ScienceDaily: Top Environment News |
- Researchers aim X-rays at century-old plant secretions for insight into Aboriginal Australian cultural heritage
- Discovery offers starting point for better gene-editing tools
- How to tie-dye cotton with acorns and rust
- Autonomous underwater imaging: Faster and more accurate
- A synthetic antibiotic may help turn the tide against drug-resistant pathogens
- A unique catalyst paves the way for plastic upcycling
- Producers and consumers must share burden of global plastic packaging waste
- Arc volcanoes are wetter than previously thought, with scientific and economic implications
- New light shed on cell membranes
- Professional 'guilds' of bacteria gave rise to the modern microbiome
- Fishing for new source of proteoglycans, an important health food ingredient
- Drug resistance molecule can spread though bacterial 'communities'
- Flash Joule heating process recycles plastic from end-of-life F-150 trucks into high-value graphene for new vehicles
- Inappropriate antibiotics for nonhospitalized kids cost US at least $74 million
- Gut bacteria can make blood pressure medication less effective
- Tsunami threats underestimated in current models
- Agriculture tech use opens possibility of digital havoc
- New non-radioactive, neutral reagent reveals viruses in clear detail
- Perplexing fish-like fossil finally classified
- Wealthiest homeowners most at risk of wildfire hazard
- Helping submersibles navigate more safely in shallow water
- People must be 'heart' of climate action
- Decline of diatoms due to ocean acidification
| Posted: 26 May 2022 03:11 PM PDT For tens of thousands of years, Aboriginal Australians have created some of the world's most striking artworks. Today their work continues long lines of ancestral traditions, stories of the past and connections to current cultural landscapes, which is why researchers are keen on better understanding and preserving the cultural heritage within. By revealing the chemistry of plant secretions, or exudates, recent studies build a basis for better understanding and conserving art and tools made with plant materials. |
| Discovery offers starting point for better gene-editing tools Posted: 26 May 2022 12:18 PM PDT New research has big implications for genomic medicine. Scientists have defined with atomic precision a new genome editing tool that is less than half the size of CRISPR-Cas9 -- currently the most reliable genome editing system. This new tool would allow scientists to fit genetic editors into smaller viral delivery systems to fix a variety of diseases. |
| How to tie-dye cotton with acorns and rust Posted: 26 May 2022 12:18 PM PDT Tie-dyeing is a fun activity that can spice up clothes with colorful patterns. Although kits are available in stores, nature provides dyes that can be extracted from items found in one's yard -- for example, acorns and rust. Researchers now present a 'green' process for tie-dyeing cotton with renewable resources and wastes that undergraduate students can easily do under minimal supervision. The activity links together science, art and sustainability. |
| Autonomous underwater imaging: Faster and more accurate Posted: 26 May 2022 11:48 AM PDT Recently conducted tests used new algorithms to outperform state-of-the-art programming for autonomous underwater sonar imaging, significantly improving the speed and accuracy for identifying objects such as explosive mines, sunken ships, airplane black boxes, pipelines and corrosion on ship hulls. |
| A synthetic antibiotic may help turn the tide against drug-resistant pathogens Posted: 26 May 2022 11:15 AM PDT A synthesized antibiotic derived from computer models of bacterial gene products appears to neutralize even drug-resistant bacteria. The compound, named cilagicin, works well in mice and employs a novel mechanism to attack MRSA, C. diff, and several other deadly pathogens. |
| A unique catalyst paves the way for plastic upcycling Posted: 26 May 2022 09:57 AM PDT A recently developed catalyst for breaking down plastics continues to advance plastic upcycling processes. In 2020, scientists developed the first processive inorganic catalyst to deconstruct polyolefin plastics into molecules that can be used to create more valuable products. Now, the team has developed and validated a strategy to speed up the transformation without sacrificing desirable products. |
| Producers and consumers must share burden of global plastic packaging waste Posted: 26 May 2022 09:57 AM PDT Plastic packaging waste is everywhere. Our plastic bottles, food wrappings, and grocery bags litter the landscape and pollute the global environment. A new study explores the global patterns of plastic packaging waste. The study finds three countries -- the U.S., Brazil, and China -- are the top suppliers of waste. |
| Arc volcanoes are wetter than previously thought, with scientific and economic implications Posted: 26 May 2022 09:21 AM PDT The percentage of water in arc volcanoes, which form above subduction zones, may be far more than many previous studies have calculated. This increased amount of water has broad implications for understanding how Earth's lower crust forms, how magma erupts through the crust, and how economically important mineral ore deposits form, according to a new article. |
| New light shed on cell membranes Posted: 26 May 2022 09:21 AM PDT Researchers are using light in novel ways to better image biological samples. |
