• Red Onions Pack a Cancer-Fighting Punch, Study Reveals

    The next time you walk down the produce aisle of your grocery store, you may want to reach for red onions if you are looking to fight off cancer.

    In the first study to examine how effective Ontario-grown onions are at killing cancer cells, U of G researchers have found that not all onions are created equal.

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  • Electric car subsidies may do more harm than good

    Globally, from China and Germany to the United States, electric vehicle (EV) subsidies have been championed as an effective strategy to boost production of renewable technology and reduce greenhouse gas emissions (GHG).

    But a new study by Concordia economics professor Ian Irvine shows that subsidizing EVs in the North American context will not reduce GHG emissions in the short-term, and may even increase them — at a cost to taxpayers.

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  • Flares May Threaten Planet Habitability Near Red Dwarfs

    Cool dwarf stars are hot targets for exoplanet hunting right now. The discoveries of planets in the habitable zones of the TRAPPIST-1 and LHS 1140 systems, for example, suggest that Earth-sized worlds might circle billions of red dwarf stars, the most common type of star in our galaxy. But, like our own sun, many of these stars erupt with intense flares. Are red dwarfs really as friendly to life as they appear, or do these flares make the surfaces of any orbiting planets inhospitable?

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  • Climate Change Misconceptions Common Among Teachers, Study Finds

    Recent studies have shown that misconceptions about climate change and the scientific studies that have addressed climate change are pervasive among the U.S. public. Now, a new study by Benjamin Herman, assistant professor in the Department of Learning, Teaching and Curriculum in the University of Missouri College of Education, shows that many secondary school science teachers also possess several of these same misconceptions.

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  • Don't rely on smartphone apps to treat back pain

    Millions of people worldwide use back pain apps, however no independent guidance is available to help consumers identify which ones are safe and of high quality, a new study has found.

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  • Coal waste fuel may reduce anthropogenic emissions, TPU study reveals

    Scientists from Tomsk Polytechnic University are developing a technology for fuel production from coal processing wastes. This fuel is ten times more environmentally friendly that will make it possible to resolve two problems at once: to reduce the amount of anthropogenic emissions of TPSs and efficiently dispose wastes from coal processing and beneficiation. The research team of the Department of Automation of Thermal Power Processes led by Professor Pavel Strizhak shares its outcomes.

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  • High-pressure experiments solve meteorite mystery

    With high-pressure experiments at DESY's X-ray light source PETRA III and other facilities, a research team around Leonid Dubrovinsky from the University of Bayreuth has solved a long standing riddle in the analysis of meteorites from Moon and Mars. The study, published in the journal Nature Communications, can explain why different versions of silica can coexist in meteorites, although they normally require vastly different conditions to form. The results also mean that previous assessments of conditions at which meteorites have been formed have to be carefully re-considered.

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  • Newly identified gene helps time spring flowering in vital grass crops

    Winter is no time to flower, which is why so many plants have evolved the ability to wait for the snow to melt before investing precious resources in blooms.

    Waking up to flower as the warmer, longer days of spring arrive — and the risk of a damaging frost recedes — requires a process called vernalization, in which flowering is blocked until the plant senses a sufficient cold spell. Researchers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison have identified a gene that keeps grasses from entering their flowering cycle until the season is right, a discovery that may help plant breeders and engineers get more from food and energy crops.

     

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  • Motor-boat noise makes fish bad parents, leading to the death of their babies

    Noise from motorboats is making fish become bad parents, and reducing the chance of their young surviving, research led by marine experts at the University of Exeter has shown.

    The sound of motorboat engines disturbed coral reef fish so acutely it changed the behaviour of parents, and stopped male fish properly guarding their young, feeding and interacting with their offspring.

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  • New method enables real-time monitoring of materials during irradiation

    A new advance on a method developed by MIT researchers could enable continuous, high-precision monitoring of materials exposed to a high-radiation environment. The method may allow these materials to remain in place much longer, eliminating the need for preventive replacement. It could also speed up the search for new, improved materials for these harsh environments.

    The new findings appear in the journal Applied Physics Letters, in a paper by graduate student Cody Dennett and assistant professor of nuclear science and engineering Michael Short. This study builds on the team’s earlier work that described the benchmarking of the method, called transient grating spectroscopy (TGS), for nuclear materials. The new research shows that the technique can indeed perform with the high degree of sensitivity and time-resolution that the earlier calculations and tests had suggested should be possible for detecting tiny imperfections.

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