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An assessment ranks the feasibility of converting 245 operational coal power plants in the U.S. into advanced nuclear reactors, providing valuable insights for policymakers and utilities to meet decarbonization goals, according to a new study.

A research team has developed an algorithm that analyses observational data from a plant identification app. The novel approach can be used to derive ecological patterns that could provide valuable information about the effects of climate change on plants.

Development of a new way to accurately measure human serum albumin (HSA) levels in people with chronic kidney disease has progressed in recent testing.

A small molecule that naturally serves as a binding site for metals in enzymes also proves useful for separating certain rare earth metals from each other. In a proof of concept, the process extracts europium directly from fluorescent powder in used energy-saving lamps in much higher quantities than existing methods. The researchers are now working on expanding their approach to other rare earth metals. They are in the process of founding a start-up to put the recycling of these raw materials into practice.

While not yet on the market, fully autonomous vehicles are promoted as a way to make road travel dramatically safer, but a recent study found that knowing more about them did not improve people's perception of their risk. They needed to have more trust in them too. This study adds to the evidence from other research that knowledge alone is not enough to sway people's attitudes toward complex technology and science, such as gene editing or climate change. In this case, researchers found that trust in the autonomous vehicles' reliability and performance played the strongest role in improving perceptions of the technology's risk.

While not yet on the market, fully autonomous vehicles are promoted as a way to make road travel dramatically safer, but a recent study found that knowing more about them did not improve people's perception of their risk. They needed to have more trust in them too. This study adds to the evidence from other research that knowledge alone is not enough to sway people's attitudes toward complex technology and science, such as gene editing or climate change. In this case, researchers found that trust in the autonomous vehicles' reliability and performance played the strongest role in improving perceptions of the technology's risk.

Researchers were involved in the development of a switch, an essential device in telecommunications, capable of operating at very high frequency with lower power consumption than conventional technologies. The technology has applications in the new 6G mass communication systems and is more sustainable in terms of energy consumption than current devices.

Researchers were involved in the development of a switch, an essential device in telecommunications, capable of operating at very high frequency with lower power consumption than conventional technologies. The technology has applications in the new 6G mass communication systems and is more sustainable in terms of energy consumption than current devices.

New research offers an enhanced understanding of common defects in transition-metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) -- a potential replacement for silicon in computer chips -- and lays the foundation for etching smaller features.

New research offers an enhanced understanding of common defects in transition-metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) -- a potential replacement for silicon in computer chips -- and lays the foundation for etching smaller features.

Material engineers have created a patent-pending process to develop ultrahigh-strength aluminum alloys that are suitable for additive manufacturing because of their plastic deformability. They have produced the alloys by using several transition metals that traditionally have been largely avoided in the manufacture of aluminum alloys.

Investigators sought to help figure out how to send materials like probiotics into space and to better treat a variety of gastrointestinal (GI) and metabolic diseases. The team's formulations allow microbial therapeutics, including those used to treat gastrointestinal diseases and improve crop production, to maintain their potency and function over time despite extreme temperatures.

Ice in nature is surrounded by liquid most of the time, and therefore it is key to understand how ice and liquid interact. A new study has now directly observe the precise shape of ice at the interface between ice and liquid -- by using antifreeze and a refrigerated microscope.

Lab-grown meat can be shaped into steaks and meatballs, but it can be lacking in the flavour department. Aromatic chemicals that are released when heated could offer a solution

Your body is home to trillions of beneficial viruses crucial for a healthy microbiome. We may one day be able to tweak this "virome" to treat obesity and anxiety

Your body is home to trillions of beneficial viruses crucial for a healthy microbiome. We may one day be able to tweak this "virome" to treat obesity and anxiety

Actually, this was an unusually homicidal weekend given that it lasted from Thursday (the Fourth of July holiday) through Sunday: four days of shooting opportunities.  And the bad actors were out in force: as everyone reports, there were 109 people shot in that period, 19 of whom died. From ABC News:

One hundred and nine people were shot, 19 fatally, in gun violence across Chicago from midnight Wednesday to midnight Monday during the extended Fourth of July holiday weekend, police said.

