source: Phys.org One of Florida’s largest passenger rail services is experiencing an increase in ridership—and leaders of a Florida Department of Transportation program that promotes alternatives to commuters who drive alone attribute some of this success to guidance from an interdisciplinary team of researchers at USF who combined eye-tracking technology and social marketing to improve the impact of marketing campaigns. Read Full Article Here

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source: Phys.org It was supposed to be a match made in heaven that would produce a cub but after years of trying, Edinburgh Zoo said on Wednesday it is now sending its breeding pair of giant pandas back to China. Read Full Article Here

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source: Phys.org Orangutans, mice, and horses are covered with it, but humans aren’t. Why we have significantly less body hair than most other mammals has long remained a mystery. But a first-of-its-kind comparison of genetic codes from 62 animals is beginning to tell the story of how people—and other mammals—lost their locks. Read Full Article Here

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source: Phys.org The PBG group of Department of physics, Fudan University, recently proposed a method using a reflective photonic crystal slab to generate vortex with high conversion efficiency and without an alignment center. Read Full Article Here

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source: Phys.org As technologies keep advancing at exponential rates and demand for new devices rises accordingly, miniaturizing systems into chips has become increasingly important. Microelectronics has changed the way we manipulate electricity, enabling sophisticated electronic products that are now an essential part of our daily lives. Similarly, integrated photonics has been revolutionizing the way we control light for applications such as data communications, imaging, sensing, and biomedical devices. By routing and shaping light using micro- and nanoscale components, integrated photonics shrinks full optical systems into the size of tiny chips.

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source: Phys.org Researchers from Oklahoma State University and University of Florida published a new article explaining how marketers can capitalize on the power of perception through the structure of visual communications to influence beliefs about brand performance, which ultimately influences product interest and choice. Read Full Article Here

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source: Phys.org In giant clusters of hundreds or thousands of galaxies, innumerable stars wander among the galaxies like lost souls, emitting a ghostly haze of light. These stars are not gravitationally tied to any one galaxy in a cluster. Read Full Article Here

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source: Phys.org How safe are the nanoparticles in transparent sunscreen, anti-odor socks and bacteria-resistant plasters? Although microbes are present on all organisms, the tools that estimate the safety of nanomaterials still hardly take them into account. Bregje Brinkmann explored the role of these microbes during her Ph.D. research. Read Full Article Here

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source: Phys.org The way electrons interact with photons of light is a vital part of many modern technologies, from lasers to solar panels to LEDs. But the interaction is inherently weak because of a major mismatch in scale: the wavelength of visible light is about 1,000 times larger than an electron, so the way the two things affect each other is limited by that disparity. Read Full Article Here

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source: Phys.org Wind, sewage sludge, and waste water carry tire wear particles from roads onto farmland. A new lab study shows that the pollutants contained in the particles could get into the vegetables grown there. Researchers at the Center for Microbiology and Environmental Systems Science (CMESS) at the University of Vienna have investigated whether chemicals released from tires find their way into lettuce plants and could ultimately end up on our plates.

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source: Phys.org Researchers have created a map of oceanic “dead zones” that existed during the Pliocene epoch, when the Earth’s climate was two to three degrees warmer than it is now. The work could provide a glimpse into the locations and potential impacts of future low oxygen zones in a warmer Earth’s oceans. Read Full Article Here

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source: Phys.org Quasi-periodic pulsations (QPPs; also known as quasi-periodic oscillations, i.e., QPOs) are electromagnetic emission phenomena that vary quasi-periodically with time. They appear in celestial transient events with different temporal/spatial scales, such as stellar flares, gamma ray bursts and fast radio bursts. Read Full Article Here

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source: Phys.org Recently, a research team led by Prof. Yang Shangfeng from the University of Sciences and Technology of China (USTC) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) synthesized La@C81N, a type of monometallic endohedral azafullerene (MEAF) for the first time, providing a new way to modulate the electronic properties of metallic endohedral fullerenes through skeletal modifications of the carbon cage. Their work was published in Journal of the American Chemical Society.

