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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.

This study uses a fruit fly model of type 1 diabetes (T1D) to determine whether strengthening intestinal tight junctions to reduce intestinal permeability would improve T1D symptoms.

Access to green space—an area of grass, trees, or other vegetation set apart for recreational or aesthetic purposes in an urban environment—and clean drinking water can be unequally distributed in urban spaces, which are often associated with income inequality. Little is known about public drinking water and green space inequities in the Bay Area. For our study, we sought to understand how public park access, drinking fountain access, and the quality of public drinking water differ across income brackets in the Bay Area. Though we observed smaller-scale instances of inequalities, in the park distribution in the Bay Area as a whole, and in the Southern Bay’s water quality and park distribution, our results indicate that other factors could be influencing water quality, and park and fountain access in the Bay Area.

Social media usage is predicted to impact teen well-being and emotional status. This study sought to assess the impact of teen technology usage on their social lives. Surveys of 8th and 9th graders were used to assess compare technology usage between males and females as well as and how social media usage impacts the perception of social environment at school.

Algorithmic trading has been increasingly used by Americans. In this work, we tested whether including the opening, closing, and highest prices in three supervised learning models affected their performance. Indeed, we found that including all three prices decreased the error of the prediction significantly.

The authors looked at the development of biodegradable bioplastic and its features compared to PET packaging films. They were able to develop a biodegradable plastic with sodium alginate that dissolved in water and degrade in microbial conditions while also being transparent and flexible similar to current plastic films.

In cognitive psychology, typed responses are used to assess thinking skills and creativity, but research on factors influencing typing speed is limited. This study examined how language familiarity affects typing speed, hypothesizing that familiarity with a language would correlate with faster typing. Participants typed faster in English than Latin, with those unfamiliar with Latin showing a larger discrepancy between the two languages, though Latin education level did not significantly impact typing speed, highlighting the role of language familiarity in typing performance.

In this article the authors look at phantom loads of common kitchen appliances and found that the appliances looked at have a phantom load of 10.9%. Understanding phantom loads is important as it can reduce energy grid usage and energy bill costs for homeowners.

In this article the authors looked at arginine synthesis across different bacteria commonly found in different regional diets. They found that B. megaterium and C. sporogenes both caused a higher pH to occur on their agar plates compared to other bacteria tested indicating a greater amount of arginine synthesis.

In this paper, Thomas et al. introduce a new, affordable way to study characteristics of rocket motors using small-scale rocket motors.