News

Across North America, the rising tide of cannabis legalization has upped the demand for domestic cultivation operations that can provide a consistent product year-round. But what’s been the environmental cost of this boom in indoor, energy-demanding farming? A heavy one, according to one new study.

Researchers have developed a computer-guided design tool called IRENE, which increases the efficiency of cell conversions by predicting highly effective combinations of cell type-specific transcription factors. By combining IRENE with a genomic integration system the team demonstrated their approach to generate higher numbers of natural killer cells used in immune therapies, and melanocytes used in skin grafts, than other methods.

A research group has developed an algorithm to minimize or maximize the affinity of a given solute to the surface. The findings of the research show that computational methods can contribute in significant ways to next-generation membrane systems for sustainable water treatment.

Researchers have developed a new skill for a smart speaker that allows monitoring of heartbeats without physical contact. The system sends inaudible sounds from the speaker out into a room and, based on the way the sounds are reflected back to the speaker, it can identify and monitor regular and irregular heartbeats.

New research, that brings healthcare data together with ground-breaking ecological techniques, could set a roadmap for refining pollen forecasts in the future.

Polygenic risk scores represent a new approach for assessing a person's inherited risk for certain diseases such as Type 2 diabetes or coronary heart disease. A set of new guidelines for reporting polygenic risk scores in a consistent way, and the launch of an open database for these scores could make the data more useful in clinical care.

Bitcoin mining could have severe environmental and economic impacts that risk spilling over into other industries and may even affect global security, argues a new commentary focused on the blockchain-based cryptocurrency's soaring price.

Diphtheria - a relatively easily-preventable infection - is evolving to become resistant to a number of classes of antibiotics and in future could lead to vaccine escape, warn an international team of researchers.

The world's first fully automated sensor network for measuring urban greenhouse gas emissions, MUCCnet consists of five high-precision optical instruments that analyze the sun's light spectra. They measure the concentration of carbon dioxide, methane and carbon monoxide.

Scientists in 18 countries have used genome sequencing technology to track the the global spread and exchange of Streptococcus equi, which causes the disease strangles, in the largest ever study of its kind.