Harbor porpoises on the decline in the German North Sea

The North Sea is a heavily trafficked area, with major shipping routes crossing its waters, and fisheries, offshore oil rigs, and wind farms populating its waves. All this activity inevitably has an effect on marine wildlife, and scientists are particularly interested in how the harbor porpoise population has fared in the face of such disturbances.

source https://phys.org/news/2021-01-harbor-porpoises-decline-german-north.html

Scientists find hints for how a fatty compound functions in the cell's powerhouse

In a study of yeast, Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers say they have found how a fatty compound called cardiolipin helps create cellular energy. The researchers say their findings will help shed light on conditions that impact human metabolism, such as heart disease, diabetes and Barth syndrome, a rare genetic disorder that weakens the heart.

source https://phys.org/news/2021-01-scientists-hints-fatty-compound-functions.html

Virtual reality in education is topic of journal special issue

Technology is providing educators with unimaginable tools that are rapidly coming to the fore especially because of restrictions due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Writing in an editorial in the International Journal of Smart Technology and Learning, Charles Xiaoxue Wang and Michele Garabedian of the Stork College of Education at Florida Gulf Coast University in Fort Myers, U.S., discuss the potential of virtual reality in education and prelude a special issue of the journal on this topic.

source https://phys.org/news/2021-01-virtual-reality-topic-journal-special.html

Novel sensor to measure atmospheric aerosols and nitrogen dioxide simultaneously

Recently, Prof. Gao Xiaoming's group from the Anhui Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics (AIOFM) of the Hefei Institutes of Physical Science (HFIPS) designed and manufactured a photoacoustic spectroscopy-based sensor to measure aerosols and nitrogen dioxide (NO2) simultaneously.

source https://phys.org/news/2021-01-sensor-atmospheric-aerosols-nitrogen-dioxide.html

Carbon-based catalysts used for Fischer-Tropsch synthesis

Fischer-Tropsch synthesis (FTS) is an essential approach to convert coal, biomass, and shale gas into fuels and chemicals, such as lower olefins, gasoline, and diesel.

source https://phys.org/news/2021-01-carbon-based-catalysts-fischer-tropsch-synthesis.html

How and what do bats hear?

A new study published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B provides the most comprehensive comparative assessment of bat hearing capacity to date and highlights the evolutionary pressures acting on their sensory perception. Scientists from the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin studied bat hearing in both high and low frequency ranges used for echolocation and social communication and demonstrated that hearing sensitivity is equally good at both ranges. Moreover, a phylogenetic comparative analysis showed that changes in hearing sensitivity evolved in response to frequency changes of both echolocation and social calls.

source https://phys.org/news/2021-01-how-and-what-do-bats.html

How giant dinosaurs may have spread seeds in prehistoric world

A new study from the University of Auckland looks at the animals' roles in moving seeds from one place to another.

source https://phys.org/news/2021-01-giant-dinosaurs-seeds-prehistoric-world.html

Performance fiber with color-changing coating makes mechanical stress visible

High-performance fibers that have been exposed to high temperatures usually lose their mechanical properties undetected and, in the worst case, can tear precisely when lives depend on them. For example, safety ropes used by fire brigades or suspension ropes for heavy loads on construction sites. Empa researchers have now developed a coating that changes color when exposed to high temperatures through friction or fire.

source https://phys.org/news/2021-01-fiber-color-changing-coating-mechanical-stress.html

Warming driving Eastern Mediterranean species collapse: study

Populations of marine molluscs have collapsed in recent decades in parts of the eastern Mediterranean as warming waters have made conditions unsuitable for native species, new research showed Wednesday.

source https://phys.org/news/2021-01-eastern-mediterranean-species-collapse.html

Rare white tiger born at Nicaragua zoo

A rare white tiger, named "Nieve" (snow in Spanish) was born at the Nicaragua zoo, and is being raised by humans after its mother rejected it, the director of the zoo told AFP.

source https://phys.org/news/2021-01-rare-white-tiger-born-nicaragua.html

Indonesian baby sea turtles make a break for freedom

Newly hatched, dozens of baby turtles flipped and flopped their way down a beach towards the crashing waves of the Indian Ocean, under the watchful gaze of conservationists at an Indonesian national park.

source https://phys.org/news/2021-01-indonesian-baby-sea-turtles-freedom.html

China to launch carbon emissions trading scheme next month

China's delayed carbon trading system will start operating in February, the environment ministry has said, as the world's biggest polluter takes steps towards decarbonising its economy by 2060.

