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Other Sciences news
(PhysOrg.com) -- Most people are familiar with the seven deadly sins - pride, envy, gluttony, lust, wrath, greed and sloth - but could there be molecular solutions for this daily struggle between good and evil?
(PhysOrg.com) -- Poor recordkeeping keeps California schools from getting all of the funding that they have coming, a failing that especially hurts English learners, according to research from the University of California, Davis, School of Education.
(PhysOrg.com) -- A book co-authored by a UWE academic delves into the assumptions and motivations of liberal parents in making decisions about secondary schools.
An Indiana University study examining the adoption of environmental education by schools in Israel, measured by Green School Certification, found that school change was assisted by community-based grassroots efforts, not just 'top-down' school policy. It also found that some types of schools were more likely to adopt the earth-friendly changes than other types. IU Sociologist Oren Pizmony Levy, lead author of the study, said the findings have implications for U.S. schools.
In 2005, the UC Atlas of Global Inequality went online at UC Santa Cruz. The site uses downloadable maps and graphics allowing students to explore and research various inequalities around the world.
Churches will continue to attract older congregations as increasing life expectancy encourages people to put off involvement in religion, according to new research.
(PhysOrg.com) -- An influential model for teaching reading and comprehension to English learners doesn’t work well for Cantonese-speaking children, according to new research from the University of California, Davis, School of Education.
(PhysOrg.com) -- Countries rich in oil have long been associated with the "resource-curse paradox" - a principle which states they will suffer, rather than benefit, in the long run. Not so, new research by a Cambridge Gates scholar suggests.
Solving problems for clients in any field usually requires gathering information and creative thinking that leads to practical and inventive solutions.
(PhysOrg.com) -- Three different dinosaur footprints have been found on a 50 kilo boulder from an Isle of Wight beach, providing evidence of life on a riverbank 130 million years ago.
If you have to face a judge, try for first thing in the morning or right after lunch. A new study suggests that's when they're most lenient.
Nanotechnology news
Dutch researchers at Eindhoven University of Technology have developed a replacement for indium tin oxide (ITO), an important material used in displays for all kinds of everyday products such as TVs, telephones and laptops, as well as in solar cells. Unfortunately indium is a rare metal, and the available supplies are expected to be virtually exhausted within as little as ten years. The replacement material is a transparent, conducting film produced in water, and based on electrically conducting carbon nanotubes and plastic nanoparticles. It is made of commonly available materials, and on top of that is also environment-friendly. The results, which also provide new insights into conduction in complex composite materials, were published online yesterday 10 April by the scientific journal Nature Nanotechnology.
Creating artificial structures from DNA is the objective of DNA nanotechnology. This new discipline, which combines biology, physics, chemistry and material science makes use of the ability of the natural DNA-strains' capacity for self assembly. Smileys or small boxes, measuring only 10s of nanometers were created from DNA in a drop of water. Prof Alexander Heckel and his doctoral student Thorsten Schmidt from the "Cluster of Excellence for Macromolecular Complexes" at Goethe University were able to create two rings of DNA only 18 nanometers in size, and to interlock them like two links in a chain. Such a structure is called catenan, a term derived from the Latin word catena (chain). Schmidt, who got married during the time he was working on the nano-rings, believes that they are probably the world's smallest wedding rings.
(PhysOrg.com) -- Researchers at Northeast Normal University in China, have come up with a three-step process that when applied to cotton material results in a fabric that is both waterproof and very highly UV resistant.
(PhysOrg.com) -- In a report published in Nature, Yu-ming Lin and Phaedon Avoris, IBM researchers, have announced the development of a new graphene transistor which is smaller and faster than the one they introduced in February of 2010. This new transistor has a cut-off frequency of 155 GHz, compared to the 100 GHz previous transistor.
Physics news
RIKEN and the Japan Synchrotron Radiation Research Institute (JASRI) have cut the ribbon on a new cutting-edge X-ray Free Electron Laser (XFEL) facility in Harima, the first such facility in Japan and only the second in the whole world. Nicknamed "SACLA" (SPring-8 Angstrom Compact Free Electron Laser), the new XFEL's intense beams will open a unique window onto the minuscule structure of molecules and rapid reaction of chemical species.
(PhysOrg.com) -- When black holes slam into each other, the surrounding space and time surge and undulate like a heaving sea during a storm. This warping of space and time is so complicated that physicists haven't been able to understand the details of what goes on -- until now.
(PhysOrg.com) -- For more than two decades, scientists have been "watching" electrons in atoms make the jump between energy levels in real time. "Atoms have energy levels, and when electrons 'jump' from one level to another, you can detect this optically. You can encode information in real atoms to make a quantum bit, or qubit," Irfan Siddiqi tells PhysOrg.com.
