Science – Page 21 – PossibleThreat Articles

How the brain dials up the volume to hear someone in a crowd

October 21, 2019 0 Comments Brain Injury, Brain-Computer Interfaces, Disorders and Syndromes, Intelligence, Language Acquisition, Learning Disorders, neuroscience, Perception

Our brains have a remarkable ability to pick out one voice from among many. Now, a team has uncovered the steps that take place in the brain to make this feat possible. Today's discovery helps to solve a long-standing scientific question as to how the brain's listening center can decode and amplify one voice over others. It also stands to spur development of hearing-aid technologies and brain-computer interfaces that more closely resemble the brain.

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Closures affect 1 in 8 pharmacies in the US

October 21, 2019 0 Comments Controlled Substances, Disaster Plan, Health Policy, Land Management, Pharmaceuticals, Pharmacology, Poverty and Learning, Urbanization

Despite an overall increase in the number of pharmacies in the U.S. from 2009 to 2015, one in eight pharmacies, or 9,654, had closed during this period. Independent pharmacies in both urban and rural areas were three times more likely to close than chain pharmacies.

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Replacing coal with gas or renewables saves billions of gallons of water

October 21, 2019 0 Comments Drought Research, Energy and Resources, Energy and the Environment, Fossil Fuels, Nature of Water, Petroleum, Renewable Energy, Water

The transition from coal to natural gas in the US electricity sector is reducing the industry's water use, research finds. For every megawatt of electricity produced using natural gas instead of coal, the water withdrawn from rivers and groundwater drops by 10,500 gallons, and water consumed for cooling and other plant operations and not returned to the environment drops by 260 gallons. Switching to solar or wind power could boost these savings even more.

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Climate warming promises more frequent extreme El Niño events

October 21, 2019 0 Comments Climate, El Nino and La Nina, Environmental Awareness, Environmental Issues, Environmental Policy, Geography, Global Warming, Weather

New research, based on 33 historical El Niño events from 1901 to 2017, show climate change effects have shifted the El Niño onset location from the eastern Pacific to the western Pacific and caused more frequent extreme El Niño events since the 1970's. Continued warming over the western Pacific warm pool, driven by anthropogenic climate change, promises conditions that will trigger more extreme events in the future.

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GenBank can be trusted, study shows

October 21, 2019 0 Comments animals, Biochemistry Research, Ecology, Environmental Awareness, Environmental Policy, Nature, New Species, Rainforests

Scientists working to identify coral reef organisms analyzed more than 4.7 million animal DNA sequences from GenBank, the most commonly used tool used to identify environmental DNA, and discovered that animal identification errors are surprisingly rare — but sometimes very funny.

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Class bias in hiring based on few seconds of speech

October 21, 2019 0 Comments Education and Employment, Learning Disorders, Political Science, Psychology, Racial Disparity, Relationships, Social Psychology, STEM Education

Candidates at job interviews expect to be evaluated on their experience, conduct, and ideas, but a new study provides evidence that interviewees are judged based on their social status seconds after they start to speak.

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Butterflies and plants evolved in sync, but moth 'ears' predated bats

October 21, 2019 0 Comments Charles Darwin, Endangered Plants, Evolution, Evolutionary Biology, Fossils, Insects (including Butterflies), Nature, Origin of Life

A new study cross-examines classic hypotheses about the coevolution of butterflies with flowering plants and moths with bats, their key predators. The findings show flowering plants did drive much of these insects' diversity, but in a surprise twist, multiple moth lineages evolved 'ears' millions of years before the existence of bats, previously credited with triggering moths' development of hearing organs.

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Animal study shows how stress and mother's abuse affects infant brain

October 21, 2019 0 Comments Animal Learning and Intelligence, Behavioral Science, Biology, Child Development, Child Psychology, Infant and Preschool Learning, mice, Parenting

A new study in rats shows the extent of brain damage in newborn rodents from even short-term abuse by their mother.

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The brain's favorite type of music

October 21, 2019 0 Comments music, neuroscience, Perception

People prefer songs with only a moderate amount of uncertainty and unpredictability, according to new research.

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Porous polymer coatings dynamically control light and heat

October 21, 2019 0 Comments Chemistry, Civil Engineering, Engineering and Construction, Inorganic Chemistry, Materials Science, Optics, Solar Energy, Thermodynamics

Engineers have developed dynamic porous polymer coatings that enable inexpensive and scalable ways to control light and heat in buildings. They took advantage of the optical switchability of PPCs in the solar wavelengths to regulate solar heating and daylighting, and extended the concept to thermal infrared wavelengths to modulate heat radiated by objects.