220 articles from MONDAY 25.11.2019

Milestone in quantum standardization

Researchers have developed a method that could pave the way to establishing universal standards for measuring the performance of quantum computers. The new method, called cycle benchmarking, allows researchers to assess the potential of scalability and to compare one quantum platform against another.

High amounts of screen time begin as early as infancy

Children's average daily time spent watching television or using a computer or mobile device increased from 53 minutes at age 12 months to more than 150 minutes at 3 years, according to a recent analysis. By age 8, children were more likely to log the highest amount of screen time if they had been in home-based childcare or were born to first-time mothers.

First recording of a blue whale's heart rate

With a lot of ingenuity and a little luck, researchers monitored the heart rate of a blue whale in the wild. The measurement suggests that blue whale hearts are operating at extremes -- and may limit the whale's size.

Dinosaur skull turns paleontology assumptions on their head

A team of researchers has unearthed a well-preserved Styracosaurus skull -- and its facial imperfections have implications for how paleontologists identify new species of dinosaurs. Nicknamed Hannah, the dinosaur was a Styracosaurus -- a horned dinosaur over five meters in length with a fan of long horns. Paleontologists have learned much from those horns -- because they aren't symmetrical.

Coal power set for record fall in 2019: analysis

Global coal-fired power, a key driver of climate change, is set to fall a record 3.0 percent this year, largely led by developed countries although much-criticised China and India play their part too, analysis showed Monday.

Smoker-survivor genes may have long ancestral history of fighting toxins

Longevity genes that helped humans survive ancient airborne toxins may be the same genes that make humans resilient to pollution from fossil fuels and cigarette smoke today, according to a study published in the December 2019 issue of The Quarterly Review of Biology. In "The Exposome in Human Evolution: From Dust to Diesel," Ben Trumble (Arizona State University) and Caleb Finch (University of...

Living at the edge of an active volcano: Risk from lava flows on Mount Etna

On Mt. Etna volcano, inhabited areas have been inundated repeatedly by lava flows in historical times. The increasing exposure of a larger population, which has almost tripled in the area around Mt. Etna during the last 150 years, has resulted from on a poor assessment of the volcanic hazard and risk, allowing inappropriate land use in vulnerable areas. Thus, the researchers of the Laboratory of...

Forest farms could create market for ginseng, other herbs

A transition from wild collection of herbs to forest farming needs to occur in Appalachia to make the opaque, unstable and unjust supply chain for forest medicinal plants such as ginseng sustainable, according to a team of researchers who have studied the market for more than a decade.

Gut microbes alter characteristics of norovirus infection

The highly contagious norovirus causes diarrhea and vomiting and is notorious for spreading rapidly through densely populated spaces, such as cruise ships, nursing homes, schools and day care centers. Each year, it is responsible for some 200,000 deaths, mostly in the developing world. There are no treatments for this intestinal virus, often incorrectly referred to as stomach flu.

How mantis shrimp make sense of the world

A study involving scientists at the University of Arizona and the University of Queensland provides new insight into how the small brains of mantis shrimp—fierce predators with keen vision that are among the fastest strikers in the animal kingdom—are able to make sense of a breathtaking amount of visual input.

Drought impact study shows new issues for plants and carbon dioxide

Extreme drought's impact on plants will become more dominant under future climate change, as noted in a paper out today in the journal Nature Climate Change. Analysis shows that not only will droughts become more frequent under future climates, but more of those events will be extreme, adding to the reduction of plant production essential to human and animal populations.

A little prairie can rescue honey bees from famine on the farm

Scientists placed honey bee hives next to soybean fields in Iowa and tracked how the bees fared over the growing season. To their surprise, the bees did well for much of the summer. The colonies thrived and gained weight. But in August, the trend reversed. By mid-October, most of the honey was gone and the overwintering brood was malnourished, the team discovered. Placing the hives near restored...

Liquid-liquid transitions crystallize new ideas for molecular liquids

Researchers demonstrated that liquid-liquid transitions of a molecular liquid were coupled to crystallization behavior. The team was able to enhance the crystallization of triphenyl phosphite by applying heat treatments at temperatures relevant to the liquid phase transitions. The findings could lead to better control of crystallization in applications in science and technology, for example, in...