A tagged mountain chickadee arrives at a feeder awaiting its seed. Credit: Carrie Branch While there is no denying ‘survival of the fittest’ still reigns supreme in the animal kingdom, a new study shows being smartest—or at least smarter—is pretty important, too. Western animal behavior and cognition researcher Carrie Branch and her collaborators at University … Read more
Graphical abstract. Credit: ACS Omega (2024). DOI: 10.1021/acsomega.3c09585 There are some pretty strange ingredients in cosmetics and skin care products. One example is snail mucin—also known as snail slime—which is used for its moisturizing and antioxidant properties. But researchers reporting in ACS Omega might have found something even weirder to put on your face: molecules … Read more
Binding-activated biosensors exposed to an “excitation light” of a specific wavelength only emit fluorescent light of a different fluorescent wavelength when their fluorogenic fluorescent scaffolds are sandwiched between the biosensor protein and target protein. Credit: Wyss Institute at Harvard University Biosensors—devices that use biological molecules to detect the presence of a target substance—have enormous potential … Read more
by Lyrian Daniel, Emma Baker, Ian Hamilton, Michaela Lang and Peter Phibbs, The Conversation Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain Imagine coming home after a long day at work. It is winter. You step inside your home. It is warm, quiet and dry. A storm is forecast to blow in tonight. Unprecedented rainfall, they are saying. But … Read more
Southern Chinese cities suspended schools and cancelled some flights head of storm Yagi. Cities in southern China suspended schools and cancelled some flights on Thursday, as tropical storm Yagi strengthened into a super typhoon and barreled straight for the holiday island province of Hainan. Yagi triggered floods and landslides on the main Philippine island of … Read more
Renee DiResta, author of “Invisible Rulers” and formerly with the Stanford Internet Observatory, a non-partisan disinformation research project. Understanding disinformation has emerged as a lightning rod in the United States ahead of the November election, with academics and think-tanks facing lawsuits by right-wing groups and subpoenas from a Republican-led congressional committee. The researchers are accused … Read more
The metasurface-based radiative cooling device adapts to ambient temperature changes. Credit: Junlin Yang (Beijing Institute of Technology). As the global energy crisis intensifies and climate change accelerates, finding sustainable solutions for energy management is increasingly urgent. One promising approach is passive radiative cooling, a technology that allows objects to cool by emitting heat directly into … Read more
Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain In extraordinary times of rapid information production and sharing, distrust and disruption, disinformation is having an increasing impact on cities. And cities are on the front line of disinformation response strategies. Disinformation (which is the concerted fabrications that are deliberately misleading) and misinformation (the inaccurate information unintentionally held and/or shared) are … Read more
Graphical abstract. Credit: Current Biology (2024). DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2024.08.006 Fruit flies walking on miniature treadmills are helping scientists learn how the nervous system enables animals to move in an unpredictable and complex world. Insights from using these fruit fly-sized treadmills were reported Aug. 30 in Current Biology. Several videos of the flies running on the treadmills … Read more
Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain An experimental Moderna mRNA vaccine for mpox has demonstrated greater effectiveness than current shots in reducing disease symptoms and duration, according to an animal study published in the journal Cell on Wednesday. It comes amid an outbreak of the disease in Africa—partly driven by a new variant that emerged in the … Read more