source https://phys.org/news/2021-01-china-carbon-emissions-scheme-month.html

Apple ties exec bonuses to social, environmental values

Apple is making environmental and social values factors it will weigh when calculating bonuses for top executives, according to a regulatory filing on Tuesday.

source https://techxplore.com/news/2021-01-apple-ties-exec-bonuses-social.html

Trump widens US ban on Chinese apps as his term nears end

President Donald Trump has signed an executive order banning transactions with eight Chinese apps including Alipay and WeChat Pay in an escalation of a trade war that has been unfolding through most of his term.

source https://techxplore.com/news/2021-01-trump-widens-chinese-apps-term.html

Amazon surpasses Boeing as Washington state's biggest employer

Move over, Boeing. Washington state is now Amazonia.

source https://techxplore.com/news/2021-01-amazon-surpasses-boeing-washington-state.html

Amazon's Bezos tops list of richest charitable gifts in 2020

The world's richest person made the single-largest charitable contribution in 2020, according to The Chronicle of Philanthropy's annual list of top donations, a $10 billion gift that is intended to help fight climate change.

source https://techxplore.com/news/2021-01-amazon-bezos-tops-richest-charitable.html

UK watchdog investigates Ryanair's 'jab & go' ad

Britain's advertising watchdog has launched an investigation into budget carrier Ryanair, after receiving 1,600 complaints about an ad that suggested consumers should "jab & go.''

source https://techxplore.com/news/2021-01-uk-watchdog-ryanair-jab-ad.html

Slack kicks off 2021 with a global outage

Slack, the messaging service used by millions of people for work and school, suffered a global outage on Monday, the first day back for most people returning from the New Year's holiday.

source https://techxplore.com/news/2021-01-slack-global-outage.html

SolarWinds breach could reshape cybersecurity practices

As investigations continued into the massive data breach linked to Austin-based software company SolarWinds, experts say the attack could lead to long-term changes in cybersecurity policies and procedures for government entities and private companies alike.

source https://techxplore.com/news/2021-01-solarwinds-breach-reshape-cybersecurity.html

A polarization-driven guide to making high-performance, versatile solar cells

Improving solar cell design is integral for improving energy consumption. Scientists have lately focused on making solar cells more efficient, flexible, and portable to enable their integration into everyday applications. Consequently, novel lightweight and flexible thin film solar cells have been developed. It is, however, not easy to combine efficiency with flexibility. For a material (usually a semiconductor) to be efficient, it must have a small 'band gap'—the energy required to excite charge carriers for electrical conduction—and should absorb and convert a large portion of sunlight into electricity. Till date, no such efficient absorber suitable for thin film solar cells has been developed.

source https://techxplore.com/news/2021-01-polarization-driven-high-performance-versatile-solar-cells.html

Using artificial intelligence to find new uses for existing medications

Scientists have developed a machine-learning method that crunches massive amounts of data to help determine which existing medications could improve outcomes in diseases for which they are not prescribed.

source https://techxplore.com/news/2021-01-artificial-intelligence-medications.html

How market incumbents can navigate disruptive technology change

Researchers from University of Texas at San Antonio and University of Southern California published a new paper in the Journal of Marketing that examines the difficult choices industry incumbents and new entrants face during times of potentially disruptive technological change.

source https://phys.org/news/2021-01-incumbents-disruptive-technology.html

Cattle grazing and soybean yields

By late fall, much of the Midwest is a pleasing landscape of dry, harvested corn fields. It makes for a bucolic rural scene on highway drives. But the corn litter that's left over doesn't seem useful, at least to untrained eyes.

source https://phys.org/news/2021-01-cattle-grazing-soybean-yields.html

Understanding disease-induced microbial shifts may reveal new crop management strategies

While humanity is facing the COVID-19 pandemic, the citrus industry is trying to manage its own devastating disease, Huanglongbing (HLB), also known as citrus greening disease. HLB is the most destructive citrus disease in the world. In the past decade, the disease has annihilated the Florida citrus industry, reducing orange production for juice and other products by 72%. Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus (CLas) is the microbe associated with the disease. It resides in the phloem of the tree and, like many plant pathogens, is transmitted by insects during feeding events. Disease progression can be slow but catastrophic. Symptoms begin with blotchy leaves, yellow shoots, and stunting, and progress into yield decline, poor quality fruit, and eventually death.

source https://phys.org/news/2021-01-disease-induced-microbial-shifts-reveal-crop.html