An obscure species of wild grass contains 'blockbuster' disease resistance that can be cross bred into wheat to give immunity against one of the deadliest crop pathogens.
Cells dancing harmonic duets could enable personalized cancer therapies
Mechanical engineers are using two electronic 'voices' singing a harmonic duet to control suspended particles and cells in new and valuable ways. Their prototype device can form and rotate a single-layer crystal from a group of particles, create arbitrary shapes with a given number of particles, and move pairs of...
Citizen divers aid understanding of fish in the Salish sea
Citizen scientists are increasingly playing crucial roles in understanding fish populations, according to a new study. Over the past 20 years, volunteers have helped monitor more than half of the total fish species known to occur in the Salish Sea.
https://www.uni-goettingen.de/en/3240.html?id=6625
Tropical peatlands are one of the most efficient carbon sinks. The flipside is that they can become massive emitters of carbon if they are damaged, for instance by land use change, degradation or fire. This can lead to faster climate warming. Researchers now show how peatland in the coastal areas...
Carbon-coated nickel enables fuel cell free of precious metals
A nitrogen doped carbon-coated nickel anode can catalyze an essential reaction in hydrogen fuel cells at a fraction of the cost of the precious metals currently used, researchers have found.
Tuberculosis infection protects mice from developing COVID-19
In mice, the immune response mounted against tuberculosis prevents them from developing COVID-19, according to a new study.
Can supermarkets coax people into buying healthier food?
Restricting supermarket placement of less healthy items and increasing the availability of healthier alternatives in these stores may be promising interventions to encourage healthier purchasing behaviors, according to two new studies.
Warming oceans are getting louder
Climate change is speeding sound transmission in the oceans and the way it varies over the globe with physical properties of the oceans. Two 'acoustic hotspots' of future sound speed increases are predicted east of Greenland and in the Northwest Atlantic Ocean, East of Newfoundland. In these locations, the average...
Do octopuses, squid and crabs have emotions?
Octopuses can solve complex puzzles and show a preference for different individuals, but whether they, and other animals and invertebrates, have emotions is being hotly debated and could shake up humans' moral decision-making, says an expert in animal minds. Most countries don't recognize invertebrates, such as octopuses, crabs, lobsters and...
Health risk due to micro- and nanoplastics in food
Five grams of plastic particles on average enter the human gastrointestinal tract per person per week. This is roughly equivalent to the weight of a credit card. Whether ingested micro- and nanoplastics pose a health risk is being investigated in numerous studies but is largely unknown to date. A research...