Near-infrared probe decodes telomere dynamics

A new synthetic probe offers a safe and straightforward approach for visualizing chromosome tips in living cells. The probe was designed by scientists at the Institute for Integrated Cell-Material Science (iCeMS) and colleagues at Kyoto University, and could advance research into aging and a wide range of diseases, including cancers. The details were published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

source https://phys.org/news/2020-11-near-infrared-probe-decodes-telomere-dynamics.html

Flame on! How AI may tame a complex materials technique and transform manufacturing

Creating nanomaterials with flame spray pyrolysis is complex, but scientists at Argonne have discovered how applying artificial intelligence can lead to an easier process and better performance.

source https://phys.org/news/2020-11-flame-ai-complex-materials-technique.html

Entropy production gets a system update

Nature is not homogenous. Most of the universe is complex and composed of various subsystems—self-contained systems within a larger whole. Microscopic cells and their surroundings, for example, can be divided into many different subsystems: the ribosome, the cell wall, and the intracellular medium surrounding the cell.

source https://phys.org/news/2020-11-entropy-production.html

Scientists propose machine learning method for 2-D material spectroscopy

Machine learning is an important branch in the field of artificial intelligence. Its basic idea is to build a statistical model based on data and use the model to analyze and predict the data. With the rapid development of big data technology, data-driven machine learning algorithms have begun to flourish in various fields of materials research.

source https://phys.org/news/2020-11-scientists-machine-method-d-material.html

New trilobite fossil reveals cephalic specialization of trilobites in Middle Cambrian

Trilobites achieved their maximum genetic diversity in the Cambrian. However, unlike this diversity measure, the morphological disparity of trilobites based on cranidial outline reached the peak in the Middle to Late Ordovician.

source https://phys.org/news/2020-11-trilobite-fossil-reveals-cephalic-specialization.html

Solar radiation accelerates carbon cycle process of temperate forest ecosystems

Litter decomposition is critical for carbon (C) cycling in terrestrial ecosystems. Sunlight, as the essential energy for the biogeochemical cycling, can directly break down natural organic matter and accelerate decomposition through photodegradation. However, the role of photodegradation in litter decomposition has been neglected especially in productive mesic ecosystems, where litter is exposed to a heterogeneous radiation environment. Obtaining a more-complete picture of the drivers of litter decay is key to predicting how terrestrial C and nutrient cycles respond to climate changes.

source https://phys.org/news/2020-11-solar-carbon-temperate-forest-ecosystems.html

Vision-based fire detection facilities work better under new deep learning model

Fast and accurate fire detection is significant to the sustainable development of human society and Earth ecology. The existence of objects with similar characteristics to fire increases the difficulty of vision-based fire detection. Improving the accuracy of fire detection by digging deeper visual features of fire always remains challenging.

source https://techxplore.com/news/2020-11-vision-based-facilities-deep.html

Researchers describe previously unknown mechanism for inducing electron emission in highly oriented pyrolitic graphite

It is something quite common in physics: Electrons leave a certain material, fly away and are then measured. Some materials emit electrons when they are irradiated with light. These electrons are called photoelectrons. In materials research, so-called Auger electrons also play an important role—they can be emitted by atoms if an electron is first removed from one of the inner electron shells. But now scientists at TU Wien (Vienna) have succeeded in explaining a completely different type of electron emission that can occur in carbon materials such as graphite. This electron emission type has been known for about 50 years, but its cause was previously unclear.

source https://phys.org/news/2020-11-previously-unknown-mechanism-electron-emission.html

Uncovering the hidden side of storms: France's Taranis satellite to launch in November

Sprites, elves, jets… few people know that scientists habitually use such other-worldly words to describe transient luminous events or TLEs, light flashes that occur during active storms just a few tens of kilometers over our heads. Few people also know that storms can act as particle accelerators generating very brief bursts of X-rays and gamma rays. But what are the physical processes and mechanisms behind these phenomena discovered barely 30 years ago? Do they impact the physics and chemistry of the upper atmosphere, the environment or even humans? Such are the questions facing the French Taranis satellite that will be riding aloft during the night of 16 to 17 November atop a Vega launcher from the Guiana Space Center, an all-French mission involving research scientists from CNES, the national scientific research center CNRS, the atomic energy and alternative energies commission CEA and several French universities.

source https://phys.org/news/2020-11-uncovering-hidden-side-storms-france.html

Machine learning yields a breakthrough in the study of stellar nurseries

Artificial intelligence can make it possible to see astrophysical phenomena that were previously beyond reach. This has now been demonstrated by scientists from the CNRS, IRAM, Observatoire de Paris-PSL, Ecole Centrale Marseille and Ecole Centrale Lille, working together in the ORION-B program. In a series of three papers published in Astronomy & Astrophysics on 19 November 2020, they present the most comprehensive observations yet carried out of one of the star-forming regions closest to the Earth.

source https://phys.org/news/2020-11-machine-yields-breakthrough-stellar-nurseries.html

A research tool developed to study organelles that give color to skin, hair, and eyes

Melanosomes are the organelles, or structures, inside our cells, that produce melanin, the molecule that gives our skin, hair and eyes their color. Melanosomes produce several different forms of melanin, including black/brown coloration and yellow/red coloration, and the many variations in levels at which each coloration can be produced in an individual generate the wide variety of skin, hair, and eye colors in the world.

