Wednesday 19 June 2019

Stabilizing nations' food production through crop diversity

With increasing demand for food from the planet's growing population and climate change threatening the stability of food systems across the world, University of Minnesota research examined how the diversity of crops at the national level could increase the harvest stability of all crops in a nation.

* This article was originally published here

Groundwater pumping has significantly reduced US stream flows

Groundwater pumping in the last century has contributed as much as 50 percent to stream flow declines in some U.S. rivers, according to new research led by a University of Arizona hydrologist.

* This article was originally published here

The intersection of vision and language

Nine thousand two hundred artificial intelligence researchers. Five thousand one hundred sixty-five research papers submitted, of which only 1,300 were accepted. One Best Student Paper.

* This article was originally published here

Facebook takes on the world of cryptocurrency with 'Libra' coin

Facebook unveiled plans Tuesday for a new global cryptocurrency called Libra, pledging to deliver a stable virtual money that lives on smartphones and could bring over a billion "unbanked" people into the financial system.

* This article was originally published here

NVIDIA going full stack for ARM boosts supercomputing presence

NVIDIA and ARM make one power couple for supercomputing. NVIDIA has announced its chips will work with ARM processors. Outside observers got busy earlier this week assessing why this was a big deal to empower both companies and the effort to explain was not at all difficult.

* This article was originally published here

People with multiple physical conditions have faster brain decline, higher suicide risk

Having arthritis, or diabetes, or heart disease can change a person's life, getting in the way of daily activities and requiring special diets and medicines.

* This article was originally published here

Simple scan could direct treatments for angina

A 40 minute test for angina could help patients avoid an overnight stay in hospital, according to research funded by the NIHR Guy's and St Thomas' Biomedical Research Centre.

* This article was originally published here

Human-on-a-chip model tests cancer drug efficacy and toxicity for therapeutic index

A reconfigurable "body-on-a-chip" model could transform drug development by simultaneously measuring compound efficacy and toxicity, for both target cells and other organs, such as the heart and liver. These findings, published in Science Translational Medicine, demonstrate the ability of a body-on-a-chip model to truly revolutionize biomedical research and personalized medicine through more accurate and efficient preclinical testing without the use of animal studies.

* This article was originally published here

Vitamin D may not help your heart

While previous research has suggested a link between low levels of vitamin D in the blood and an increased risk of cardiovascular disease, a new Michigan State University study has found that taking vitamin D supplements did not reduce that risk.

* This article was originally published here

Investigating coral and algal 'matchmaking' at the cellular level

What factors govern algae's success as "tenants" of their coral hosts both under optimal conditions and when oceanic temperatures rise? A Victoria University of Wellington-led team of experts that includes Carnegie's Arthur Grossman investigates this question.

* This article was originally published here

Finding 'Nemo's' family tree of anemones

Thanks in part to the popular film Finding Nemo, clownfishes are well known to the public and well represented in scientific literature. But the same can't be said for the equally colorful sea anemones—venomous, tentacled animals—that protect clownfishes and that the fish nourish and protect in return. A new study published online this month in the journal Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution takes a step to change that, presenting a new tree of life for clownfish-hosting sea anemones along with some surprises about their taxonomy and origins.

* This article was originally published here

Long hours at the office could be killing you

UK employees have the longest working week compared to other workers in the European Union. But, despite the long hours, recent studies have shown this does not make the UK a more productive nation.

* This article was originally published here

Your nose knows when it comes to stronger memories

Memories are stronger when the original experiences are accompanied by unpleasant odors, a team of researchers has found. The study broadens our understanding of what can drive Pavlovian responses and points to how negative experiences influence our ability to recall past events.

* This article was originally published here

Narcissists and psychopaths: how some societies ensure these dangerous people never wield power

Throughout history, people who have gained positions of power tend to be precisely the kind of people who should not be entrusted with it. A desire for power often correlates with negative personality traits: selfishness, greed and a lack of empathy. And the people who have the strongest desire for power tend to be the most ruthless and lacking in compassion.

* This article was originally published here

In his remit: African fintech entrepreneur helps migrants move money

The money transfer business is personal for Ismail Ahmed. It was cash wired by his family that allowed him to make the final leg of his journey from escaping fighting in his native Somaliland to London in 1988 to take up a university scholarship.

* This article was originally published here

Senegal shines in showcase for female tech innovation

Barcode health cards, mobile apps for victims of violence and an online legal platform are just some of the ideas showing the direction of female digital pioneers in Africa, with Senegalese innovators in the spotlight.

* This article was originally published here

Reducing brain inflammation could treat tinnitus and other hearing loss-related disorders

Inflammation in a sound-processing region of the brain mediates ringing in the ears in mice that have noise-induced hearing loss, according to a study publishing June 18 in the open-access journal PLOS Biology by Shaowen Bao of the University of Arizona, and colleagues.

* This article was originally published here

Boomers back on the dating scene seek cosmetic procedures to put their best face forward

The rise of dating websites and apps have changed the dating scene, leading singles to make judgments on potential dates as fast as they can swipe their screen. With about 20 million baby boomers actively using at least one of these dating services, they want to look their best and feel confident in the modern dating world. New statistics released by the American Society of Plastic Surgeons finds more Americans age 55 and older are seeking out cosmetic procedures, with nearly 50,000 more procedures performed on patients in this age group in 2018 than the previous year.

* This article was originally published here

Kinshasa: Commuting hell in DR Congo's capital

Cities almost everywhere have transport problems—just ask people stuck in traffic jams or overcrowded trains for their opinion.

* This article was originally published here

Europe's growing 'climate civil disobedience' movement

Thousands of European activists plan to blockade a large German lignite mine this week, the latest protest of a growing "climate civil disobedience" movement.

* This article was originally published here

Spintronic memory cells for neural networks

In recent years, researchers have proposed a wide variety of hardware implementations for feed-forward artificial neural networks. These implementations include three key components: a dot-product engine that can compute convolution and fully-connected layer operations, memory elements to store intermediate inter and intra-layer results, and other components that can compute non-linear activation functions.

* This article was originally published here