| Professional 'guilds' of bacteria gave rise to the modern microbiome Posted: 26 May 2022 08:28 AM PDT Even the smallest marine invertebrates -- some barely larger than single-celled protists -- are home to distinct and diverse microbial communities, or microbiomes, according to biologists. The study underscores that a vast diversity of animals have microbiomes, just as humans do. But more surprisingly, there's little correlation between how closely related most animals are and how similar their microbiomes are -- something widely assumed to be true based on the study of humans, larger mammals, and insects. |
| Fishing for new source of proteoglycans, an important health food ingredient Posted: 26 May 2022 08:28 AM PDT Chondroitin sulfate proteoglycans (CSPGs), commonly obtained from salmon nasal cartilage, are a key ingredient of various health foods. As the popularity of health foods increases, scientists are searching for alternative sources of CSPGs. Now, researchers have analyzed the PGs and their CS structures in the head cartilage of 10 edible bony fishes, including sturgeons. Their findings point to several new fishes that can serve as alternatives to salmon as a source of CSPGs. |
| Drug resistance molecule can spread though bacterial 'communities' Posted: 26 May 2022 08:28 AM PDT DNA molecules called plasmids -- some of which protect bacteria from antibiotics -- can spread rapidly through bacterial 'communities' that are treated with antibiotics, new research shows. |
| Posted: 26 May 2022 08:28 AM PDT Chemists have processed waste plastic from end-of-life trucks into graphene for composite materials in new vehicles. |
| Inappropriate antibiotics for nonhospitalized kids cost US at least $74 million Posted: 26 May 2022 08:27 AM PDT Children who were prescribed antibiotics inappropriately were more likely to develop complications such as diarrhea and skin rashes than children who were treated according to medical guidelines, according to a new study. This misuse of antibiotics resulted in at least $74 million in excess health-care costs in the U.S. in 2017. |
| Gut bacteria can make blood pressure medication less effective Posted: 26 May 2022 06:56 AM PDT Hypertension, or high blood pressure, is a major risk factor for heart disease and stroke, two of the leading causes of death in America. It's also one of the most common chronic conditions in the United States, with nearly half of U.S. adults considered hypertensive under current guidelines. Among those with high blood pressure, an estimated 20% have what's known as resistant hypertension, meaning their blood pressure remains high despite aggressive treatment. New research has shown gut bacteria can reduce the effectiveness of certain blood pressure drugs, potentially providing a pathway to developing new ways of overcoming treatment-resistant hypertension. |
| Tsunami threats underestimated in current models Posted: 26 May 2022 06:56 AM PDT USC researchers have found a correlation between tsunami severity and the width of the outer wedge -- the area between the continental shelf and deep trenches where large tsunamis emerge -- that helps explain how underwater seismic events generate large tsunamis. |
| Agriculture tech use opens possibility of digital havoc Posted: 26 May 2022 06:55 AM PDT Wide-ranging use of smart technologies is raising global agricultural production but international researchers warn this digital-age phenomenon could reap a crop of another kind -- cybersecurity attacks. Complex IT and math modelling has highlighted the risks. |
| New non-radioactive, neutral reagent reveals viruses in clear detail Posted: 26 May 2022 06:55 AM PDT Researchers have demonstrated the benefits of a new non-radioactive, neutral negative staining reagent by imaging viruses at nanometer-scale. The salt-presenting reagent is a structurally stable and neutral molecule with a longer shelf life and less procurement restrictions than the conventionally used reagent, uranyl acetate. |
| Perplexing fish-like fossil finally classified Posted: 26 May 2022 06:55 AM PDT For the first time since its discovery 130 years ago one of the most mysterious fossil vertebrates has finally been classified, increasing our possible understanding of the first animals to crawl on Earth. |
| Wealthiest homeowners most at risk of wildfire hazard Posted: 26 May 2022 06:55 AM PDT The top ten per cent most valuable homes in the western United States are 70% more likely to be in high wildfire hazard areas than median-value properties, according to a new study. |
| Helping submersibles navigate more safely in shallow water Posted: 26 May 2022 06:55 AM PDT Researchers propose a process for improving the accuracy of acoustic positioning in shallow water using a mathematical method for removing the reflected waves. This work may lead to the safer navigation of submarines and divers in ports and other narrow waters. |
| People must be 'heart' of climate action Posted: 26 May 2022 06:55 AM PDT Tackling the climate crisis can only be achieved by 'placing people at the heart of climate action', researchers say. |
| Decline of diatoms due to ocean acidification Posted: 25 May 2022 03:26 PM PDT Diatoms are the most important producers of plant biomass in the ocean and help to transport carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere into the deep ocean and thus regulate our climate. Because diatoms rely on silica rather than calcium carbonate to build their shells, they were previously thought to benefit from ocean acidification -- a chemical change in seawater triggered by the increasing uptake of CO2 that makes calcification more difficult. Scientists now show that diatoms, which are a type of plankton, are also affected. Analyses of data from field experiments and model simulations suggest that ocean acidification could drastically reduce diatom populations. |
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