source https://phys.org/news/2020-11-tool-organelles-skin-hair-eyes.html

The fundamental chemistry behind electrocatalytic water splitting

Transitioning to a sustainable energy economy requires electrocatalytic methods to convert electrical energy to chemical energy and feedstocks. A team of researchers from TU Berlin, ETH Zurich, the National Research Council—Institute of Materials of Trieste, and led by the FHI has now uncovered the reaction mechanism of a major bottleneck in these processes, the oxygen evolution reaction. Results are published in Nature.

source https://phys.org/news/2020-11-fundamental-chemistry-electrocatalytic.html

Going beyond the anti-laser may enable long-range wireless power transfer

Ever since Nikola Tesla spewed electricity in all directions with his coil back in 1891, scientists have been thinking up ways to send electrical power through the air. The dream is to charge your phone or laptop, or maybe even a healthcare device such as a pacemaker, without the need for wires and plugs. The tricky bit is getting the electricity to find its intended target, and getting that target to absorb the electricity instead of just reflect it back into the air—all preferably without endangering anyone along the way.

source https://phys.org/news/2020-11-anti-laser-enable-long-range-wireless-power.html

New understanding of mobility paves way for tomorrow's transport systems

In recent years, big data sets from mobile phones have been used to provide increasingly accurate analyses of how we all move between home, work and leisure, holidays and everything else. The strength of basing analyses on mobile phone data is that they provide accurate data on when, how, and how far each individual moves without any particular focus on whether they are passing geographical boundaries along the way—we simply move from one coordinate to another in a system of longitude and latitude.

source https://phys.org/news/2020-11-mobility-paves-tomorrow.html

Research team pushes back the boundaries of high-energy laser pulses

Using the Advanced Laser Light Source (ALLS) facility, the research team of Professor François Légaré of the Institut national de la recherche scientifique (INRS) has pushed back the boundaries of high-energy pulse propagation in a nonlinear medium through the observation of high-energy multidimensional solitary states. This breakthrough allows the direct generation of extremely short and intense, laser pulses that are highly-stable in time and space. The results of this work were published in Nature Photonics.

source https://phys.org/news/2020-11-team-boundaries-high-energy-laser-pulses.html

UN climate chief: pledges by big polluters boost Paris hopes

The U.N.'s climate chief says deadlines set by some of the world's top polluters to end greenhouse gas emissions, along with president-elect Joe Biden's pledge to take the United States back into the Paris accord, have boosted hopes of meeting the pact's ambitious goals.

source https://phys.org/news/2020-11-climate-chief-pledges-big-polluters.html

Los Angeles and Google partner on 'Tree Canopy' project

Los Angeles and Google have struck a partnership to track canopy density in the huge metropolis to determine which neighborhoods need more trees as a means of fighting extreme temperatures.

source https://phys.org/news/2020-11-los-angeles-google-partner-tree.html

Facebook moderators press for pandemic safety protections

More than 200 Facebook content moderators demanded better health and safety protections Wednesday as the social media giant called the workers back to the office during the pandemic.

source https://techxplore.com/news/2020-11-facebook-moderators-pandemic-safety.html

Storm Iota leaves over 30 dead in Central America

Iota's death toll rose to over 30 on Wednesday after the storm unleashed mudslides, smashed infrastructure and left thousands homeless in its wake across Central America, revisiting areas devastated by Hurricane Eta just two weeks ago.

source https://phys.org/news/2020-11-storm-iota-dead-central-america.html

Robot reminds Japan shoppers to wear masks

Asking someone to put on a mask is a touchy subject, so one shop in Japan has enlisted a robot to make sure its customers wear them during the pandemic.

source https://techxplore.com/news/2020-11-robot-japan-shoppers-masks.html

Air pollution costs Utahns billions annually and shortens life expectancy by two years

Air pollution has been a problem in Utah since before the territory was officially recognized as a state. The mountain valleys of this high elevation region are particularly vulnerable to the buildup of air pollution from vehicles, household heating and power production. Together with high per-capita energy use, this has resulted in periods of poor air quality. However, with so many types of pollution and regional conditions, determining the overall effects of air pollution on Utah's health and economy has been a major challenge. A new study from 23 Utah-based researchers, including five from the University of Utah, sought to do just that.

source https://phys.org/news/2020-11-air-pollution-utahns-billions-annually.html

Synthesis study demonstrates phytoplankton can bloom below Arctic sea ice

Small photosynthetic marine algae are a key component of the Arctic marine ecosystem but their role for the ecology of the Arctic Ocean have been underestimated for decades. That's the conclusion of a team of scientists who synthesized more than half a century of research about the occurrence, magnitude and composition of phytoplankton blooms under Arctic sea ice. The results were published in a special issue of Frontiers in Marine Science devoted to Arctic Ocean research.

source https://phys.org/news/2020-11-synthesis-phytoplankton-bloom-arctic-sea.html

Mining and megaprojects emerge as alarming threat to tropical forests and biodiversity

A new study assessing progress on global efforts to end forest loss worldwide offers the most comprehensive overview to date of the large role that infrastructure and mining play in tropical deforestation, now and in the future. The study finds that an increasing number of megaprojects—massive and complex development projects that may combine transportation, energy and other infrastructure—planned for tropical forests are on track to destroy forests and open remote forested areas to even more development. In particular, this new infrastructure is on track to increase mining activity deeper in the remote forests of South America, Southeast Asia and Central Africa.

source https://phys.org/news/2020-11-megaprojects-emerge-alarming-threat-tropical.html