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Participants in school-based gardening and food programs benefit from lasting impacts on dietary behaviors

08/01/2024
To encourage fruit and vegetable consumption among youth, experiential food education programs such as gardening and cooking lessons have increased across both community and school settings. A recent research article revealed how this early learning positively influenced food decisions as children grew older.

Space oddity: Uncovering the origin of the universe's rare radio circles

08/01/2024
Astronomers believe they may have found the origin of the universe's giant odd radio circles: they are shells formed by outflowing galactic winds, possibly from massive exploding stars known as supernovae.

Putting your toddler in front of the TV? You might hurt their ability to process the world around them, new data suggests

08/01/2024
Babies and toddlers exposed to television or video viewing may be more likely to exhibit atypical sensory behaviors, such as being disengaged and disinterested in activities, seeking more intense stimulation in an environment, or being overwhelmed by sensations like loud sounds or bright lights, according to recent data.

Use of habitat for agricultural purposes puts primate infants at risk

08/01/2024
Frequent visits to oil palm plantations are leading to a sharp increase in mortality rates among infant southern pig-tailed macaques (Macaca nemestrina) in the wild, according to a new study. In addition to increased risk from predators and human encounters, exposure to harmful agricultural chemicals in this environment may negatively affect infant development.

Revolutionizing stable and efficient catalysts with Turing structures for hydrogen production

08/01/2024
Hydrogen energy has emerged as a promising alternative to fossil fuels, offering a clean and sustainable energy source. However, the development of low-cost and efficient catalysts for hydrogen evolution reaction remains a crucial challenge. Scientists have recently developed a novel strategy to engineer stable and efficient ultrathin nanosheet catalysts by forming Turing structures with multiple nanotwin crystals. This innovative discovery paves the way for enhanced catalyst performance for green hydrogen production.

Fastest swimming insect could inspire uncrewed boat designs

08/01/2024
Whirligig beetles, the world's fastest-swimming insect, achieve surprising speeds by employing a strategy shared by fast-swimming marine mammals and waterfowl, according to a new study that rewrites previous explanations of the physics involved.

Climate change could be impacting babies' birthweight for gestational age

08/01/2024
Climate change could pose a big risk to Australians' reproductive health with a new, large-scale study revealing a possible link between extreme bioclimatic exposure during pregnancy and babies' birthweights for gestational age. Researchers examined more than 385,000 pregnancies in Western Australia between 2000 and 2015, from 12 weeks prior to conception until birth.

Captive-bred birds able to improve their flight and migration performance

08/01/2024
Two types of experiences affect the behavioral skills of animals: the animal's environment during its early development and acquired experience. Researchers followed Egyptian vultures during migration, a critical and challenging period for them, and investigated how their flying skills developed by examining their performance using high resolution tracking.

Infertility: Sperm need a breakthrough for fertilization

08/01/2024
A new study identifies the defective function of CatSper, an ion channel controlling calcium levels in sperm, as a common cause of seemingly unexplained male infertility. CatSper-deficient human sperm fail to fertilize the egg, because they cannot penetrate its protective vestments. Thus far, this sperm channelopathy has remained undetectable. Scientists have unravelled CatSper's role in infertility using a novel laboratory test that identifies affected men.

No win-win? Input-efficient technologies might not be so efficient after all

08/01/2024
To address natural resource scarcity, pollution, and other harmful effects of climate change, some scientists and policymakers emphasize the adoption of input-efficient technologies like water-saving devices and fuel-saving stoves. Proponents often refer to these input-efficient technologies as 'win-win,' for the benefits to their users and to the environment, and lament their low adoption rates by consumers, in what they call an 'efficiency paradox.' A new paper examines this paradox and finds that the benefits to consumers from input-efficiency adoption are, on average, negative.

SARS-CoV-2 BA.2.86 is less resistant to vaccine, but may be a problem in the lung

08/01/2024
New research shows that the recently emerged BA.2.86 omicron subvariant of the virus that causes COVID-19 can be neutralized by bivalent mRNA vaccine-induced antibodies in the blood, which explains why this variant did not cause a widespread surge as previously feared.

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