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Categories: Ecology: Research, Engineering: Nanotechnology

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An international team of scientists has recently found that non-native species are expanding their ranges many orders of magnitude faster than native ones, in large part due to inadvertent human help. Even seemingly sedentary non-native plants are moving at three times the speed of their native counterparts in a race where, because of the rapid pace of climate change and its effect on habitat, speed matters. To survive, plants and animals need to be shifting their ranges by 3.25 kilometers per year just to keep up with the increasing temperatures and associated climactic shifts -- a speed that native species cannot manage without human help.

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Natural hazards can speed up the extinction process of land animals that have limited distribution and/or small populations. But there is hope to turn the negative development around, says researchers behind new study.

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Shooting a movie in the lab requires special equipment. Especially when the actors are molecules -- invisible to the naked eye -- reacting with each other. 'Imagine trying to film tiny lava flows during a volcanic eruption. Your smartphone camera wouldn't be up to the job.

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Current techniques for measuring nano/microplastic (N/MP) concentrations in soil require the soil organic matter content to be separated and have limited resolution for analyzing N/MPs sized <1 m. Therefore, researchers have developed a novel yet simple method to measure N/MP concentration in different soil types using spectroscopy at two wavelengths. This method does not require the soil to be separated in order to detect the N/MPs and can accurately quantify N/MPs regardless of their size.

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A gold-coated milling vessel for ball mills proved to be a real marvel: without any solvents or environmentally harmful chemicals, the team was able to use it to convert alcohols into aldehydes. The catalytic reaction takes place at the gold surface and is mechanically driven. The vessel can be reused multiple times. 'This opens up new prospects for the use of gold in catalysis and shows how traditional materials can contribute to solving modern environmental problems in an innovative way,' says Borchardt.

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Using genome reconstruction, scientists unveiled a once 'invisible' fish parasite present in many marine fish world-wide that belongs to the apicomplexans, one of the most important groups of parasites at a clinical level. However, it had gone unnoticed in previous studies. The parasite is geographically and taxonomically widespread in fish species around the planet, with implications for commercial fishing and oceanic food webs.

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Researchers have developed a new nanomedicine therapy that delivers anticancer drugs to lung cancer cells and enhances the immune system's ability to fight cancer. The team showed promising results for the new therapy in cancer cells in the lab and in mouse lung tumor models, with potential applications for improving care and outcomes for patients with tumors that have failed to respond to traditional immunotherapy.

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Researchers have succeeded in developing a DNA-based molecular controller. Crucially, this controller enables the autonomous assembly and disassembly of molecular robots, as opposed to manually directing it.

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New research has found that sharks retained high levels of functional diversity for most of the last 66 million years, before steadily declining over the last 10 million years to its lowest value in the present day.

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The increase in the frequency and intensity of marine heatwaves in recent decades is one of the effects of global climate change. A study shows that the extreme heatwave of 2022 caused an 'unprecedented' increase in mortality of the red gorgonian Paramuricea clavata, affecting 70% of the colonies located in the Montgr Natural Park, the Medes Islands and the Baix Ter. According to the researchers, these results are 'alarming and threaten the viability' of this species of great value for the biodiversity of benthic ecosystems, since it is considered to be an inhabitant-forming species.

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Researchers have engineered nanosized cubes that spontaneously form a two-dimensional checkerboard pattern when dropped on the surface of water. The work presents a simple approach to create complex nanostructures through a technique called self-assembly.

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Gray whales that spend their summers feeding in the shallow waters off the Pacific Northwest coast have undergone a significant decline in body length since around the year 2000, a new study found.

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Engineers have developed microscopic robots, known as microrobots, capable of swimming through the lungs to deliver cancer-fighting medication directly to metastatic tumors. This approach has shown promise in mice, where it inhibited the growth and spread of tumors that had metastasized to the lungs, thereby boosting survival rates compared to control treatments.

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A team has developed printable, highly efficient light-emitting metasurfaces.

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Studies working to map conservation historically have left humans out of the equation. This study proposes ways to build in the outsized footprint created by people in wild places.

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To understand the unique physical phenomena associated with the properties of magnetic hedgehogs and antihedgehogs, which behave as virtual magnetic monopoles and antimonopoles respectively, it is essential to study their intrinsic excitations. In a new study, researchers revealed the dynamical nature of collective excitation modes in hedgehog lattices in itinerant chiral magnets. Their findings serve as the foundation for studying the dynamics of emergent magnetic monopoles in magnets.

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Haiku poems have reflected humans' experiences in nature for hundreds of years, including observations of bugs and other wildlife. Recently, researchers analyzed which insects were mentioned the most in haiku -- with butterflies, fireflies and singing insects such as crickets topping the list.

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Chronic lung diseases are often accelerated and exacerbated by polymicrobial infections. An international study has identified two types of these so-called dysbioses in cystic fibrosis. They display distinct ecology and are also likely to respond differently to treatment.

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Academics are often accused of 'splitting hairs', but a team has now devised a machine to do just that. We all have a bad hair day from time to time, and split ends are a common problem. However, the science behind this kind of hair damage is poorly understood, which is why scientists are investigating this knotty problem.

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An international research team has discovered the oldest known marine plant using a novel genetic clock. This 1400-year-old seagrass clone from the Baltic Sea dates back to the Migration Period. The research project is a significant step towards better understanding and protecting marine ecosystems.