Chemists tap body heat to power ‘smart garments’
Reading Time: 2 minutesMANY wearable biosensors, data transmitters and similar tech advances for personalised health monitoring have now been “creatively miniaturised,” says materials chemist Trisha Andrew at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, but they require a lot of energy, and power sources can be bulky and heavy. Now she and her PhD student Linden Allison report that they have developed a fabric that can harvest body heat to power small wearable microelectronics such as […]
Antarctica losing six times more ice mass annually now than 40 years ago
Reading Time: < 1 minuteANTARCTICA experienced a sixfold increase in yearly ice mass loss between 1979 and 2017, according to a study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Glaciologists from the University of California, Irvine, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the Netherlands’ Utrecht University additionally found that the accelerated melting caused global sea levels to rise more than half an inch during that time. “That’s just the tip […]
MERMAIDs reveal secrets from below the ocean floor
Reading Time: 2 minutesSEISMOLOGISTS use waves generated by earthquakes to scan the interior of our planet, much like doctors image their patients using medical tomography. Earth imaging has helped us track down the deep origins of volcanic islands such as Hawaii, and identify the source zones of deep earthquakes. “Imagine a radiologist forced to work with a CAT scanner that is missing two-thirds of its necessary sensors,” said Frederik […]
Climate change and infertility
Reading Time: < 1 minuteRISING temperatures could make some species sterile and see them succumb to the effects of climate change earlier than currently thought, scientists at the University of Liverpool warn. “There is a risk that we are underestimating the impact of climate change on species survival because we have focused on the temperatures that are lethal to organisms, rather than the temperatures at which organisms can no longer […]
Plastic waste could be turned into clean fuels, other products
Reading Time: 2 minutesTHE United Nations estimates that more than 8 million tons of plastics flow into the oceans each year. A new chemical conversion process could transform the world’s polyolefin waste, a form of plastic, into useful products, such as clean fuels and other items. “Our strategy is to create a driving force for recycling by converting polyolefin waste into a wide range of valuable products, including polymers, naphtha (a […]
How long does it take a red blood cell to complete a circuit in our body?
Reading Time: < 1 minuteRED blood cells are scientifically known as erythrocytes. They are generally rich in haemoglobin. The life span of red blood cells is [ihc-hide-content ihc_mb_type=”show” ihc_mb_who=”2,3″ ihc_mb_template=”1″ ] usually within the range of 100-120 days. In essence, red blood cells take up oxygen in the lungs and gills to deliver oxygen to the tissue in our body through circulatory system and at the […]
Communicating scientific issues responsibly
Reading Time: < 1 minuteA MEDIA workshop on Food Safety: Importance of Science Communication took place in Hanoi in November 2018 to foster an open discussion between media reporters and scientists, through the presentations of experts from Vietnam, the United States, and Europe on the importance of applying scientific principles in the food safety assessment process. The goal of the workshop was to merge the gap between scientific topics and mass […]
How plants cope with iron deficiency
Reading Time: < 1 minuteRESEARCHERS at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf (HHU) and the University of Münster (WWU) have discovered a new switch that plants use to control their responses to iron deficiency. The findings from their research on the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana is published in the journal Developmental Cell. Iron enters the human food chain through plants, either directly or indirectly. Although there are large quantities of iron […]
Engineered DNA vaccine against Mayaro virus
Reading Time: < 1 minuteA NOVEL synthetic DNA vaccine developed at The Wistar Institute induces protective immunity against Mayaro virus (MAYV), a mosquito-borne infection endemic to South America, that has the potential to become a global emerging viral threat. Study results were published in PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases. Since its discovery in 1954, MAYV infections have been confined to the heavily forested areas of Trinidad and Tobago and the neighboring regions of […]
Searca-BIC: Cost of regulatory delays for GM crops increasing
Reading Time: < 1 minuteTHE first in a series of policy briefs released by the SEARCA Biotechnology Information Center (SEARCA BIC) is based on a study co-authored by Dr. Jose Benjamin Falck Zepeda, a Research Fellow at the International Food Policyvand Research Institute (IFPRI) and Policy Team Leader at the Program for Biosafety Systems (PBS). The study sought to analyse the economic impact of regulatory delays for GM […]