Innovative gene stacks enhance wheat rust resistance

John Innes Centre researchers have helped in the development of pioneering gene stacking techniques to combat the growing threat of wheat rust.

source https://phys.org/news/2021-01-gene-stacks-wheat-rust-resistance.html

Project maps 'astronomical' number of celestial objects

Nearly 700 million astronomical objects have been carefully cataloged and made public as part of a major international collaboration involving researchers from The Australian National University (ANU).

source https://phys.org/news/2021-01-astronomical-celestial.html

Blending rules for 3-D printing bone

By combining synthetic polymers and natural materials it is possible to increase the range of characteristics that might be fabricated using 3-D printing of components, according to research published in the International Journal of Nano and Biomaterials. In a proof of principle, the team has demonstrated how one such blend emulates the material properties of bone.

source https://phys.org/news/2021-01-blending-d-bone.html

2020 was Earth's second-hottest year, just behind 2016

It's official: 2020 ranks as the second-hottest year on record for the planet, knocking 2019 down to third hottest, according to an analysis by NOAA scientists.

source https://phys.org/news/2021-01-earth-second-hottest-year.html

Researcher discusses how social movements succeed

The summer of 2020 was not the first time activists marched in the streets of major U.S. cities, expressing their outrage over high-profile episodes of police brutality and demanding an end to racial inequities. Nor was it the first time that protesters pushed to reform police tactics or remove monuments to Confederate war heroes. Black Lives Matter—as a rallying cry and as an organization—had been around for years.

source https://phys.org/news/2021-01-discusses-social-movements.html

Optoacoustic sensor measures water content in living tissue

Researchers from Skoltech and the University of Texas Medical Branch (US) have shown how optoacoustics can be used for monitoring skin water content, a technique which is promising for medical applications such as tissue trauma management and in cosmetology. The paper outlining these results was published in the Journal of Biophotonics.

source https://phys.org/news/2021-01-optoacoustic-sensor-content-tissue.html

Phytoplankton factory in the Argentine Sea

The Goldilocks zone typically refers to the habitable area around a star where conditions are right for the existence of liquid water and possibly life. But on Earth, the South Atlantic Ocean has its own kind of Goldilocks zone. In spring and summer, conditions in the Argentine Sea off Patagonia often become just right for phytoplankton, and populations of the plant-like organisms explode into enormous blooms.

source https://phys.org/news/2021-01-phytoplankton-factory-argentine-sea.html

Israel studies new forest home for endangered mountain gazelle

Israel is one of the last places where the endangered mountain gazelle roams in the wild but, as development shrinks their natural savannah habitat, ecologists are studying if they can also thrive in forests.

source https://phys.org/news/2021-01-israel-forest-home-endangered-mountain.html

Changing resilience of oceans to climate change

Oxygen levels in the ancient oceans were surprisingly resilient to climate change, new research suggests.

source https://phys.org/news/2021-01-resilience-oceans-climate.html

Tech, health firms team up on digital vaccination certificates

A coalition of technology firms and health organizations announced plans Thursday for a digital vaccination certificate, which can be used on smartphones to show evidence of inoculation for COVID-19.

source https://techxplore.com/news/2021-01-tech-health-firms-team-digital.html

As Wikipedia turns 20 it aims to reach more readers

Wikipedia celebrates its 20th anniversary on Friday and the collaborative, volunteer-produced internet encyclopedia aims to spend the next 20 years further expanding free access to information.

source https://techxplore.com/news/2021-01-wikipedia-aims-readers.html

US blacklists Xiaomi, CNOOC, Skyrizon, raising heat on China

The U.S. government has blacklisted Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi Corp. and China's third-largest national oil company for alleged military links, heaping pressure on Beijing in President Donald Trump's last week in office.

source https://techxplore.com/news/2021-01-blacklists-xiaomi-cnooc-skyrizon-china.html

At least 34 dead as Indonesia quake topples homes, buildings

A strong, shallow earthquake shook Indonesia's Sulawesi island just after midnight Friday, toppling homes and buildings, triggering landslides and killing at least 34 people.

source https://phys.org/news/2021-01-dead-indonesia-quake-topples-homes.html

Astronomers document the rise and fall of a rarely observed stellar dance

The sun is the only star in our system. But many of the points of light in our night sky are not as lonely. By some estimates, more than three-quarters of all stars exist as binaries—with one companion—or in even more complex relationships. Stars in close quarters can have dramatic impacts on their neighbors. They can strip material from one another, merge or twist each other's movements through the cosmos.

source https://phys.org/news/2021-01-astronomers-document-fall-rarely-stellar.html

Researchers model regional impacts of specific anthropogenic activities, their influence on extreme fire weather risk

When the Thomas Fire raged through Ventura and Santa Barbara counties in December 2017, Danielle Touma, at the time an earth science researcher at Stanford, was stunned by its severity. Burning for more than a month and scorching 440 square miles, the fire was then considered the worst in California's history.

source https://phys.org/news/2021-01-regional-impacts-specific-anthropogenic-extreme.html

Researchers rewind the clock to calculate age and site of supernova blast

Astronomers are winding back the clock on the expanding remains of a nearby, exploded star. By using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, they retraced the speedy shrapnel from the blast to calculate a more accurate estimate of the location and time of the stellar detonation.

source https://phys.org/news/2021-01-rewind-clock-age-site-supernova.html

Managing large-scale construction projects to avoid cost overruns

Researchers from University of Stavanger, University of Melbourne, and University of Wisconsin-Madison published a new paper in the Journal of Marketing that examines how major projects undertaken by temporary organizations can be better managed so that cost overruns are minimized.

source https://phys.org/news/2021-01-large-scale-overruns.html

New fossil provides clarity to the history of Alligatoridae

Families are complicated. For members of the Alligatoridae family, which includes living caimans and alligators—this is especially true. They are closely related, but because of their similarity, their identification can even stump paleontologists.

source https://phys.org/news/2021-01-fossil-clarity-history-alligatoridae.html

Researchers offer insights on how diet ultimately reshapes language

Anthropologist Caleb Everett and former student Sihan Chen used a novel data analysis of thousands of languages, in addition to studying a unique subset of celebrities, to reveal how a soft food diet—contrasted with the diet of hunter-gatherers—is restructuring dentition and changing how people speak.

source https://phys.org/news/2021-01-insights-diet-ultimately-reshapes-language.html

Climate change doesn't spare the smallest

In a normal year, biologists Daniel Janzen and Winnie Hallwachs spend about six months in Costa Rica, where they conduct research and pursue conservation efforts in Área de Conservación Guanacaste (ACG), a World Heritage Site in the northwest that encompasses, a network of parks and preserves they helped establish in the 1980s and that has grown to more than 400,000 acres, including marine, dry forest, cloud forest, and rain forest environments.

source https://phys.org/news/2021-01-climate-doesnt-smallest.html

Guppies have varying levels of self-control

Just like humans trying to stick to New Year's resolutions, guppies have varying levels of self-control, a new study shows.

source https://phys.org/news/2021-01-guppies-varying-self-control.html

Guppies have varying levels of self-control

Just like humans trying to stick to New Year's resolutions, guppies have varying levels of self-control, a new study shows.

source https://phys.org/news/2021-01-guppies-varying-self-control.html