Space & Earth news
Unlike the situation in other caves, damage caused by tourists at the Águila cave in Ávila, Spain is "imperceptible", despite it receiving tens of thousands of visitors each year. This is the main conclusion of an international research study headed by the University of Alcalá (UAH), which measured heat variations in the cave.
A U.S. Environmental Protection Agency draft assessment of the potential health effects associated with formaldehyde exposure needs substantial revision, says a new report from the National Research Council, which recommends improvements for EPA's final assessment. The report finds that EPA supports its conclusions that formaldehyde can cause irritation to the eyes, nose, and throat; lesions in the respiratory tract; and genetic mutations at high concentrations. Furthermore, the report finds that the evidence is sufficient for EPA to conclude that formaldehyde exposures are a cause of cancers of the nose, nasal cavity, and upper throat. However, the draft assessment has not adequately supported its conclusions that formaldehyde causes other cancers of the respiratory tract, leukemia, or several other noncancer health outcomes. Also, the assessment should consider additional studies to derive noncancer reference concentrations (RfCs), which are estimates of lifetime concentrations to which someone could be exposed without appreciable risk of particular adverse health effects.
Last month, temperatures and precipitation in the contiguous United States averaged above normal, according to scientists at NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C. The average temperature in March was 44.0 degrees F, which is 1.4 degrees F above the long-term (1901-2000) average. March precipitation, while record dry in areas like Texas, was overall 0.22 inch above the long-term average. The January – March temperatures were near-normal, while average precipitation was below-normal.
Nitrogen pollution costs Europe between 70 and 320 billion euros ($100bn-$460bn) per year in its impact on health and the environment, according to a major European study launched in Britain on Monday.
To guarantee ESA's CryoSat mission is delivering the best data possible, scientists have set out on a major expedition to the Arctic – part of a collaborative effort between ESA and NASA to gather ice measurements as the satellite orbits above.
(PhysOrg.com) -- NASA's Juno spacecraft has arrived in Florida to begin final preparations for a launch this summer. The spacecraft was shipped from Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, to the Astrotech payload processing facility in Titusville, Fla., today. The solar-powered Juno spacecraft will orbit Jupiter's poles 33 times to find out more about the gas giant's origins, structure, atmosphere and magnetosphere.
The turmoil in oil-producing nations is triggering turmoil at home, as rising oil prices force Americans to pay more at the pump. Meanwhile, there's a growing industry that's promising jobs and access to cheaper energy resources on American soil, but it's not without its controversy. Deborah Kittner, a University of Cincinnati doctoral student in geography, presents, "What's the Fracking Problem? Extraction Industry's Neglect of the Locals in the Pennsylvania Marcellus Region," at the annual meeting of the Association of American Geographers. Kittner will be presenting April 14 at the meeting in Seattle.
Yuri Gagarin's first space flight was plagued with technical problems and his ship would never have left the ground if it had been subject to today's safety standards, a top rocket scientist said Friday.
(AP) -- On the eve of two prominent space anniversaries, the six humans circling the Earth said Monday they will join in the celebrations from the best vantage point of all - orbit.
(PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists from the NOAA-funded Gulf of Maine Toxicity (GOMTOX) project issued an outlook for a moderate regional bloom of a toxic alga that can cause ‘red tides’ in the spring and summer of this year, potentially threatening the New England shellfish industry. However, there are signs this year’s bloom could be suppressed by recent changes in ocean conditions in the Gulf of Maine.
(AP) -- Russia risks losing its edge in space by relying exclusively on Soviet-era achievements and doing little to design new spacecraft, a Russian cosmonaut warned Monday as the nation marked the 50th anniversary of the first human spaceflight by Yuri Gagarin.
The risk of a massive leak of radioactive materials from a crippled nuclear plant in northeast Japan is becoming "significantly smaller," the government said Monday.
Recent radical changes in air quality regulations in Delhi, India, have had a substantial positive effect on the health of city residents, according to new research co-authored by Andrew Foster, professor of economics and community health and an associate at Brown's Population Studies and Training Center. The findings from this first systematic study quantifying the heath effects of Delhi's environmental interventions are published in the online issue of Atmospheric Environment. The research is among the first to use remote sensing imagery to look directly at the effects of air quality on health.
A month after a deadly quake-tsunami hit a Japanese nuclear plant, the risk of a huge radiation leak has fallen but the danger is far from over, experts say -- a risk brought sharply into focus by a powerful tremor Monday.
The US space agency said it will announce the museums that will host the three retiring space shuttles on Tuesday during an event to mark the 30th anniversary of the first shuttle launch.
