Science

Two scientists and an editor spent six months investigating so-called paper mills, which churn out bogus scientific papers that impede actual research on lifesaving breakthroughs.

A new study published in Biological Reviews critically examines the parallels and key differences between human migration and biological invasions. Bringing together experts from both the natural and social sciences, the study explains why drawing such parallels is misleading and potentially harmful, particularly in today's politically charged climate.

With the rapid shifting of ecosystems, the concept of native and invasive is being rethought. On the one end are folks who desire to maintain ecological communities as static as possible, and on the other are those who want to end any sort of invasive species control completely.

A short summary: contrary to widespread opinion, the brain of a typical person is not sterile, but inhabited with microbes that have health effects.

Among those who shared any political content on Twitter during the election, fewer than 5% of people on the left or in the center ever shared any fake news content, yet 11 and 21% of people on the right and extreme right did

As the number of observations submitted to the citizen science platform iNaturalist continues to grow, it is increasingly important that these observations can be identified to the finest taxonomic level, maximizing their value for biodiversity research. Here, we explore the benefits of acting as an identifier on iNaturalist.

Researchers have known for several decades that thunderstorms can act as miniature particle accelerators that produce antimatter, gamma rays and other nuclear phenomena. But they did not know how common the phenomenon was. In observations taken by a retrofitted U2 spy plane, they've discovered essentially all large thunderstorms produce gamma rays in many dynamic, unexpected and unknown ways.

Fully open source, for your next biohacking experiment.

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In the article, researchers modeled the passage of the solar system through the galactic interstellar medium, components of which move at differing velocities and orbits.

https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/58/11/586.abstract

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"It was outlined above that it is acknowledged that the current economic system is understood to be unsustainable, which is why the shift toward the Green Economy is proposed. However, such a shift means not a shift toward sustainability, but rather the continuation of the current system. As explained, the Green Economy is in line with weak sustainability and thus calls for decoupling. Anyway, decoupling has been one of the driving forces at the origin of the current unsustainable economic system. As was briefly indicated, this decoupling had major drawbacks, and has been partially creating the sustainability problems we are facing now. This idea of the Green Economy follows, therefore, exactly the same evolutionary pathway as our current economy. Hence, it is not as Pearce argued that we did not try this path; we tried it already and it failed. It would be illogic to employ the same mechanisms as solution that created the problem."

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Abstract

Abstract

Abstract

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Some Chinese researchers have found a new catalyst for electrochemically reducing CO2. Multiple such catalysts are known, but so far, only copper favours reaction products with a carbon chain of at least 2 carbons (e.g. ethanol).

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To my knowledge, this is the second time a sample is returned from an asteroid to Earth - only preceded by Hayabusa-2 fetching a sample from asteroid Ryugu. The capsule has been found and the sample stabilized with nitrogen. Fetching the sample required 7 years, studying it will require a bit of time too.

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The inverse vaccine, described in Nature Biomedical Engineering, takes advantage of how the liver naturally marks molecules from broken-down cells with “do not attack” flags to prevent autoimmune reactions to cells that die by natural processes.

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