CPD Supt. Larry Snelling and Mayor Brandon Johnson both called for accountability for those responsible for the shootings during a press conference on Monday.

“This is a choice. The choice to kill. The choice to kill women, the choice to kill children, the choice to kill the elderly. These are choices that the offenders made and they calculated,” Johnson said. “We are holding every single individual accountable for the pain and from the torment that they have caused in this city.”

Chicago Mayor Johnson and Chicago Police Superintendent Larry Snelling give an update after more than 100 people were shot in Chicago over the 4th of July weekend.

Snelling said adjustments were made after the Fourth of July heading into the weekend, including canceling officers’ days off, but ultimately, he said, they need communities to come forward.

“We have to really stop and think about the mindset of someone who will shoot a child, a helpless child an unarmed mother and think that that’s OK. And go about their days,” he said. “Those people have to be taken off the street. They have to be put away if we’re not doing that. Then we’re failing other families.”

Johnson said he has asked for more resources from the federal government to help invest more resources into communities.

When pressed to address what adjustments need to be made to keep the community safe, Johnson’s response was simply that the city needs more support.

“I am urging all of you across the entire city to step up and say, ‘We’ve had enough,'” Johnson said. “And I’m hopeful that our ongoing discussions will ensure that our state partners, as well as our federal partners, will swiftly come into the support of the city of Chicago. The city cannot afford to wait any longer.”

Well, if you’re a determinist, it’s not really a choice: you could not have done otherwise but pull the trigger. But of course future shootings can be reduced by modifying incentives, behavior, and so on, so determinism doesn’t justify this level of shooting. Further, gun control is vital, but almost useless to fight for given America’s love of guns. (One bright spot: a week ago the Supreme Court decided to leave in place Illinois’s ban on assault-style weapons.)

Brandon Johnson talks the talk, but he doesn’t walk the walk, and weapons are one of the things he needs to deal with as Mayor (not to mention our many potholes that go unfilled). My prediction is that he will not be re-elected, as he’s perceived as a do-nothing mayor. Look at his response when asked what he will do to stop the killings!

One assault occurred only a few blocks from my office on Sunday morning. While driving to the grocery store at 7 a.m., I found my route blocked off by many police cars and “do not enter” tape. I took a roundabout way to the store, and the street was still blocked off when I came back. It turns out that right by the University, three people had been shot at 5:30 that morning. Thank Ceiling Cat that none were killed. And the shooting was only a block from our Emergency Room, so treatment must have been timely.

I suspect this was a gang-related shooting, but the aim was poor: two guys were shot in the leg and one in the nose. (How you can be shot in the nose and survive eludes me, but perhaps the guy was standing in profile.)

In this episode of Dead Planets Society, our hosts place primordial black holes in a variety of objects with surprising results

A digital "primordial soup" with no rules or direction can lead to the emergence of self-replicating artificial life forms, in an experiment that may hint at how biological life began on Earth

As usual, we’re running low, so send in your good wildlife photos.

Today’s selection comes from reader Ruth Berger. Her ID’s and captions are indented, and you can enlarge her photos by clicking on them:

Here is a jumble of pictures taken with a little automatic camera with an 28mm lens in wild-growing greenery in and around industrial areas in Frankfurt, Germany.

My first is of a creature much beloved by me, Trichius cf. gallicus, an unusual-looking beetle:

Trichius spp. belong to the Scarabaeidae whose European members really like Rosaceae plants (but also Asteraceae and many others), so it’s no coincidence I caught this specimen sitting on a Rubus flower. Here is another, better known beetle of the same group, the beautiful and bigger Cetonia aurata, called rose chafer in English; I think the plant is meadowsweet (Filipendula cf. ulmaria), again from the Rosaceae group.

