SciGlow | All Science News In One Place
SciGlow is a newsletter of science stories from the major research labs. Headlines link to in-depth articles and editorials. SciGlow keeps scientists and others up-to-date on current research.
Since the mass production of plastics began in the 1940s, the versatile polymers have spread rapidly across the globe. Although plastics have made life easier in many ways, disposing of the materials is a growing problem. Now, researchers in the ACS journal Environmental Science & Technologyestimate that the average American consumes more than 70,000 particles of … Read more
We’ve learned bees can understand zero and do basic math, and now a new study shows their tiny insect brains may be capable of connecting symbols to numbers. Researchers have trained honeybees to match a character to a specific quantity, revealing they are able to learn that a symbol represents a numerical amount. It’s a … Read more
Prized worldwide for its high-quality wood and rich flavor of delicious nuts, the Persian walnut (Juglans regia) is an important economic crop. The Persian walnut is one of 22 species in the genus Juglans, which includes black and white walnuts and butternuts, grown across Europe, the Americas and Asia. China leads world production, followed by California, … Read more
They discovered that an actors’ most productive year, defined as the year with the largest number of credited jobs, is towards the beginning of their career. Clear signals preceding and following this ‘annus mirabilis’ enable them to predict with around 85 per cent accuracy if it has passed or not. The study, published in the … Read more
The actinides – those chemical elements on the bottom row of the periodic table – are used in applications ranging from medical treatments to space exploration to nuclear energy production. But purifying the target element so it can be used, by separating out contaminants and other elements, can be difficult and time-consuming. Now researchers at … Read more
When poisonous heavy metals like lead and cadmium escape from factories or mines, they can pollute the nearby soil. With no easy ways to remove these contaminants, fields must be cordoned off to prevent these toxins from entering the food chain where they threaten human and animal health. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, heavy … Read more
‘Farmers in sub-Saharan Africa aren’t interested in planting trees, and we need to educate them and persuade them to do so.’ This is what Seline Meijer was told was the case, when she announced that she was embarking on a study to explore why agroforestry (tree planting) rates in Sub-Saharan Africa are so low. [rand_post] … Read more
Scientists at UC San Francisco have developed a personalized digital meditation training program that significantly improved attention and memory in healthy young adults—a group already at the peak of brain health—in just six weeks. The intervention, called MediTrain, utilizes a closed-loop algorithm that tailors the length of the meditation sessions to the abilities of the … Read more
Just like humans leave DNA in the places we inhabit, water-dwelling animals leave DNA behind in the water column. In a paper published June 3 in the journal Current Biology, scientists report that sponges, which can filter 10,000 liters of water daily, catch DNA in their tissues as they filter-feed. This proof-of-concept study identified fish, … Read more
New Guinea is one of the only places in the world where frogs are safe from the species-destroying chytrid fungus. An international team of scientists has published a new paper that shows how to keep it that way, but they need help to carry out their plan. The chytrid fungus has wiped out more than … Read more