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source: Phys.org Chemists from Rice University and the University of Texas at Austin discovered more isn’t always better when it comes to packing charge-acceptor molecules on the surface of semiconducting nanocrystals. Read Full Article Here

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source: Phys.org The number of fish species recorded in Madidi National Park and Natural Integrated Management Area (PNANMI), Bolivia has doubled to a staggering 333 species—with as many as 35 species new to science—according of a study conducted as part of the Identidad Madidi expedition led by the Wildlife Conservation Society. The results are described in the latest issue of Neotropical Hydrobiology and Aquatic Conservation. Read Full Article Here

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source: Phys.org Laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) is a rapid chemical analysis technology that has been well developed for trace element analyses in gases, liquids, and solids. It uses a high-power laser pulse to elicit short-lived, high-temperature plasma in a sample. As the plasma cools, it emits spectral peaks that correspond to elements in the periodic table. Recent exploration has extended LIBS via filament-induced breakdown spectroscopy (FIBS), which has better sensitivity and greater stability.

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source: Phys.org Nuclear physicists have found a new way to use the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC)—a particle collider at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory—to see the shape and details inside atomic nuclei. The method relies on particles of light that surround gold ions as they speed around the collider and a new type of quantum entanglement that’s never been seen before. Read Full Article Here

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source: Phys.org Bacterial perseverance is a new phenomenon that helps explain how bacteria adapt to survive antibiotic treatments. A group of researchers at Uppsala University have studied how individual bacteria react when exposed to different antibiotics. The result underlines the importance of adhering strictly to antibiotic prescriptions. Read Full Article Here

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source: Phys.org The deep blue of your LED display is likely produced by indium gallium nitride (InGaN), a costly substance. In the field of LEDs, researchers are seeking alternatives in a type of perovskite known as quasi-2D Ruddlesden‒Popper perovskites (2D-RPPs). 2D-RPPs have excellent optoelectronic properties—ideal for LEDs. Although 2D-RPP-based LEDs have rapidly progressed in terms of performance, it is still challenging to demonstrate blue-emissive and color-pure LEDs. Read Full Article Here

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source: Phys.org The rate of ground-breaking scientific discoveries and technological innovation is slowing down despite an ever-growing amount of knowledge, according to an analysis released Wednesday of millions of research papers and patents. Read Full Article Here

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source: Phys.org Researchers have shown how historic estates, such as Castle Howard and Duncombe Park, have helped shape biodiversity and the role they continue to play in the protection of nature. Read Full Article Here

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source: Phys.org Environmental contaminants like fluoride, lead and pesticides exist all around and even within us. While researchers have simple ways to measure concentrations of such contaminants inside lab environments, levels are much more difficult to test in the field. That’s because they require costly specialized equipment. Read Full Article Here

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source: Phys.org Geminiviruses are a group of single-stranded circular plant DNA viruses that cause devastating diseases in many economically important crops including tomato, tobacco, cotton, corn, wheat, beans, and cassava worldwide. Due to their small genome size and limited coding capacity, geminiviruses rely heavily on host plants to complete their life cycle by exploiting/manipulating host components at different cellular levels. Read Full Article Here

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source: Phys.org Want to make an impression the next time you’re trying to skim a stone off water? Ignore the usual thin, flat candidates and try a fatter, curvier rock to get the biggest possible bounce, scientists said Wednesday. Read Full Article Here

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source: Phys.org During embryonic development, two different cascades of genetic signals determine whether the embryo’s primordial gonad will become testes or ovaries, and thus whether the embryo will develop into a male or a female. Disruptions in this process cause disorders in sexual development characterized by a mismatch between sex-determining chromosomes, gonads (ovaries or testicles) and the anatomy of the genitals. The incompatibility can be expressed in many and varied forms, such as unclear genitalia or a combination of male and female physiological characteristics.

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