https://phys.org/ en-us Phys.org internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Physics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus responsible for the disease COVID-19, is infecting the world at a rapid rate. Understanding how this infection works at the molecular level could help experts discover ways to moderate or stop the spread. https://phys.org/news/2020-09-neutrons-probe-biological-materials-insights.html Analytical Chemistry Fri, 04 Sep 2020 16:18:24 EDT news518455098 More than a century has passed since the last scientific analyses of the famed "Lincoln County [Tennessee] process" was published, but the secrets of the famous Tennessee whiskey flavor are starting to unravel at the University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture. The latest research promises advancements in the field of flavor science as well as marketing. https://phys.org/news/2020-09-unraveling-secrets-tennessee-whiskey.html Analytical Chemistry Fri, 04 Sep 2020 16:16:42 EDT news518454996 Tugboats battled into the night Friday to stop a blazing oil tanker carrying 270,000 tonnes of crude from drifting towards the Sri Lankan coast. https://phys.org/news/2020-09-blazing-tanker-sri-lanka-coast.html Environment Fri, 04 Sep 2020 16:10:05 EDT news518454250 New experimental evidence of a collective behavior of electrons to form "quasiparticles" called "anyons" has been reported by a team of scientists at Purdue University. https://phys.org/news/2020-09-evidence-quantum-world-stranger-thought.html Quantum Physics Fri, 04 Sep 2020 16:08:09 EDT news518454479 Just over half of young adult Americans live with their parents, an unprecedented proportion that is doubtless linked to the coronavirus but also reflects a deeper trend, researchers said Friday. https://phys.org/news/2020-09-young-americans-parents.html Social Sciences Fri, 04 Sep 2020 16:02:04 EDT news518454121 By shining white light on a glass slide stippled with millions of tiny titanium dioxide pillars, researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and their collaborators have reproduced with astonishing fidelity the luminous hues and subtle shadings of "Girl With a Pearl Earring," Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer's masterpiece. The approach has potential applications in improving optical communications and making currency harder to counterfeit. https://phys.org/news/2020-09-nanopillars-precisely-intensity-transmitted.html Nanophysics Nanomaterials Fri, 04 Sep 2020 16:01:26 EDT news518454071 Rock-melting forces occurring much deeper in the Earth than previously understood appear to drive tremors along a notorious segment of California's San Andreas Fault, according to new USC research that helps explain how quakes happen. https://phys.org/news/2020-09-deep-underground-quakes-san-andreas.html Earth Sciences Fri, 04 Sep 2020 14:00:03 EDT news518421841 The future economy based on renewable and sustainable energy sources might utilize battery-powered cars, large-scale solar and wind farms, and energy reserves stored in batteries and chemical fuels. Although there are examples of sustainable energy sources in use already, scientific and engineering breakthroughs will determine the timeline for widespread adoption. https://phys.org/news/2020-09-molecules-renewable-energy-future.html Materials Science Fri, 04 Sep 2020 13:23:32 EDT news518444607 In a recent report, Xiaolei Peng and a team of scientists in materials science and engineering at the University of Texas, U.S., and the Tsinghua University, China, developed opto-thermoelectric microswimmers bioinspired by the motion behaviors of Escherichia coli (E. coli). They engineered the microswimmers using dielectric gold Janus particles driven by a self-sustained electric field arising from the optothermal response of the particles. When they illuminated the constructs with a laser beam, the Janus particles showed an optically generated temperature gradient along the particle surfaces, forming an opto-thermoelectrical field to propel themselves along. https://phys.org/news/2020-09-opto-thermoelectric-microswimmers.html General Physics Optics & Photonics Fri, 04 Sep 2020 13:10:01 EDT news518442238 Electric current is everywhere, from powering homes to controlling the plasma that fuels fusion reactions to possibly giving rise to vast cosmic magnetic fields. Now, scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) have found that electrical currents can form in ways not known before. The novel findings could give researchers greater ability to bring the fusion energy that drives the sun and stars to Earth. https://phys.org/news/2020-09-unexpected-electrical-current-stabilize-fusion.html Plasma Physics Fri, 04 Sep 2020 12:43:48 EDT news518442223 The hemoglobin in the red blood cells ensures that our body cells receive sufficient oxygen. When the blood pigment is broken down, heme is produced, which in turn can influence the protein cocktail in the blood. Researchers at the University of Bonn have now discovered in complex detective work that the activated protein C (APC) can be commandeered by heme. At the same time, APC can also reduce the toxic effect of heme. Perspectively, the findings may provide the basis for better diagnostic and therapeutic approaches to blood diseases. The study has been published online in advance in the journal Antioxidants & Redox Signaling. The print version will be published soon. https://phys.org/news/2020-09-blood-breakdown-product-important-enzyme.html Cell & Microbiology Molecular & Computational biology Fri, 04 Sep 2020 12:43:38 EDT news518442212 Materials scientists at Duke University have uncovered an atomic mechanism that makes certain thermoelectric materials incredibly efficient near high-temperature phase transitions. The information will help fill critical knowledge gaps in the computational modeling of such materials, potentially allowing researchers to discover new and better options for technologies that rely on transforming heat into electricity. https://phys.org/news/2020-09-floppy-atomic-dynamics-electricity.html General Physics Fri, 04 Sep 2020 12:43:06 EDT news518442181 Although immune responses are generated by a complex, hierarchical arrangement of immune system organs, tissues, and components, the unit of the cell has a particularly large effect on disease progression and host survival. These cell-level defense mechanisms, known as cell-autonomous immunity, are among the most important determinants of human survival, and are millions to billions of years old, inherited from our prokaryotic and single-celled ancestors. https://phys.org/news/2020-09-cell-autonomous-immunity-pathogen-mediated-evolution-humans.html Evolution Cell & Microbiology Fri, 04 Sep 2020 12:42:52 EDT news518442168 NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP satellite passed over the Philippine Sea on Sept. 4 and provided a visible image of Haishen that had strengthened into a super typhoon. https://phys.org/news/2020-09-nasa-satellite-haishen-super-typhoon.html Environment Fri, 04 Sep 2020 12:42:17 EDT news518442136 A polarized petahertz current is driven by an ultrashort laser in an organic superconductor. This is in contrast to the common sense belief which is justified by Ohm's law, i.e., a net current cannot be induced by an oscillating electric field of light. The current enhances near the superconducting transition temperature. The light-driven petahertz current opens a way to high-speed operation of computers which is one million times faster than conventional ones. https://phys.org/news/2020-09-electric-current-superconductor.html Optics & Photonics Superconductivity Fri, 04 Sep 2020 12:39:07 EDT news518441945 Short-term flooding from extreme storm events poses a serious transportation challenge in U.S. cities. This problem—which is anticipated to grow over the next century with our global climate crisis—is often hardest on vulnerable populations, including low-income and minority neighborhoods. The latest report from the National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC), led by Courtney Crosson of University of Arizona (UA), advances national research methods for assessing flood vulnerability and prioritizing transportation improvement investments to ensure that no community is left stranded when the next flood occurs. https://phys.org/news/2020-09-potential-green-infrastructure-mitigating-impacts.html Environment Fri, 04 Sep 2020 11:23:48 EDT news518437423 If you have any children in your life, imagine for a moment that they don't look anything like their parents, they don't eat anything humans normally eat, and they're active only while adults sleep. https://phys.org/news/2020-09-big-tadpoles-frogs-complicated.html Plants & Animals Fri, 04 Sep 2020 11:21:15 EDT news518437268 A team of international vets using tranquilliser darts, flatbreads and the soothing lyrics of Frank Sinatra conducted a medical examination Friday on Pakistan's only Asian elephant, ahead of his planned move to Cambodia. https://phys.org/news/2020-09-pakistan-asian-elephant-home.html Plants & Animals Ecology Fri, 04 Sep 2020 11:20:25 EDT news518437220 A research collaboration based at Kumamoto University (Japan) has found that activation of PPARα, a fatty acid receptor that detects fatty acids in cells and regulates physiological functions, causes masculinization of Japanese rice fish (medaka). The discovery of this molecular mechanism is expected to advance the development of new sex control technologies. https://phys.org/news/2020-09-fatty-acid-receptor-involved-temperature-induced.html Plants & Animals Biotechnology Fri, 04 Sep 2020 11:17:18 EDT news518437035 Tropical Depression Omar is one stubborn storm. Since it developed early in the week, it was being affected by wind shear. That wind shear has not let up by the week's end, and NASA satellite imagery showed the bulk of storms were being pushed to the southeast of the center. https://phys.org/news/2020-09-nasa-aqua-satellite-omar.html Environment Fri, 04 Sep 2020 11:16:05 EDT news518436963 Quantum bits, or qubits, can hold quantum information much longer now thanks to efforts by an international research team. The researchers have increased the retention time, or coherence time, to 10 milliseconds—10,000 times longer than the previous record—by combining the orbital motion and spinning inside an atom. Such a boost in information retention has major implications for information technology developments since the longer coherence time makes spin-orbit qubits the ideal candidate for building large quantum computers. https://phys.org/news/2020-09-technology-quantum-bits-longer-previous.html Quantum Physics Fri, 04 Sep 2020 11:09:34 EDT news518436571 Researchers have