Phys.org

A study led by Nekehia Quashie, an assistant professor of public health in the University of Rhode Island's College of Health Sciences, examined how different African American age groups felt about the responsibility of supporting older adults.

To produce pharmaceuticals, food ingredients, and flavors and fragrances, it is often necessary to oxidize alcohols. In conventional chemistry, this transformation typically relies on harsh oxidants and elevated temperatures and generates toxic waste.

New materials and catalysts have the potential to transform everything from food production and medicine to batteries and stainless steel. Computer simulations help scientists narrow down promising candidates before testing them in a lab, but those simulations can be unreliable, especially for molecules that contain multiple metals.

As governments prepare to gather in Armenia for the U.N. biodiversity summit, researchers are highlighting a conservation approach that recognizes places where nature thrives beyond conventional protected areas.

Humanity's ongoing disruption of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO₂) concentrations, temperatures, and global nutrient cycles is starving the oceans of oxygen. Although we can measure ongoing changes to ocean circulation and marine life, we still don't know how far the oxygen loss and the damage to ocean ecosystems could go. One way to foresee the oceans' future is to look back at how our seas and their inhabitants responded to higher CO₂ levels and warmer climates in the past.

Retail research has changed during the last couple of decades, according to an analysis of almost 5,200 papers covering business practices, consumer behavior and technology. The study, published in the International Journal of Electronic Marketing and Retailing, considered papers from the four leading specialist journals in this area.

A steep drop in baby lobsters provided an early warning of the sharp decline in adult lobsters along Maine's midcoast, a new University of Maine study shows.

Silicon spin qubits are a promising platform for building scalable quantum computers as they are compatible with the semiconductor manufacturing technologies used to produce today's computer chips. However, they have an important weakness: silicon spin qubits typically lose accuracy when several qubits are under parallel control. To be useful, quantum computers will need to operate many qubits simultaneously without compromising the accuracy of their operations.

Around the world, many people report distrusting their government. In some places, such as Latin America, North America and Africa, trust in government has declined in recent decades. How can governments rebuild this trust?

Bacteriophages, or viruses that infect bacteria, have a fiendishly simple purpose in life: attach to a bacterial cell, inject their DNA and then use the host's genetic machinery to reproduce. In doing so, they may have evolved some of the most efficient gene-editing tools ever seen in nature.

A transistor normally requires several fundamentally different materials—a semiconductor to carry current, an insulating dielectric to control it and metallic contacts through which current enters and leaves. Integrating all of these components becomes increasingly difficult as semiconductor devices approach the atomic scale.

More than 30 years after the direct connection was established between the molecular machinery controlling cell division and cancer, a new paper traces the evolution of cyclin-dependent kinase research and outlines the next generation of CDK-targeted therapies.

About 2 billion metric tons of metal are produced worldwide every year to meet the demands of industry, infrastructure and the energy sector. Much of this production still relies on primary raw materials, contributing to an estimated 40% of industrial greenhouse gas emissions and 10% of global energy consumption. Increasing the use of recycled metals could significantly reduce the environmental impact of metal production while also lowering dependence on imports of scarce and strategically critical raw materials.

On Oct. 17, 1346, the Battle of Neville's Cross was fought outside Durham in the northeast of England. It was a decisive moment in Anglo-Scottish history that led to the capture of King David II of Scotland. Yet few have heard of it.

When a marine heat wave strikes, scientists often turn to satellites to see how the ocean is responding. From space, changes in ocean color can reveal shifts in phytoplankton, microscopic organisms that form the foundation of marine food webs and play a crucial role in the global carbon cycle. But satellites have a fundamental limitation: they can only see the ocean's surface.

Employers must do more to remove the barriers preventing women with disability from progressing into leadership, according to a new report from People with Disability Australia (PWDA), the national disability rights and advocacy organization. Researchers identify six lessons to help drive change.

Limbs evolved as a means of locomotion. From the primitive rotating flagella of bacteria to the wings of flies and even our own legs, animals use these appendages to travel to find food or mates or escape predators. But in countless species across the animal kingdom, limbs are repurposed to create elaborate social displays: Birds of paradise fan out their wings and hop around in courtship dances, while crabs wave their claws to communicate to potential mating partners. As humans, we use our limbs to dance, gesture while talking, wield tools and conduct a remarkable diversity of behaviors. How does the brain control and coordinate its body parts for such distinct purposes?

The Earth got its moon when a small planet collided with our planet more than 4 billion years ago. This impact hurled molten rock into space, which eventually coalesced to form the satellite we can see every night from across our planet.

A brush with low doses of the herbicide dicamba spurs oxalis, a weed commonly known as wood sorrel, to produce more flowers, University of Michigan researchers have discovered. The finding suggests that farmers and homeowners are inadvertently making weeds growing around the perimeter of their fields or lawns stronger, the researchers say. The study results are published in the journal New Phytologist.

When corals are stressed by pollution, high water temperatures or other environmental changes, they can lose the microscopic algae living inside them and on which they depend for food. As a result, they turn white, a phenomenon known as coral bleaching. They will not die straight away, but it will be game over if the stress continues long enough for them to starve.