University of Utah geophysicists made the first large-scale picture of the electrical conductivity of the gigantic underground plume of hot and partly molten rock that feeds the Yellowstone supervolcano. The image suggests the plume is even bigger than it appears in earlier images made with earthquake waves.
(PhysOrg.com) -- Galaxies often occur in groups. Our own Milky Way galaxy, for example, and its local neighborhood with about fifty galaxies are at the edge of the Virgo Cluster, a collection of somewhere between 1200 and 2000 galaxies. Galaxy clusters are the most massive objects in the universe, and their formation is thought to have begun from small spatial variations in the density of matter in the early universe. Clusters are therefore powerful probes of the growth of structure in the early universe, and their numbers and masses help astronomers test cosmological models including galaxy formation.
(PhysOrg.com) -- New research from The Australian National University has shed light on the secrets of the deep Earth and will lead to better understanding of important geological processes.
Leaves, grass, horse manure. These have been Mike Bacon's primary ingredients, until now.
Recent modeling of solar mass stars with planetary systems, found that a system with four rocky planets and four gas giants in stable orbits – and only a sparsely populated outer belt of planetesimals – has only a 15 to 25% likelihood of developing. While you might be skeptical about the validity of a model that puts our best known planetary system in the unlikely basket, there may be some truth in this finding.
Chemistry news
Scientists at the Naval Research Laboratory Center for Bio-Molecular Science and Engineering have developed a method to detect the presence of viruses in cells and to study their growth. Targeting a virus that has ribonucleic acid (RNA) as its genetic makeup, the new technique referred to as locked nucleic acid (LNA) flow cytometry-fluorescence in situ hybridization (flow-FISH), involves the binding of an LNA probe to viral RNA.
(PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists are making progress in their quest to find an improved antibiotic for a strain of meningitis that results in over half a million deaths a year worldwide. The fungal disease Cryptococcal Meningitis is especially rife in AIDS patients and there are fears that if new drugs cannot be found, it could become untreatable. The results are published in one of the most respected journals in the field of membrane biology - Biochimica et Biophysica Acta – Biomembranes. Further experiments will be carried out at STFC’s ISIS neutron source this week.
Polymer-reinforced aerogels could soon go on a space mission. Modifying the mechanical properties of aerogels with a polymer reinforcement creates a durable thermal insulator primed for aerospace, according to recently published research by Dr. Sadhan C. Jana, University of Akron Department of Polymer Engineering chair and professor, UA Ph.D. graduate Jason Randall and NASA Glenn Research Center collaborator Dr. Mary Ann Meador.
(PhysOrg.com) -- High-energy molecules play a major role in the chemistry of combustion, plasmas and the atmosphere. Scientists have been able to generate and investigate molecules with large amounts of vibrational, electronic or translational energy, but methods for producing and studying molecules with large amounts of rotational energy have remained elusive. In the April 5 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academies of Science, University of Maryland Chemistry Professor Amy S. Mullin and her research team introduce a new instrument that can both impart extremely large amounts of rotational energy to molecules and study how they subsequently transfer their energy to other molecules.
(PhysOrg.com) -- When a forensic agent dusts a surface with powder or exposes it to the vapors of an iodine chamber, mystery fans know what is going on: This is how latent fingerprints are made visible so that they can be compared to those of a suspect. Su Chen and a team at Nanjing University of Technology have now developed a new process for especially rapid and simple detection of fingerprints. As the Chinese researchers report in the journal Angewandte Chemie, all it takes is a special nanofiber mat that is pressed onto the suspect surface and briefly treated with hot air -- the fingerprints appear as red ridge patterns.
Virtually all processes in the human body rely on a unique class of proteins known as enzymes. To study them, scientists want to attach these molecules to surfaces and hold them fast, but this can often be a tricky undertaking.
(PhysOrg.com) -- For years, the U.S. army and many other agencies around the world have been using hand-held green light-emitting signal flares; flares which are very nearly indispensable under certain adverse conditions. The problem is, the flares contain barium, a toxic metal that can build up quickly on training grounds. Barium is also the ingredient used in fireworks to make them glow green, which creates a problem for places such as Disneyworld that shoot off fireworks every night.
A chance observation by a Queen's researcher might have ended a decades-old debate about the precise way antifreeze proteins (AFP) bind to the surface of ice crystals.
In a development that holds intriguing possibilities for the future of industrial catalysis, as well as for such promising clean green energy technologies as artificial photosynthesis, researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have created bilayered nanocrystals of a metal-metal oxide that are the first to feature multiple catalytic sites on nanocrystal interfaces. These multiple catalytic sites allow for multiple, sequential catalytic reactions to be carried out selectively and in tandem.
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