Machine learning algorithms are becoming increasingly popular for data crunching across a vast area of scientific disciplines. Here, the authors compare two machine learning algorithms with respect to accuracy and user-friendliness and find that random forest algorithms outperform logistic regression when applied to the same dataset.

In this report, Bhardwaj and Sharma tested whether placing specific plants indoors can reduce levels of indoor air pollution that can lead to lung-related illnesses. Using machine learning, they show that plants improved overall indoor air quality and reduced levels of particulate matter. They suggest that plant-based interventions coupled with sensors may be a useful long-term solution to reducing and maintaining indoor air pollution.

COVID-19 has impacted the way many people go about their daily lives, but what are the main factors driving the changes in the housing market, particular house prices?

Skin cancer is a common and potentially deadly form of cancer. This study’s purpose was to develop an automated approach for early detection for skin cancer. We hypothesized that convolutional neural network-based models using transfer learning could accurately differentiate between benign and malignant moles using natural images of human skin.

The authors here investigate the absorbency of two leading brands of diapers. They find that Huggies Little Snugglers absorb over 50% more salt water than Pampers Swaddlers, although both absorb significantly more fluid than what an average newborn can produce.

In the field of ecology, little is known about how plant communities originate. Through the process of characterizing dunes, mounds of sand formed by the wind, and their plant communities we can get to know the physiognomy and floristic composition of the territory. Based on the hypothesis that dune flora can emerge from seed islands: holes in the sand 6 cm deep containing a mixture of seeds, broken branches of shrubbery, and rabbit feces, during spring, the authors determined the composition of 20 seed islands in the sand dunes of Concon, Chile and measured how many seeds germinated in each one.

In this study, the authors investigate the effects of sodium levels on blood pressure, one of the most common medical problems worldwide. They used a simulated blood vessel constructed from dialysis tubing to carefully analyze pressure changes resulting from various levels of sodium in the external solution. They found that when the sodium concentration in the simulated blood vessel was higher than the external fluid, internal pressure increased, while the reverse was true when the sodium concentration was lower than in the surrounding environment. These results highlight the potential for sodium concentration to have a significant effect on blood pressure in humans by affecting the rate of osmosis across the boundaries of actual blood vessels.

In this study, the authors investigate a timely and important topic: forest fires. More specifically, they use a wildfire simulator to test how ladder fuels effect the burn area of a forest fire. Ladder fuels are fuels that cause a forest fire to rise up from the forest floor to the canopy, which may affect the overall spread. They simulated fire spread with different levels of ladder fuel treatment and found that the spread of a burn area would indeed decrease with increased ladder fuel treatment. These findings have important implications for forest and forest fire management.

Arabadopsis, “the fruit fly of plants”, is an easy to grow plant system for genetic manipulation. Here, researchers tested the effects of varied light conditions on plants with specific mutations in the light sensing pathways.

Invasive species pose a significant threat to many ecosystems, whether by outcompeting native species and disturbing food webs, or through increasing risks of natural disasters like flooding and wildfires. The ornamental grass species Pennisetum villosum R. Br. was previously identified by the California Invasive Plant Council as being potentially invasive; this experiment was conducted to determine if P. villosum displays characteristics of an invasive species when grown in a California chaparral environment. Reults found that in both conditions, the two species had similar germination rates, and that P. villosum grew significantly larger than N. pulchra for around 95 days.