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Modeling Radiation Damage

Modeling Radiation Damage

In nuclear reactors, energetic neutrons slam into metal atoms that are ordered in a lattice, displacing them with enough force to trigger a cascade of collisions. Laurent Béland,Yuri Osetsky and Roger Stoller, of the Energy Dissipation to Defect Evolution Energy Frontier Research Center at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory, modeled radiation damage and discovered that the number of defects ultimately created in a material correlates with atomic displacements that high-pressure shock waves generate early in the collision cascade.

Molecular Atlas Of The Pancreas Produced

Molecular Atlas Of The Pancreas Produced

Researchers produced the first molecular map of the genes that are active in the various cells of the human pancreas. They have also revealed differences in genetic activity between people with type 2 diabetes and healthy controls. 

How Did Early Earth Stay Warm? Greenhouse Gases

How Did Early Earth Stay Warm? Greenhouse Gases

For at least a billion years of the distant past, planet Earth should have been frozen over but wasn’t, and one popular notion was that methane, with 23-34 times (yes, it is unclear) the heat-trapping capacity of carbon dioxide, could have reigned supreme for most of the first 3.5 billion years of Earth history, when oxygen was absent initially. Environmentalists today are in a panic about greenhouse gases, but between 1.8 billion and 800 million years ago, microscopic ocean dwellers really needed them. The sun was 10 to 15 percent dimmer than it is today—too weak to warm the planet on its own. Earth required a potent mix of heat-trapping gases to keep the oceans liquid and livable.

Third Non-Browning Arctic Apple Approved By USDA

Third Non-Browning Arctic Apple Approved By USDA

The third non-browning Arctic apple variety - yes, using science - the Arctic Fuji, has been approved by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (USDA APHIS). Science has shown they are the same as conventional apples, they just won't brown as much, so all of those organic food people will have a lot less food waste.Except organic food shoppers will never buy these, because they love food waste and environmental strain if it means getting to hate science again.

Ground Squirrels Use The Sun To Hide Food

Ground Squirrels Use The Sun To Hide Food

Jamie Samson and Marta Manser from the Department of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental 1Studies at UZH studied colonies of Cape ground squirrels (Xerus inauris) in the wild at the Kalahari Research Center in South Africa. The diurnal rodents temporarily store their food reserves in several hiding places. As their habitat is very arid and sparsely vegetated, points of reference in the environment, such as trees or bushes, are few and far between. The UZH researchers have now discovered how the social rodents orient themselves to find their way back to their temporary food stashes. "The squirrels probably use the position of the sun as the most important cue to roughly adjust their direction of movement," explains Samson.
Position of the sun as a rough guide

Alzheimer's Beginnings Prove To Be A Sticky Situation

Alzheimer's Beginnings Prove To Be A Sticky Situation

EAST LANSING, Mich. -- Laser technology has revealed a common trait of Alzheimer's disease - a sticky situation that could lead to new targets for medicinal treatments.
Alzheimer's statistics are always staggering. The neurodegenerative disease affects an estimated 5 million Americans, one in three seniors dies with Alzheimer's or a form of dementia, it claims more lives than breast and prostate cancers combined, and its incidence is rising.
To help fight this deadly disease, Lisa Lapidus, Michigan State University professor of physics and astronomy, has found that peptides, or strings of amino acids, related to Alzheimer's wiggle at dangerous speeds prior to clumping or forming the plaques commonly associated with Alzheimer's.

Saying Sorry Not Enough When Trust, Gender Roles Broken, Just Ask Clinton And Trump

Saying Sorry Not Enough When Trust, Gender Roles Broken, Just Ask Clinton And Trump

TORONTO, September 12, 2016 - Public figures such as United States presidential candidates Hilary Clinton and Donald Trump may have to do a lot more than just say sorry to win back public trust after a misdeed, said a York University researcher whose study on trust was published today.
"Whether it's a boss, co-worker or the public, saying sorry is not always enough to win back broken trust, especially when gender stereotypes are also broken. Both have happened with Clinton and Trump in the last few months," said Shayna Frawley, PhD candidate in human resource management at York U who led the study with York U alumna Jennifer Harrison, now at NEOMA Business School in France.

Study Links Intelligence And Chess Skill

Study Links Intelligence And Chess Skill

EAST LANSING, Mich. --- Intelligence -- and not just relentless practice -- plays a significant role in determining chess skill, indicates a comprehensive new study led by Michigan State University researchers.
The research provides some of the most conclusive evidence to date that cognitive ability is linked to skilled performance -- a hotly debated issue in psychology for decades -- and refutes theories that expertise is based solely on intensive training.

Group Work Can Harm Memory

Group Work Can Harm Memory

A new study by psychologists from the University of Liverpool and the University of Ontario Institute of Technology (UOIT) reveals that collaborating in a group to remember information is harmful.
The research, conducted by Dr Craig Thorley, the University's Department of Psychological Sciences, and Dr Stéphanie Marion, from UOIT's Faculty of Social Science and Humanities, statistically analysed 64 earlier collaborative remembering studies and found that groups recall less than their individual members would if working alone.
The same study also found that collaborative remembering boosts later individual learning: people who previously recall in a group remember more than those who do not.

Tooth Decay -- Drilling Down To The Nanoscale

Tooth Decay -- Drilling Down To The Nanoscale

With one in two Australian children reported to have tooth decay in their permanent teeth by age 12, researchers from the University of Sydney believe they have identified some nanoscale elements that govern the behaviour of our teeth.
Material and structures engineers worked with dentists and bioengineers to map the exact composition and structure of tooth enamel at the atomic scale.
Using a relatively new microscopy technique called atom probe tomography, their work produced the first-ever three-dimensional maps showing the positions of atoms critical in the decay process.