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Categories: Ecology: Endangered Species, Physics: Optics

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Biology: Biochemistry Biology: Botany Biology: General Biology: Genetics Ecology: Animals Ecology: Endangered Species Geoscience: Environmental Issues Offbeat: Earth and Climate Offbeat: General Offbeat: Plants and Animals
Published

Making crops colorful for easier weeding      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

To make weeding easier, scientists suggest bioengineering crops to be colorful or to have differently shaped leaves so that they can be more easily distinguished from their wild and weedy counterparts. This could involve altering the crops' genomes so that they express pigments that are already produced by many plants, for example, anthocyanins, which make blueberries blue, or carotenoids, which make carrots orange. Then, they say, weeding robots could be trained to remove only the weeds using machine learning.

Biology: Botany Ecology: Endangered Species Ecology: Nature Environmental: General Environmental: Wildfires Geoscience: Earth Science Geoscience: Environmental Issues Geoscience: Geochemistry Geoscience: Severe Weather
Published

CO2 worsens wildfires by helping plants grow      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

By fueling the growth of plants that become kindling, carbon dioxide is driving an increase in the severity and frequency of wildfires, according to a new study.

Biology: Biochemistry Biology: Cell Biology Biology: General Biology: Marine Biology: Zoology Chemistry: Biochemistry Ecology: Animals Ecology: Endangered Species Ecology: Invasive Species Ecology: Nature Ecology: Sea Life Environmental: General Geoscience: Oceanography
Published

New tagging method provides bioadhesive interface for marine sensors on diverse, soft, and fragile species      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Tagging marine animals with sensors to track their movements and ocean conditions can provide important environmental and behavioral information. Existing techniques to attach sensors currently largely rely on invasive physical anchors, suction cups, and rigid glues. While these techniques can be effective for tracking marine animals with hard exoskeletons and large animals such as sharks, individuals can incur physiological and metabolic stress during the tagging process, which can affect the quality of data collection. A newly developed soft hydrogel-based bioadhesive interface for marine sensors, referred to as BIMS, holds promise as an effective, rapid, robust, and non-invasive method to tag and track all sorts of marine species, including soft and fragile species. The BIMS tagging, which is also simple and versatile, can help researchers better understand animal behavior while also capturing oceanographic data critical for helping to better understand some impacts of climate change and for resource management.

Biology: Biochemistry Ecology: Endangered Species Environmental: Biodiversity Environmental: Ecosystems Environmental: General Environmental: Water Geoscience: Environmental Issues
Published

Florida Wildlife Corridor eases worst impacts of climate change      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Florida is projected to lose 3.5 million acres of land to development by 2070. A new study highlights how Florida can buffer itself against both climate change and population pressures by conserving the remaining 8 million acres of 'opportunity areas' within the Florida Wildlife Corridor (FLWC), the only designated statewide corridor in the U.S. Interactions between the FLWC and climate change had not been previously examined until now. Findings show substantial climate resilience benefits from the corridor, yielding a much higher return on investment than originally thought. About 90 percent of Floridians live within 20 miles of the corridor.

Biology: Botany Biology: Evolutionary Biology: General Ecology: Endangered Species Ecology: Extinction Ecology: Nature Paleontology: General
Published

Seed ferns: Plants experimented with complex leaf vein networks 201 million years ago      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

According to a research team led by palaeontologists, the net-like leaf veining typical for today's flowering plants developed much earlier than previously thought, but died out again several times. Using new methods, the fossilized plant Furcula granulifer was identified as such an early forerunner. The leaves of this seed fern species already exhibited the net-like veining in the late Triassic (around 201 million years ago).

Physics: General Physics: Optics
Published

Photonic computation with sound waves      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Optical neural networks may provide the high-speed and large-capacity solution necessary to tackle challenging computing tasks. However, tapping their full potential will require further advances. One challenge is the reconfigurability of optical neural networks. A research team has now succeeded in laying the foundation for new reconfigurable neuromorphic building blocks by adding a new dimension to photonic machine learning: sound waves. The researchers use light to create temporary acoustic waves in an optical fiber. The sound waves generated in this way can for instance enable a recurrent functionality in a telecom optical fiber, which is essential to interpreting contextual information such as language.

Biology: Biochemistry Biology: Botany Biology: Evolutionary Biology: General Biology: Genetics Biology: Microbiology Ecology: Endangered Species
Published

Twisted pollen tubes induce infertility      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Plants with multiple sets of chromosomes, known as polyploids, are salt-tolerant or drought-resistant and often achieve higher yields. However, newly formed polyploid plants are often sterile or have reduced fertility and are unsuitable for breeding resistant lines. The reason is that the pollen tube in these plants grows incorrectly, which keeps fertilization from taking place. Pollen tube growth is mainly controlled by two genes that could be useful in crop breeding.

