Why do people use social media? Striving to answer this question, social psychologists at Ruhr-Universität Bochum (RUB) have conducted a survey with more than 500 Facebook users with regard to their personality structure and the way they use the platform. Based on the results, they have developed the first comprehensive theory of social media usage. According to that theory, self-regulation is the key: we use Facebook in a way that makes us feel good and hope to attain our objectives. The research team manned by Phillip Ozimek, Fiona Baer and Prof Dr Jens Förster published their report in the journal Heliyon on November 20, 2017.

• Smallest microplastics in oceans – which go largely undetected - identified more effectively with innovative and cheap new method, developed by University of Warwick researchers
• New method can detect microplastics as small as the width of a human hair, using a fluorescent dye

As American families sit down for the traditional turkey dinner this Thanksgiving, some will be giving thanks for a wild bird that is truly free range. Meleagris gallopavo, the wild turkey, has steadily gained in popularity with hunters since successful restoration efforts put it back on the table in the around the new millenium, bucking the trend of declining participation in hunting throughout the United States. The distinguished native bird is now second in popularity only to white tailed deer.

Soil plays a critical role in global carbon cycling, in part because soil organic matter stores three times more carbon than the atmosphere. Now biogeochemist Marco Keiluweit at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and colleagues elsewhere for the first time provide evidence that anaerobic microsites play a much larger role in stabilizing carbon in soils than previously thought.

A USGS video about manatees reveals that while the animals may act like the cows of the sea, they also have more than a bit of the magical siren or mermaid about them. 

There’s a century-old adage coined by the paper industry that claims “you can make anything from lignin except a profit.”

Art Ragauskas has heard this maxim countless times during his career, and it gets him a little riled up every time he hears it. As the UT-ORNL Governor’s Chair for Biorefining, Ragauskas is channeling that ire into proving that the old saying’s time has come and gone.

Without countermeasures, climate change will negatively impact animals in pig and poultry production. Beside the health and wellbeing of the animals, heat stress also affects performance and, as a result, profitability. As the animals are predominantly kept in confined livestock buildings equipped with mechanical ventilation systems, researchers at Vetmeduni Vienna examined the inlet air temperature of several air cooling systems. The best solution, they found, is the use of the earth for heat storage via an earth-air heat exchanger (EAHE). An EAHE cools in the summer, and warms up the inlet air during wintertime.

In 1982, when David Hasselhoff jumped into KITT, a super-advanced Pontiac Trans Am that could drive itself, it was obvious Knight Rider was pure TV science fiction. But nowadays, with companies investing millions in autonomous vehicle research, could KITT be just around the corner?

The technology behind self-driving cars is advancing at an incredible pace, with companies like General Motors, Google, Tesla and Uber testing cars in San Francisco, Phoenix and Boston. And the idea of robo-cars is very appealing to younger consumers, with nearly two-thirds of Millenials willing to own a self-driving vehicle within the next decade.

The three most widely used neonicotinoid pesticides for flowering crops pose no risk to honeybee colonies when used correctly as seed treatments, according to new studies by University of Guelph researchers.

Amid mounting controversy over use of neonicotinoids (neonics) and declining bee populations, a new analysis by U of G scientists of previously unpublished studies and reports commissioned by agri-chemical companies Bayer and Syngenta – as well as published papers from the scientific literature – shows no significant ill effects on honeybee colonies from three common insecticides made by the companies.

Research led by Oxford University highlights the accelerating pressure on measuring, monitoring and managing water locally and globally. A new four-part framework is proposed to value water for sustainable development to guide better policy and practice.