The anxiety over antibiotic-resistant superbugs, which are responsible for 23,000 deaths a year in the United States, is likely to grow in California, following the recent discovery by UCLA researchers of high levels of antibiotic-resistant genes in parks in four cities.
Antibiotic-resistant genes, or ARGs, lead to antibiotic-resistant bacteria. And with antibiotic resistance rapidly increasing, worldwide they are expected to kill 10 million people annually by 2050 — more than cancer.
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A team of researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory has identified a nickel oxide compound as an unconventional but promising candidate material for high-temperature superconductivity.
The team successfully synthesized single crystals of a metallic trilayer nickelate compound, a feat the researchers believe to be a first.
"It's poised for superconductivity in a way not found in other nickel oxides. We're very hopeful that all we have to do now is find the right electron concentration."
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Researchers have identified an antioxidant – richly occurring in broccoli – as a new antidiabetic substance. A patient study shows significantly lower blood sugar levels in participants who ate broccoli extract with high levels of sulforaphane.
“There are strong indications that this can become a valuable supplement to existing medication,” says Anders Rosengren, Docent in Metabolic Physiology at the University of Gothenburg.
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On June 17, NASA’s MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution Mission) will celebrate 1,000 Earth days in orbit around the Red Planet. Since its launch in November 2013 and its orbit insertion in September 2014, MAVEN has been exploring the upper atmosphere of Mars. MAVEN is bringing insight to how the sun stripped Mars of most of its atmosphere, turning a planet once possibly habitable to microbial life into a barren desert world.
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A scientific breakthrough has taken an emerging biotechnology a step closer to being used to treat wastewater in the Developing World.
Researchers at the University of the West of England (UWE Bristol) (Ieropoulos & Greenman) have discovered that technology they have developed which has already been proven to generate electricity through the process of cleaning organic waste, such as urine, also kills bacteria harmful to humans.
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California’s winter rains and snow depress the Sierra Nevada and Coast Ranges, which then rebound during the summer, changing the stress on the state’s earthquake faults and causing seasonal upticks in small quakes, according to a new study by University of California, Berkeley seismologists.
The weight of winter snow and stream water pushes down the Sierra Nevada mountains by about a centimeter, or three-eighths of an inch, while ground and stream water depress the Coast Ranges by about half that. This loading and the summer rebound – the rise of the land after all the snow has melted and much of the water has flowed downhill – makes the earth’s crust flex, pushing and pulling on the state’s faults, including its largest, the San Andreas.
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