GAVNet Collaborative Curation

The use of the polymeric flame retardant PolyFR in "eco-friendly" foam plastic building insulation may be harmful to human health and the environment, according to a new commentary in Environmental Science & Technology. The authors' analysis identifies several points during the lifecycle of foam insulation that may expose workers, communities, and ecosystems to PolyFR and its potentially toxic breakdown products.

Antarctic iceberg melt could hold the key to the activation of a series of mechanisms that cause the Earth to suffer prolonged periods of global cooling, according to Francisco J. Jiménez-Espejo, a researcher at the Andalusian Earth Sciences Institute (CSIC-UGR), whose discoveries were recently published in Nature.

The mass inequality of America's first Gilded Age thrived on identity-based partisanship, helping extinguish the fires of class rage. In 2021, we're headed down the same path.

The massive blast of Siberia-like cold that is wreaking havoc across North America is proving that if we humans want to keep surviving frigid winters, we are going to have to keep burning natural gas - and lots of it - for decades to come.

What has #AI done to help us in the pandemic so far? Very little.

Beginning in the late 1970s, China's economy delivered the largest growth spurt in recorded history. Striking discontinuity between recent outcomes and the economic experience of the prior 200 years invites portrayal of recent events as a "China miracle" that requires neither economic nor historical analysis. This overlooks deep institutional constraints arising from authoritarian rule and its supporting elite networks and fails to recognize the link between central government weakness and the origins of the recent boom. In both the pre-1949 treaty ports and in the aftermath of the Cultural Revolution, the retreat of central control enabled episodes of economic openness and dynamism built upon 'bottom up' initiative and decentralized innovation. Historic legacies that shape political structures and individual behavior will continue to influence China's economic trajectory.

In December, Antarctica lost its status as the last continent free of COVID-19 when 36 people at the Chilean Bernardo O'Higgins research station tested positive. The station's isolation from other bases and fewer researchers in the continent means the outbreak is now likely contained.

Their research findings have important implications for soil fertility, and by extension, crop health and yield, explained Laura Kaminsky, a doctoral candidate in plant pathology, who led the investigation under the guidance of Terrence Bell, assistant professor of phytobiomes.

The problem for consumers up to now has been that the negotiated prices were unknown, or impractical to raise in court due to evidentiary rules. The general rule is that witnesses must testify to facts within their personal knowledge. Notably, if a consumer contests a medical debt collection lawsuit, someone from the hospital must testify that the price charged is reasonable and customary-an assertion that, with regard to chargemasters, involves shading the truth and is vulnerable to cross-examination.

Atmospheric rivers are narrow corridors of concentrated moisture in the atmosphere. On average there are only three to five atmospheric rivers present in each hemisphere, covering just 10 percent of the globe's mid-latitude circumference but accounting for 90 percent of moisture transport in the same region.

Noise limits the performance of modern quantum technologies. However, particles traveling in a superposition of paths can bypass noise in communication. A collaboration between the Universities of Hong-Kong, Grenoble and Vienna, as well as the Austrian Academy of Sciences, under the lead of Philip Walther, reveals novel techniques to reduce noise in quantum communication. The results, published in the latest issue of Physical Review Research, demonstrate that quantum particles traveling in a superposition of paths enable noise reduction in communications.

Now, a team of researchers at Osaka University has used flake-shaped Si nanopowder wrapped by ultrathin graphite sheets (GSs) to fabricate LIB electrodes with high areal capacity and current density. Generally treated as industrial waste, Si swarf is generated at a rate of 100,000 tons per year globally from Si ingots that are produced from silica through processes at 1000~1800°C. Water-based coolants and fixed abrasive grain wire saws are paving the way to the use of Si swarf as an anode active material with a high capacity at a reduced cost.

Glaciers are not only melting, but also collapsing in the Third Pole region. In 2016, two glaciers in the western Third Pole's Aru Mountains collapsed, one after another. The first collapse caused nine human casualties and the loss of hundreds of livestock. However, that may not be the end of the catastrophe.

Deforestation has converted swaths of land in the southern Amazon region from rainforest to farmland. The uses of the deforested land are diverse, and activities can range from small-scale farming in rural settlements to large-scale commodity agriculture. Commercial farms in the Southern Amazon can reach hundreds of thousands of hectares in area, exporting millions of tons in grains and beef every year.