Category: Science

          Heat stress from extreme heat and humidity will annually affect areas now home to 1.2 billion people by 2100, assuming current greenhouse gas emissions, according to a new study. That’s more than four times the number of people affected today, and more than 12 times the number who would have been affected without industrial…

Study could inform the design of engineered nano-shells used in drug delivery     Viruses have been well studied, but many mysteries linger. One such mystery is how a spherical virus circumvents energy barriers to form symmetric shells. A research team has made progress is solving this mystery. The team reports that an interplay of energies…

          Using a single lens that is about one-thousandth of an inch thick, researchers have created a camera that does not require focusing. The technology offers considerable benefits over traditional cameras such as the ones in most smartphones, which require multiple lenses to form high-quality, in-focus images. “Our flat lenses can drastically reduce the weight,…

OVID-19’s imaging features are variable and nonspecific, but the imaging findings reported thus far do show     Although COVID-19’s imaging features are variable and nonspecific, the findings thus far do show ”significant overlap” with those of severe acute respiratory syndrome and Middle East respiratory syndrome. The early evidence suggests that initial chest imaging will show…

    Cyanobacteria — colloquially also called blue-green algae – can produce oil from water and carbon dioxide with the help of light. This is shown by a recent study. The result is unexpected: Until now, it was believed that this ability was reserved for plants. It is possible that blue-green algae will now also become…

    People with mild traumatic brain injury who are exposed to early morning blue light therapy may experience a decrease in depression and other concussion symptoms, according to a preliminary study. “Patients with mild traumatic brain injury, like concussion, often develop persistent problems associated with sleep, concentration and depression,” said study author William D. Killgore,…

Oral microbiome was subject of crowd-sourced study     Most people know that good oral hygiene – brushing, flossing, and regular dental visits – is linked to good health. Microbiome researchers offer fresh evidence to support that conventional wisdom, by taking a close look at invisible communities of microbes that live in every mouth. Their study…

    Older people who experience daytime sleepiness may be at risk of developing new medical conditions, including diabetes, cancer and high blood pressure. The condition called hypersomnolence is defined as excessive daytime sleepiness even after having seven or more hours of sleep. It can be debilitating for some people, affecting the way that they perform…

Researchers have developed a new platform for all-optical computing, meaning computations done solely with beams of light. Researchers from the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), in collaboration with researchers at McMaster University and University of Pittsburgh, have developed a new platform for all-optical computing, meaning computations done solely with…

Large bacteriophages carry bacterial genes, including CRISPR and ribosomal proteins     Bacterial viruses, called bacteriophages, are simple genetic machines, relying on their bacterial hosts to replicate and spread. However, scientists have found hundreds of huge phages that carry a slew of bacterial proteins that the phages use to manipulate their microbial hosts more efficiently. These…