Birdwatching from afar: Amazing new AI-enabled camera system to target specific behaviors

Researchers have developed an innovative animal-borne data-collection system assisted by artificial intelligence to track previously unobserved behaviors in wild animals. The method uses low-cost sensors to automatically detect and record behaviors of specific interest. The new system greatly outperformed previous random sampling methods in capturing the target behavior and the researchers were able to observe previously unreported foraging behaviors in gulls. These findings can be applied to support further data collection in the wild.

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First light on a next-gen astronomical survey toward a new understanding of the cosmos

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey's fifth generation collected its very first observations of the cosmos at 1:47 a.m. on October 24, 2020. As the world's first all-sky time-domain spectroscopic survey, SDSS-V will provide groundbreaking insight into the formation and evolution of galaxies -- like like our own Milky Way -- and of the supermassive black holes that lurk at their centers.

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Outcome of 2016 US election associated with poorer mental health in Clinton voters

There were 54.6 million more days of poor mental health among adults in states that voted for Hillary Clinton in December 2016, compared to October 2016, according to a new study. No such increase in poor mental health following the 2016 US election was observed in states that voted for Donald Trump. The increase in average number of poor mental health days per person in Clinton-voting states largely persisted in the six months after the election.

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Building cities with wood would store half of cement industry's current carbon emissions

A new study has found that shifting to wood as a building construction material would significantly reduce the environmental impact of building construction. If 80% of new residential buildings in Europe were made of wood, and wood was used in the structures, cladding, surfaces, and furnishings of houses, the buildings would store 55 million tons of carbon dioxide a year. That is equivalent to about 47% of the annual emissions of Europe's cement industry.

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Criss-crossing viruses give rise to peculiar hybrid variants

Biologists investigate a recently discovered class of viruses that have taken the characteristic versatility of the viral world to new heights. Referred to as cruciviruses, these minute forms reveal a fusion of components from both RNA and DNA viruses, proving that these previously distinct genomic domains can, under proper conditions, intermingle, producing a hybrid or chimeric viral variant.

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Rotation of a molecule as an 'internal clock'

Using a new method, physicists have investigated the ultrafast fragmentation of hydrogen molecules in intense laser fields in detail. They used the rotation of the molecule triggered by a laser pulse as an "internal clock" to measure the timing of the reaction that takes place in a second laser pulse in two steps. Such a "rotational clock" is a general concept applicable to sequential fragmentation processes in other molecules.

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The protein dress of a neuron

New method marks proteins and reveals the receptors in which neurons are dressed.

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