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Iceland braces for volcanic eruption: what scientists are watching
Authorities have evacuated the town of Grindavík in response to nearby earthquakes.Credit: Micah Garen/Getty Many Icelanders have been on edge in recent weeks, as magma moving underground in the country’s southwest threatens to breach the surface and begin flowing across the landscape. If it does, the volcanic eruption could threaten the coastal community of Grindavík,…
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Changes in total volatile organic compound concentration in Seoul subway stations before (2019) and after (2021) the COVID-19 outbreak
Abstract Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are major air pollutants often designated as specific hazardous or toxic. This study analyzed the trends in concentration changes and influencing factors of VOCs in underground subway stations in the Seoul Metro before (2019) and after (2021) the COVID-19 pandemic. A total of 506 samples were collected from 253 stations…
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Investigating the elegance of empty space
A recent study presents an approach for characterizing and quantifying the pore space in assemblies of particles, enabling research into pore-scale flow physics and insight into the interplay between the solid and void phases in granular materials. Granular materials—that is, assemblies of discrete particles with interstitial voids between them—are everywhere. The soil beneath our feet,…
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Divide and conquer: exploiting entropy to grow nanoscale barrier materials
RESEARCH BRIEFINGS 21 November 2023 The full promise of materials structured at the nanoscale can be realized only if they can be manufactured more efficiently and at the sizes required for device integration. An innovative method takes advantage of thermodynamic and kinetic effects to control the growth of stacked 2D nanosheets that can be used…
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Only 0.5% of neuroscience studies look at women’s health. Here’s how to change that
Neuroscientists now have unprecedented access to the living brain, thanks to magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). More than 50,000 human-brain-imaging articles have been published since MRI came on the scene in the 1990s. But of those, less than 0.5% consider health factors specific to women. Women’s health is both understudied and underfunded. This oversight is especially…
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Designing molecules with autoencoder networks
Abstract Autoencoders are versatile tools in molecular informatics. These unsupervised neural networks serve diverse tasks such as data-driven molecular representation and constructive molecular design. This Review explores their algorithmic foundations and applications in drug discovery, highlighting the most active areas of development and the contributions autoencoder networks have made in advancing this field. We also…
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Swiss schemes to start engagement on biodiversity, nature …
Swiss pension funds will start to engage with large listed companies on biodiversity and nature protection from next year through the Ethos Engagement Pools Switzerland, two new themes introduced into the initiative. The Ethos Engagement Pools Switzerland, which includes 179 pension schemes, has renewed topics including climate change, governance, working conditions/respect for human rights, particularly in supply chains,…
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Sugar seen in a new light… fluorescent
Newswise — A research team from the Department of Chemistry at the University of Montreal has just developed new tools to study the encounter between the members of two families of biomolecules essential to life: sugars and proteins. Opening the way to numerous applications, this work has just been published in Angewandte Chemie , a renowned scientific journal…
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Elon’s LGBTQIA Alumni Network recognizes community impact of alumni leaders
The LGBTQIA Alumni Network honored four alumni with the Community Enrichment Award at the LGBTQIA Alumni Network Brunch during Homecoming & Reunion Weekend 2023, Saturday, Oct. 21. Special guests in attendance included President Connie Ledoux Book, Provost Rebecca Kohn, Senior Vice President for University Advancement and External Affairs Jim Piatt, Vice President for Student Life…
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How AI is expanding art history
The colours of Gustav Klimt’s lost 1901 work Medicine were recovered by artificial intelligence.Credit: IanDagnall Computing/Alamy Artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning and computer vision are revolutionizing research — from medicine and biology to Earth and space sciences. Now, it’s art history’s turn. For decades, conventionally trained art scholars have been slow to take up computational…
