physorg.com:Spotlight stories

New research provides evidence of strong early magnetic field around Earth Deep within Earth, swirling liquid iron generates our planet's protective magnetic field. This magnetic field is invisible but is vital for life on Earth's surface: it shields the planet from harmful solar wind and cosmic rays from the sun.
A cautionary tale about measuring racial bias in policing Racial bias and policing made headlines last year after a study examining records of fatal police shootings claimed white officers were no more likely to shoot racial minorities than nonwhite officers. There was one problem: The study was based on a logical fallacy.
Tipping mechanisms could spark societal change toward climate stabilization Limiting global warming to well below 2 degrees C requires a decarbonized world by 2050 at the latest, and a corresponding global transformation of the energy and land use systems of societies around the world. To achieve this goal of net-zero carbon by 2050, emissions need to be cut by half every decade from now on. An interdisciplinary team of researchers now explored tipping mechanisms that have the potential to spark rapid yet constructive societal changes toward climate stabilization and overall sustainability. These tipping elements and mechanisms could bring about a transition that is fast enough for meeting the targets of the Paris climate agreement.
While promoting diseases like cancer, these enzymes also cannibalize each other Like motley bandits, certain enzymes implicated in cancer and other diseases also annihilate each other. A new study reveals details of their mutual foils in the hopes that these behaviors can be leveraged to fight the enzymes' disease potential.
Setting fires to avoid fires: Study outlines approaches to enable more prescribed burns Australians desperate for solutions to raging wildfires might find them 8,000 miles away, where a new Stanford-led study proposes ways of overcoming barriers to prescribed burns—fires purposefully set under controlled conditions to clear ground fuels. The paper, published Jan. 20 in Nature Sustainability, outlines a range of approaches to significantly increase the deployment of prescribed burns in California and potentially in other regions, including Australia, that share similar climate, landscape and policy challenges.
Climate (not humans) shaped early forests of New England A new study in the journal Nature Sustainability overturns long-held interpretations of the role humans played in shaping the American landscape before European colonization. The findings give new insight into the rationale and approaches for managing some of the most biodiverse landscapes in the eastern U.S.
Physics shows that imperfections make perfect Northwestern University researchers have added a new dimension to the importance of diversity.
Female chimps with powerful moms are less likely to leave home In chimpanzee society, males spend their entire lives in the group where they were born, cooperating to defend their territory, while females tend to move away. But some chimp females seem less willing to cut the apron strings.
Ozone-depleting substances caused half of late 20th-century Arctic warming, says study A scientific paper published in 1985 was the first to report a burgeoning hole in Earth's stratospheric ozone over Antarctica. Scientists determined the cause to be ozone-depleting substances—long-lived artificial halogen compounds. Although the ozone-destroying effects of these substances are now widely understood, there has been little research into their broader climate impacts.
Platelets instead of spheres make screens more economical ETH scientists have further developed QLED technology for screens. They have produced light sources that for the first time emit high-intensity light in only one direction. This reduces scattering losses, which makes the technology extremely energy efficient.
Record-breaking terahertz laser beam Terahertz radiation is used for security checks at airports, for medical examinations and also for quality checks in industry. However, radiation in the terahertz range is extremely difficult to generate. Scientists at TU Wien have now succeeded in developing a terahertz radiation source that breaks several records: it is extremely efficient, and its spectrum is very broad—it generates different wavelengths from the entire terahertz range. This opens up the possibility of creating short radiation pulses with extremely high radiation intensity. The new terahertz technology has now been presented in the journal Nature Communications.
Inverse design of porous materials using artificial neural networks The ability to generate optimized nanomaterials with artificial neural networks can significantly revolutionize the future of materials design in materials science. While scientists had progressively created small and simple molecules, complex crystalline porous materials remain to be generated using neural networks. In a recent report on Science Advances, Baekjun Kim and a team of researchers in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Republic of Korea, implemented a generative adversarial network.
Tuberculosis bacteria survive in amoebae found in soil Scientists from the University of Surrey and University of Geneva have discovered that the bacterium which causes bovine TB can survive and grow in small, single-celled organisms found in soil and dung. It is believed that originally the bacterium evolved to survive in these single-celled organisms known as amoebae and in time progressed to infect and cause TB in larger animals such as cattle.
Disarming bacteria with mucus and phages Millions of people are treated with antibiotics each year for infections or as a preventative measure. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that at least 2.8 million people are infected with antibiotic-resistant bacteria each year, meaning the germs have found ways to overpower antibiotics and continue to grow. Treating antibiotic-resistant infections is costly and time-intensive. Two teams of NIBIB-funded scientists have been working to find alternative solutions to treating bacterial infections, especially antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
It was microbial mayhem in the Chicxulub crater, research suggests New insights into how microbial life was quickly re-established following the mass extinction of the dinosaurs have been detailed for the first time by Curtin University-led research.