discovered how a protein in plant roots controls the uptake of minerals and water, a finding which could improve the tolerance of agricultural crops to climate change and reduce the need for chemical fertilizers. https://phys.org/news/2020-09-protein-discovery-fertilizer.html Plants & Animals Biotechnology Fri, 04 Sep 2020 11:09:05 EDT news518436542 A team of researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology in Jena, Germany, and the University of Virginia, USA, has studied the impact of high ozone air pollution on the chemical communication between flowers and pollinators. They showed that tobacco hawkmoths lost attraction to the scent of their preferred flowers when that scent had been altered by ozone. This oxidizing pollutant thus disturbs the interaction between a plant and its pollinator, a relationship that has evolved over millions of years. However, when given the chance, hawkmoths quickly learn that an unpleasantly polluted scent may lead to nutritious nectar. The study is published in the Journal of Chemical Ecology. https://phys.org/news/2020-09-air-pollution-odors-unattractive-moths.html Plants & Animals Ecology Fri, 04 Sep 2020 11:08:10 EDT news518436485 A collaboration of researchers based in Kumamoto University, Japan have discovered microdiamonds in the Nishisonogi metamorphic rock formation in Nagasaki Prefecture, Japan. Microdiamonds in metamorphic rocks are important minerals because they form in continental collision zones and show that the crust has penetrated deeper than 120 km below the surface. This is the second area in the world, after the Italian Alps, that shows microdiamonds can form in metamorphic rock through subduction of oceanic plates. https://phys.org/news/2020-09-japan-geologic-history-discovery-metamorphic.html Earth Sciences Fri, 04 Sep 2020 11:06:01 EDT news518436357 Many production facilities (e.g. plastic manufacturers, pharma companies, and others) use nanocatalysts that contain palladium—an expensive component that is not sustainably produced. A chemist from RUDN University found a way to reduce palladium consumption and to make its manufacture more eco-friendly. He developed a catalyst based on a substance that comes from plant waste. Using his invention, manufacturers could cut palladium consumption in half. Moreover, new catalysts can be reused multiple times without any decrease in efficiency. The results of the study were published in the journal Molecular Catalysis. https://phys.org/news/2020-09-green-catalyst-pharmaceutical-industrial-chemistry.html Materials Science Fri, 04 Sep 2020 11:05:23 EDT news518436319 As children return to school in the UK, they will encounter a curriculum that still pays little attention to black British history or culture. This is despite an urgent Black Lives Matter movement and growing demands for a more honest reckoning with the racial legacies of Britain's imperial past. https://phys.org/news/2020-09-uk-school-textbooks-highly-version.html Social Sciences Fri, 04 Sep 2020 10:10:08 EDT news518430593 An international team of researchers has learned more about the global silicon cycle by studying ancient soil samples in Australia. In their paper published in the journal Science, the group describes their study of soil of different ages and what they learned about it. Joanna Carey with Babson College, has published a Perspective piece in the same journal issue outlining the connection between the carbon and silicon cycle and the work done by the team in this new effort. https://phys.org/news/2020-09-insights-global-silicon.html Earth Sciences Environment Fri, 04 Sep 2020 10:10:07 EDT news518430625 A new application of the CRISPR/Cas molecular scissors promises major progress in crop cultivation. At Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), researchers from the team of molecular biologist Holger Puchta have succeeded in modifying the sequence of genes on a chromosome using CRISPR/Cas. For the first time worldwide, they took a known chromosome modification in the thale cress model plant and demonstrated how inversions of the gene sequence can be undone and inheritance can thus be controlled specifically. The results are published in Nature Communications. https://phys.org/news/2020-09-inheritance-specifically.html Molecular & Computational biology Fri, 04 Sep 2020 10:10:07 EDT news518430719 Researchers from the Paul-Drude-Institut in Berlin, the Helmholtz-Zentrum in Dresden and the Ioffe Institute in St. Petersburg have demonstrated the use of elastic vibrations to manipulate the spin states of optically active color centers in SiC at room temperature. They show a non-trivial dependence of the acoustically induced spin transitions on the spin quantization direction, which can lead to chiral spin-acoustic resonances. These findings are important for applications in future quantum-electronic devices and have recently been published in Physical Review Letters. https://phys.org/news/2020-09-nanoearthquakes-centers-silicon-carbide.html Nanophysics Fri, 04 Sep 2020 10:10:06 EDT news518430737 New research provides some of the first solid evidence that people who watch a virtual job interview rate the candidate substantially lower than those who watch the same interview in person. https://phys.org/news/2020-09-job-candidates-virtual.html Economics & Business Fri, 04 Sep 2020 10:00:03 EDT news518429719