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.
The Victorian Government is in breach of its own forest laws, allowing logging on steep slopes and putting lives at risk, according to researchers from The Australian National University (ANU). The researchers say the breaches are serious, widespread and have been committed over the last 15 years. They warn it also increases the risk of … Read more
Hyper-realistic masks are made from flexible materials such as silicone and are designed to imitate real human faces – down to every last freckle, wrinkle and strand of real human hair. In a study by the Universities of York and Kyoto, researchers asked participants to look at pairs of photographs and decide which showed a … Read more
Not enough physical activity and too much sitting and screen-time have been linked with suicidal thoughts and behaviours in adolescents in developing countries, in a University of Queensland-led study. UQ School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences researcher Associate Professor Asad Khan said suicide-related issues had become a major public health challenge in low and middle … Read more
To seamlessly integrate electronics with the natural world, materials are needed that are both stretchable and degradable — for example, flexible medical devices that conform to the surfaces of internal organs, but that dissolve and disappear when no longer needed. However, introducing these properties to electronics has been challenging. Now, researchers reporting in ACS Central Science have … Read more
As drought concerns farmers across the country, new research has shown Australian farmers are facing other unexpected challenges as regional Australia continues to evolve and more people from cities escape to a life in the country. Concerns around neighbour relations, biosecurity and maximising land use are some of the issues regional land owners in New … Read more
Why is it that people find songs such as James Taylor’s “Country Roads,” UB40’s “Red, Red Wine,” or The Beatles’ “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” so irresistibly enjoyable? In a study reported in the journal Current Biology on November 7, researchers analyze 80,000 chords in 745 classic U.S. Billboard pop songs – including those three – and find that musical … Read more
“Elite”, high-earning political lobbyists are more likely to overstate their achievements, a new study shows. Political influencers who have a smaller salary and work in specialist areas or for public interest groups are less overconfident – or even underestimate their success, according to the research. This suggests overconfidence can help lobbyists make connections with important … Read more
To learn new things, we must sometimes fail. But what’s the right amount of failure? New research led by the University of Arizona proposes a mathematical answer to that question. Educators and educational scholars have long recognized that there is something of a “sweet spot” when it comes to learning. That is, we learn best … Read more
Supported single-atom catalysts (SACs) have emerged as a new frontier in heterogeneous catalysis and have attracted broad interest for their demonstrated good catalytic performance due to high atomic efficiency and relatively homogeneous active sites. Strategies have been developed to fabricate various SACs. However, how to effectively stabilize these SACs remains challenging as singly dispersed isolated … Read more
Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have leveraged machine learning to interpret human brain scans, allowing the team to uncover the regions of the brain behind how abstract concepts, like justice, ethics and consciousness, form. The results of this study are available online in the October 29 issue of Cerebral Cortex. “Humans have the unique ability to … Read more