in dairy cattle have raised concerns about the potential for a new pandemic. "This work highlights the potential risk of avian influenza ...

Early identification of placental infection could help mothers, babies receive antibiotics Could help doctors in low-resource areas with no pathology labs, specialists quickly spot issues In well-resourced hospitals, tool could help doctors determine which placentas need a closer look  CHICAGO --- A newly developed tool that harnesses computer vision and artificial intelligence (AI) may help clinicians rapidly evaluate placentas at birth, potentially improving neonatal and maternal care, according to new research from scientists at Northwestern Medicine and Penn State. The study, which was published Dec. 13 in ...

PHILADELPHIA – During a shortage of the generic platinum chemotherapy drugs cisplatin and carboplatin that began in early 2023, there was no difference in mortality rates among patients with advanced cancer compared to the previous year, and prescription rates for the two drugs fell less than three percent overall—and 15.1 percent at the peak—according to an analysis published this week in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute by researchers from the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman ...

A new study led by UCLA Health Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center investigators offers new evidence that dietary changes may help reduce cancer cell growth in patients undergoing active surveillance, a treatment approach that involves regular monitoring of the cancer without immediate intervention. The findings, published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, show that a diet low in omega-6 and high in omega-3 fatty acids, combined with fish oil supplements, significantly reduced the growth rate of prostate cancer cells in men with early-stage disease. “This ...