From Italy and the World

A common environmental bacterium, Comamonas testosteroni, could someday become nature’s plastic recycling center. While most bacteria prefer to eat sugars, C. testosteroni, instead, has a natural appetite for complex waste from plants and plastics. In a new Northwestern University-led study, researchers have, for the first time, deciphered the metabolic mechanisms…

Women who followed most aspects of a healthy lifestyle, including healthy body weight, not smoking, regular exercise, adequate sleep, high quality diet, and moderate alcohol consumption, had about half the risk of long COVID compared with women without any healthy lifestyle factors, according to a study led by Harvard T.H.…

The Arctic is rapidly losing sea ice, even during winter months when temperatures are below freezing and ice should be recovering from the summer melt. A new study found powerful storms called atmospheric rivers are increasingly reaching the Arctic in winter, slowing sea ice recovery and accounting for a third…

An international team of researchers has uncovered what might be a critical step in the chemical evolution of molecules in cosmic “stellar nurseries.” In these vast clouds of cold gas and dust in space, trillions of molecules swirl together over millions of years. The collapse of these interstellar clouds eventually…

Scientists have discovered a new layer of partly molten rock under the Earth’s crust that might help settle a long-standing debate about how tectonic plates move. Researchers had previously identified patches of melt at a similar depth. But a new study led by The University of Texas at Austin revealed…

A world first study reverses the idea that the bulk of life in the ocean is fuelled by photosynthesis via sunshine, revealing that many ocean microbes in fact get their energy from hydrogen and carbon monoxide. It has always been a mystery as to how microbes growing in deepest parts…

Scientists have discovered that a high-fat diet allows the immune system to eliminate a parasitic worm which is a major cause of death and illness in the developing world. Parasitic worms affect up to a billion people, particularly in developing nations with poor sanitation. One of these parasites known as…

CNN  —  Thousands of people in Turkey and Syria have been killed and thousands more were injured after a magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck Turkey’s Gaziantep province near the Syrian border early Monday. The earthquake is the strongest to hit Turkey since 1939, when a quake of the same magnitude killed…

Gaziantep, Turkey CNN  —  My parents woke up in terror, screaming as the ground shook underneath us. I shouted at them to take cover. “It’s going to be over soon, it’s going to be over soon,” I yelled, even as it felt like it would never end. It was just…

CNN  —  More than 2,300 people have died and thousands more hurt after a massive earthquake rocked Turkey and Syria Monday morning. The magnitude 7.8 quake was one of the strongest to strike the area in more than a century. Amid severe aftershocks, Turkey’s Disaster and Emergency Management Agency (AFAD)…

London CNN  —  Europe’s ban on Russia’s diesel arrived painlessly on Sunday. Although the EU cut off its biggest supplier, diesel futures prices in the bloc fell 1.6% on Monday, amounting to a 20% loss over the past two weeks as demand in the region has waned, and efforts by…

Changing the mind of someone who is dismissive of efforts to protect the planet could be accomplished by sharing a pro-sustainability point of view during a conversation, new research suggests. In three experiments, researchers found that exposure to a pro-sustainability opinion in a conversation or written exchange helped coax people…

The number of unprovoked shark attacks worldwide decreased last year, tying with 2020 for the fewest number of reported incidents in the last 10 years. According to the University of Florida’s International Shark Attack File, there were a total of 57 unprovoked bites in 2022, most of which occurred in…

Widespread tree scorch in the Pacific Northwest that became visible shortly after multiple days of record-setting, triple-digit temperatures in June 2021 was more attributable to heat than to drought conditions, Oregon State University researchers say. In a paper published in Tree Physiology, a team led by Christopher Still of the…

The UK’s laundry releases microfibres weighing the equivalent of up to 1,500 double-decker buses in microfibres every year, according to new research. The discovery was made by academics at the University of Leeds’ School of Design, who co-created a test to measure how different materials and washing conditions affect the…

Thanks to the James Webb Space Telescope’s first images of galaxy clusters, researchers have, for the very first time, been able to examine very compact structures of star clusters inside galaxies, so-called clumps. In a paper published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, researchers from Stockholm University…

An interdisciplinary team of scientists at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU, Singapore) has found that rapid sea-level rise drove early settlers in Southeast Asia to migrate during the prehistoric period, increasing the genetic diversity of the region today. The Malay Peninsula and the islands of Sumatra, Borneo, and Java were…

Humans naturally perform numerous complex tasks. These include sitting down, picking something up from a table, and pushing a cart. These activities involve various movements and require multiple contacts, which makes it difficult to program robots to perform them. Recently, Professor Eiichi Yoshida of the Tokyo University of Science has…

Roughly 500 million light-years away, near the constellation Delphinus, two galaxies are colliding. Known as merging galaxy IIZw096, this luminous phenomenon is obscured by cosmic dust, but researchers first identified a bright, energetic source of light 12 years ago. Now, with a more advanced telescope — the James Webb Space…

Much of what the chemicals industry produces, except for metals, is derived from fossil resources. Using renewable biomass and even one-carbon sources — such as formaldehyde — is necessary to increase the sustainability of the chemicals industry. In a study recently published in RSC Advances, researchers from Osaka University have…

CNN’s Pete Muntean takes a closer look at a near-miss incident between FedEx and Southwest Airlines in Texas. Source link

Dr. Mazen Kewara, Turkey director of the Syrian American Medical Society (SAMS), spoke live on CNN from near the earthquake’s epicenter in Gaziantep, where he and his family were taking shelter in their car. Kewara said that their car was the safest place for them to be at present. “We…

CNN  —  Dell plans to lay off roughly 5% of its workforce, the company said in a regulatory filing Monday, in the latest example of tech companies cutting costs in an uncertain economic climate. As of January 2022, Dell said it had 133,000 employees. At that level, the 5% cut…

(CNN) — The earthquake that struck Turkey and Syria on Monday has badly damaged Gaziantep Castle, a historic site and tourist attraction in southeastern Turkey. The castle collapsed during the 7.8 magnitude earthquake that struck in the early hours of February 6. “Some of the bastions in the east, south…

Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov holds a press conference in Kyiv, Ukraine, on February 5. (Oleksii Chumachenko/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images) Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov was asked to comment on rumors that he could be replaced. “No official stays in office forever. Not a single one. So one should be ready…

Chinese spy balloons under Trump not discovered until after Biden took office Source link