Basic, acidic, basic again: for pathogenic bacteria such as Salmonella, the human digestive tract is a sea of change. So how do the bacteria manage to react to these changes? A team of researchers has now provided a possible explanation: pathogenic bacteria can change components of their injection apparatus on the fly — like changing…

An analysis of pledges made by many of the largest U.S. electric utilities to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions suggests that pledged reductions could reduce power sector emissions by a third as compared to 2018 levels. The study also found that about one-seventh of the cuts utilities have promised are reductions they would have to…

An international research team has succeeded in developing an electrocatalyst for hydrogen fuel cells which, in contrast to the catalysts commonly used today, does not require a carbon carrier and is therefore much more stable. The new process is industrially applicable and can be used to further optimize fuel cell powered vehicles without CO2 emissions.…

Climate change and land-use change are projected to make wildfires more frequent and intense, with a global increase of extreme fires of up to 14 percent by 2030, 30 percent by the end of 2050 and 50 percent by the end of the century, warns a new UN report. It calls for radical change in…

E. coli food poisoning is one of the worst food poisonings, causing bloody diarrhea and kidney damage. But all the carnage might be just an unintended side effect, report researchers. Their findings might lead to more effective treatments for this potentially deadly disease. Escherichia coli are a diverse group of bacteria that often live in…

Climate ‘tipping points’ can be better understood and predicted using climate change data taken from the ancient past, new research shows. Current understanding of tipping points, in which the climate system exceeds a threshold beyond which large and often irreversible changes occur, is limited. This is because such an event has not occurred in recent…

Scientists have developed tests sensitive enough to detect and measure microscopic particles of coal ash in soil, even at concentrations so low and sizes so small that other tests would likely miss them. The four new tests complement tests previously developed at Duke to detect coal ash contamination in water and larger particles of coal…

Farming Atlantic salmon requires a high volume of wild-caught fish as feed, but produces only a small percentage of the world’s farmed fish supply. A study suggests redirecting wild-caught fish towards human consumption instead of salmon farming could relieve pressure on fish stocks while increasing seafood production. Increased demand for seafood has driven an expansion…

Emergent e-fuel technologies often employ the reverse water-gas shift (RWGS) reaction to convert atmospheric CO2 to CO. While efficient, this reaction requires high temperatures and complex gas separation for high performance. However scientists have now demonstrated record-high CO2 conversion rates at relatively low temperatures in a modified chemical-looping version of RWGS using a novel copper-indium…

Using an improved version of the gene editing tool CRISPR/Cas9, researchers knocked out up to twelve genes in plants in a single blow. Until now, this had only been possible for single or small groups of genes. The method makes it easier to investigate the interaction of various genes. The inheritance of traits in plants…