Latest News Releases 15 September

At a time when a drought is affecting the 40 million people who rely on the Colorado River system, Indiana University professor Travis O'Brien and a team of scientific colleagues are embarking on a monumental U.S. Department of Energy project to better predict the future of water availability in the West.

One of the frequently used methods to monitor endangered whales is called passive acoustics technology, which doesn’t always perform well. In the increasingly noisy ocean, current methods can mistake other sounds for whale calls. This high “false positive” rate hampers scientific research and hinders conservation efforts. Researchers used artificial intelligence and machine learning methods to develop a new and much more accurate method of detecting Right whale up-calls – a short “whoop” sound that lasts about two seconds.

An international collaboration of scientists using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) has completed the most extensive chemical composition mapping of the protoplanetary disks around five nearby young stars at high resolution, producing images that capture the molecular composition associated with planetary births, and a roadmap for future studies of the makeup of planet- and comet-forming regions. The new study unlocks clues about the role of molecules in planetary system formation, and whether these young planetary systems in the making have what it takes to host life.

An international research team using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) revealed the distribution of heavy hydrogen, or deuterium, in planet formation sites with the highest resolution ever achieved. This provides clues to understand the physical and chemical conditions during the formation of exoplanets and Solar System objects.

Scientists from Trinity College Dublin and AMBER, the SFI Research Centre for Advanced Materials and BioEngineering Research, have discovered a way to fabricate tiny colour-changing gas sensors using new materials and a high-resolution form of 3D printing. The sensors – responsive, printed, microscopic optical structures – can be monitored in real-time, and used for the detection of solvent vapours in air. There is great potential for these sensors to be used in connected, low-cost devices for homes, or integrated in wearable devices used to monitor human health.

Scientists from the University of Bradford have discovered a DNA protein ‘switch’ that could help in the treatment of cancer and dementia. The findings, published this week in the prestigious journal Nature Communications, were described by the lead author Prof Sherif El-Khamisy as “significant”.

Skoltech researchers and their colleagues have synthesized a new conjugated polymer for organic electronics using two different chemical reactions and shown the impact of the two methods on its performance in organic and perovskite solar cells.

Poaching has longer-term effects on elephant populations than originally thought, new research has found. A pair of studies, published recently by researchers at Colorado State University and Save the Elephants (STE) shows that orphaned juvenile elephants have less chance of survival in a herd - and that losing them has a significant impact on population growth or decline.