And here are two rose chafers copulating in a hawthorn tree (also a Rosaceae plant). On this very hawthorn tree, about a hundred beetles from several Scarabaeidae species were milling about on that day, while all the other hawthorn trees in the vicinity and in the wider area were blooming away with hardly any visitors. I returned to that same tree a few days later, and again it was buzzing with beetles, as if it had been designated an official meeting point. Do any of the other insect lovers among the readers have any comments about this phenomenon?

Here is a smaller and more homely beetle from the same tree, a male Valgus hemipterus, called stumbling beetle in German. On its left is the backside of a bee, on which more below:

The bee half visible in the previous picture must be some Andrena (mining bee) spp., and here is one of the species it might be (not at all sure about that), a female Andrena haemorrhoa, with its characteristic red thorax plus a fringe of red hair on the end of the abdomen, feeding on a daisy at one of the places where the municipal greenery crew likes to mow whenever a blooming plant other than a daisy opens its petals”

Many Andrena are very versatile and survive that kind of treatment, other genera, not so much. There used to be Ceratina and Hylaeus species on this site, among others, and they are all gone solely due to needless destruction of either their brood or their feeding plants or both over several years.

And now to something completely different, a bumble bee supposedly very frequent but which I see only rarely, Bombus pratorum, the early bumblebee. From both the Latin and the German name (Wiesenhummel), this should be a meadow species, but I saw this one in wooded terrain:

The following is a rare species (“endangered“ according to the German local red list), Mallota fuciformis, a hoverfly posing as a bumble bee, with some similarities to the early bumble bee shown above:

Many hoverflies have obvious mimicry elements in their looks, and one, the hornet mimicry hoverfly, Volucella zonaria, even in behavior: They show the same darting movements as a hornet on the prowl. In flight, they are hard to distinguish from a hornet. Here is a hornet mimicry hoverfly, sitting on the backside of the fence of a garden plot used to raise geese:

Does anyone know the reason why mimicry evolved in hoverflies, but not (to my knowledge) in other families of flies? Here is another hoverfly, Heliophilus trivittatus, a big species I find beautiful (I love the light pastel yellow), sitting on a widow flower, Knautia arvensis, near a river. Heliophilus spp. like it wet. This river meadow was full of widow flowers last year when I took the picture; this year, there isn’t a single one, but lots of clover instead:

As we were recently talking about Vanessa cardui, the Atlantic-crossing painted lady, I herewith present the only semi-decent picture I have of the species (which isn’t that frequent locally), showing it sitting on Buddleja davidii, a plant that is colloquially called butterfly bush because of its attraction to butterflies, although many other pollinating insects love it just as much:

Here is a small tortoiseshell (Aglais urticae) that was right beside it:

The butterfly bush is a neophyte from East Asia that is said to provide only nectar and no pollen, and it isn’t a typical feeding plant for caterpillars either, so it’s considered an invasive pest, although I personally don’t have the impression that it’s outcompeting indigenous flowering plants where I live. Here, it was part of a late-stage ruderal vegetation.

The next picture shows another plant non-native to central Europe (or Britain), the poppy. For reasons unclear to me, poppy flowers seem to be a favorite perching place for larvae stages of long-horned grasshoppers (Tettigoniidae). The one you see here I’d guess is Tettigonia spp. cf. viridissima. The blurry thing on the left is a hoverfly, Episyrphus balteatus, visible in flight towards the poppy.

Poppies are considered archaeophytes in Central Europe (and by extension also Britain and France), as they arrived 8000 years ago with the first farmers who had poppy mixed with their cereal seed. But despite their long presence here, and despite being part of lots commercial flowerseed mixes, they never really went native, or at least that’s my impression: The poppy in the photo grew at the edge of a rapeseed field, and most of the places where I see poppies are either fields and their close vicinity or plots that were used as fields or gardens in the past.