#From custom-built to ready-made photonics

“#From custom-built to ready-made photonics” Compact silicon-nitride integrated soliton microcomb chip device in a butterfly package with a fiber output. Credit: Lin Chang (UCSB) Information technology continues to progress at a rapid pace. However, the growing demands of data centers have pushed electrical input-output systems to their physical limit, which has created a bottleneck. Maintaining…

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#Soap bubbles pollinated a pear orchard without damaging delicate flowers

“#Soap bubbles pollinated a pear orchard without damaging delicate flowers” A chemically functionalized soap bubble on a campanula flower (Campanula persicifolia). Credit: Eijiro Miyako Soap bubbles facilitated the pollination of a pear orchard by delivering pollen grains to targeted flowers, demonstrating that this whimsical technique can successfully pollinate fruit-bearing plants. The study, from the Japan…

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#New study suggests that hard eggshells evolved at least three times in dinosaur family tree

“#New study suggests that hard eggshells evolved at least three times in dinosaur family tree” The clutch of fossilized Protoceratops eggs and embryos examined in this study was discovered in the Gobi Desert of Mongolia at Ukhaa Tolgod. Credit: M. Ellison/©AMNH New research suggests that the first dinosaurs laid soft-shelled eggs—a finding that contradicts established…

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#Food technology: Insect flours

“#Food technology: Insect flours” By means of the extrusion method, researchers of KIT study baking properties of insect flours. Credit: Markus Breig, KIT According to estimates of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), population growth will cause the worldwide demand for animal proteins to double by 2050. Even if free agricultural areas would…

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#Humans found able to infer behavioral information from chimpanzee vocalizations

“#Humans found able to infer behavioral information from chimpanzee vocalizations” Credit: CC0 Public Domain A team of researchers from the University of Amsterdam, the University of York and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, has found evidence of human ability to infer behavioral information from chimpanzee vocalizations. In their paper published in Proceedings of…

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#Predicting honeybee swarming by listening to the sounds made by a queen bee

“#Predicting honeybee swarming by listening to the sounds made by a queen bee” Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain A team of researchers from Nottingham Trent University, l’Institut National de Recherche en Agriculture and Centre Apicole de Recherche et d’Information reports accurately predicting honeybee swarming by listening to sounds made by the queen bee in a nest….

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#Study suggests bright patches on Titan are dry lake beds

“#Study suggests bright patches on Titan are dry lake beds” This unprocessed image of Saturn’s moon Titan was captured by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft during its final close flyby of the hazy, planet-sized moon on April 21, 2017. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute A team of researchers affiliated with several institutions in the U.S. and one in…

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