Engineering: Graphene Engineering: Nanotechnology Physics: Optics
Published

Quantum electronics: Charge travels like light in bilayer graphene      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

An international research team has demonstrated experimentally that electrons in naturally occurring double-layer graphene move like particles without any mass, in the same way that light travels. Furthermore, they have shown that the current can be 'switched' on and off, which has potential for developing tiny, energy-efficient transistors -- like the light switch in your house but at a nanoscale.

Computer Science: Quantum Computers Physics: General Physics: Optics Physics: Quantum Computing Physics: Quantum Physics
Published

Crucial connection for 'quantum internet' made for the first time      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Researchers have produced, stored, and retrieved quantum information for the first time, a critical step in quantum networking.

Chemistry: Inorganic Chemistry Physics: Optics
Published

New colorful plastic films for versatile sensors and electronic displays      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Researchers have synthesized triarylborane (TAB) compounds that exhibit unusual optical responses upon binding to certain anions. They also synthesized thin polymer films that incorporate the TAB and retain the sensing as well as the light emission properties of the TAB. This work is an important advance in plastic research and has applications in analyte sensing as well as electronic display technologies.

Ecology: Endangered Species Ecology: Extinction Paleontology: Fossils Paleontology: General
Published

Digging up new species of Australia and New Guinea's giant fossil kangaroos      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Palaeontologists have described three unusual new species of giant fossil kangaroo from Australia and New Guinea, finding them more diverse in shape, range and hopping method than previously thought. The three new species are of the extinct genus Protemnodon, which lived from around 5 million to 40,000 years ago -- with one about double the size of the largest red kangaroo living today.

Biology: General Biology: Marine Ecology: Endangered Species Ecology: General Ecology: Nature Ecology: Research Ecology: Sea Life Geoscience: Geography Geoscience: Oceanography
Published

Where have all the right whales gone?      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Marine researchers have mapped the density of one of the most endangered large whale species worldwide, the North Atlantic right whale, using new data to help avoid right whales' harmful exposure to commercial fisheries and vessel strikes. The resulting maps, spanning 20 years of whale observations, are publicly available to inform risk assessments, estimations of whale harm/disturbance, marine spatial planning, and industry regulations to mitigate risk to right whales.

Biology: Biotechnology Biology: Botany Biology: Developmental Ecology: Endangered Species
Published

Biofortified rice to combat deficiencies      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Vitamin B1 is an essential micronutrient for human beings. Its deficiency is the cause of numerous diseases of the nervous and cardiovascular systems. Researchers have achieved a significant advance in the fight against vitamin B1 deficiency, frequently associated with a rice-based diet. By specifically targeting the nourishing tissues of the rice grain, the scientists have succeeded in considerably increasing its vitamin B1 content, without compromising agronomic yield. These results could help solve a major public health problem in regions where rice is the staple food.

Biology: Biochemistry Biology: Biotechnology Biology: Botany Biology: Cell Biology Biology: General Biology: Genetics Biology: Microbiology Biology: Molecular Ecology: Endangered Species
Published

Genetic underpinnings of environmental stress identified in model plant      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Researchers have identified 14 genes that thale cress -- a plant commonly used in genetic investigations since its genome is well documented -- express more when responding to five specific stressors, as well as eight genes that the plant suppresses.

Computer Science: Quantum Computers Physics: General Physics: Optics Physics: Quantum Computing Physics: Quantum Physics
Published

Quantum breakthrough when light makes materials magnetic      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

The potential of quantum technology is huge but is today largely limited to the extremely cold environments of laboratories. Now, researchers have succeeded in demonstrating for the very first time how laser light can induce quantum behavior at room temperature -- and make non-magnetic materials magnetic. The breakthrough is expected to pave the way for faster and more energy-efficient computers, information transfer and data storage.

Physics: Optics
Published

Breakthrough for next-generation digital displays      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Researchers have developed a digital display screen where the LEDs themselves react to touch, light, fingerprints and the user's pulse, among other things. Their results could be the start of a whole new generation of displays for phones, computers and tablets.

Chemistry: Biochemistry Physics: Optics
Published

Could new technique for 'curving' light be the secret to improved wireless communication?      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

A study that could help revolutionize wireless communication introduces a novel method to curve terahertz signals around an obstacle.

Energy: Alternative Fuels Energy: Technology Environmental: General Geoscience: Environmental Issues Physics: Optics
Published

New four-terminal tandem organic solar cell achieves 16.94% power conversion efficiency      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Researchers have fabricated a new four-terminal organic solar cell with a tandem configuration with a 16.94% power conversion efficiency (PCE). The new device is composed by a highly transparent front cell that incorporates a transparent ultrathin silver (Ag) electrode of only 7nm, which ensures its efficient operation.