Two-thirds of a century after Jane Goodall observed "David Greybeard" break off a twig to fashion a fishing rod for termites, researchers following in her footsteps have found that adult chimpanzees in Senegal literally hand youngsters the tools for learning.
According to research by the IfM Bonn, strengthening research collaboration between universities and businesses requires regional technology transfer networks in which technology transfer offices at universities and research institutions, as well as chambers of commerce and industry, trade associations, chambers of crafts, business-related networks and financial intermediaries, all play an active role. In this way, networking opportunities could be pooled and examples of good practice highlighted.
Smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa adopt agricultural inputs, including fertilizer, at low rates, contributing to low agricultural productivity. Previous research has shown that insufficient information and distrust in the quality of products for sale in local markets are among the reasons for low rates of fertilizer adoption and application. In a new study published in the American Journal of Agricultural Economics, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign researchers examined the agricultural marketplace in Tanzania, finding that frequent turnover among local agro-dealers affects farmer perceptions of product quality and has implications for broader market functioning.
Neurons in humans and other mammals express many exceptionally long genes, ranging from more than 100 kbp to more than 2 Mbp, that are important for forming synapses and neural circuits. In general, genetic information is read from DNA into RNA. This process is called transcription. The longer a gene is, the more time it takes to read from beginning to end. In addition, gene expression must be regulated at several steps. Neurons are therefore thought to require special mechanisms to read long genes accurately and stably, but the details of these mechanisms have remained unclear.
Light is traditionally described by properties such as wavelength, amplitude, phase and polarization. Advances in optics have shown that light can also be shaped into complex spatial patterns known as structured light, enabling new ways to carry information and interact with matter for applications in imaging, optical communications and information processing.
The way a product is labeled can change how consumers think about it. "No added sugar" or "99% fat-free" can make food sound healthier than it really is.
This year, greyhound racing in Britain turns 100 years old. The first race took place on July 24, 1926, in Manchester, where six dogs chased a mechanical hare around a track.
Heat stress is a leading cause of weather-related deaths and can be especially dangerous in cities, where phenomena like urban heat islands drive temperatures higher than in surrounding rural areas. Now, a new dataset developed by the U.S. National Science Foundation National Center for Atmospheric Research (NSF NCAR) aims to provide city governments and health officials with information that could minimize heat impacts on residents.
A new prehistoric animal species from Tanzania dating to around 240 million years ago, during the Triassic period, has been described by an international team of researchers. Led by the University of Bristol, the new species, named Dinodontosaurus isiyavamanda, could help scientists refine the age of one of the world's most significant fossil sites and reshape the timeline of early dinosaur evolution.
Carbon dioxide (CO₂) can be harmful to the environment in large amounts but can be used in the production of fuels and other useful chemicals. Doing so isn't easy, though. Now, Yale researchers have developed a new way to combine electrocatalysis and plasma to efficiently and practically generate a number of valuable products from the gas. The results are published in Nature Catalysis.
Weather forecasts inform countless everyday decisions—from farmers deciding when to sow crops and energy companies anticipating demand to public authorities preparing for heat waves. But how useful those forecasts are depends considerably on where people live.
The tolerance of individual Canadians for radical forms of environmental activism depends on several factors. Overall, however, Canadians do not support vandalism or violence as forms of protest. Those are the key findings of a new study by researchers from McGill University and Université Laval. The findings are published in the Canadian Journal of Political Science.
In the hills of northwestern Morocco, overlooking the river that gives the site its name, research at Oued Beht is bringing to light a previously unknown chapter of the region's past. The discovery of a substantial built structure suggests that, during the second millennium BC, communities in northwestern Africa were actively shaping their environment. They were also engaging in broader networks of interaction across the Mediterranean world.
New cases of New World screwworm have recently surfaced in the United States, highlighting the critical need to track its paths to determine where future infestations may occur. Researchers at the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Agricultural Research Service (ARS) are employing predictive models as part of a forward-thinking approach to manage New World screwworm. This strategy allows USDA agencies to act earlier, respond faster and direct resources where they are most needed to protect U.S. livestock, pets and wildlife.
No, President Joe Biden did not engineer Hurricane Milton. No, the ice crystal contrails left behind by high-altitude aircraft are not "chemtrails" sprayed by governments to control the weather or manipulate populations. No, state-run cloud seeding did not cause the record floods in Dubai.
A new collaborative report from University of Utah researchers and coordinated by the Wilkes Center for Climate Science & Policy provides Utah Department of Natural Resources, Department of Environmental Quality and policymakers with a comprehensive analysis of the growing risks posed by dust from the exposed lakebed of Great Salt Lake, the potential costs of controlling that dust, and the long-term benefits of stabilizing lake levels.
This starry view of the nearby star-forming region IC 348 is one of the largest images released to date from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope. Using Webb, astronomers searched IC 348 for brown dwarfs, which are less massive than the smallest stars. The researchers discovered brown dwarfs just twice the mass of Jupiter, bringing the study of these curious objects into a new mass range and revealing new insights about the star-formation process.
A research team at the Institute of Applied Physics at TU Darmstadt has shown for the first time that atoms that are completely disordered and in constant motion can nevertheless emit jointly directed light preferentially in one direction—even though neither the atoms nor their environment exhibit a direction—and that the strength of this asymmetry can be specifically adjusted. The paper is published in the journal Physical Review Letters.
Across parts of the internet where young men trade tips on self-improvement, the latest project is scent. Deodorant is out, and washing less is in.
The same amount of rain falling on the same landscape at different times can send very different amounts of water into its rivers, according to a new study in Nature Water. The research offers a global picture of how catchments behave—not where rivers are or how much water they carry, but how consistently landscapes turn rainfall into river flow.