In this study, the authors investigate a potential case of cross antibiotic-resistance. Using swabs from an individual who received long-term treatments of azithromycin, they addressed the question of whether any bacteria in this individual might develop resistance to not only azithromycin, but also other antibiotics with similar structures. This study cleverly addresses the important issue of antibiotic resistance from a new and thoughtful approach.
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Ladder Fuel Treatments Effect Burn Area of Forest Fires in Semi-Arid High Elevation Climates
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.
Read More...Presoaking Seeds with Vinegar Improves Seed Development and Drought Tolerance in Maize Plants
Climate change has contributed to the increasing annual temperatures around the world and poses a grave threat to Maize crops. Two methods proven to help combat plant drought stress effects are presoaking seeds (seeds are soaked in a liquid before planting) and the application of Acetic Acid (vinegar) to soil. The purpose of this experiment was to explore if combining these two methods by presoaking seeds with a vinegar solution can improve the seed development and plant drought tolerance of Maize plants during drought conditions.
Read More...Assessing and Improving Machine Learning Model Predictions of Polymer Glass Transition Temperatures
In this study, the authors test whether providing a larger dataset of glass transition temperatures (Tg) to train the machine-learning platform Polymer Genome would improve its accuracy. Polymer Genome is a machine learning based data-driven informatics platform for polymer property prediction and Tg is one property needed to design new polymers in silico. They found that training the model with their larger, curated dataset improved the algorithm's Tg, providing valuable improvements to this useful platform.
Read More...Measuring Exoplanetary Radii Using Transit Photometry
Studying exoplanets, or planets that orbit a star other than the Sun, is critical to a greater understanding the formation of planets and how Earth's solar system differs from others. In this study the authors analyze the transit light curves of three hot Jupiter exoplanets to ultimately determine if and how these planets have changed since their discovery.
Read More...Examining What Causes Perceived Dissonance in Musical Intervals and the Effect of Timbre on Dissonance
Music is an important part of the day for many of us, but what makes some combinations of sound more pleasant to the ear than others? In this article the authors investigate the role of some characteristics of sound on the perception of a pleasant vs harsh musical note.
Read More...Examining Heat Recovery from Electric Light Bulbs Using Thermoelectric Generators
Here the author investigates how much heat energy is output and recovered from a conventional electric light bulb.
Read More...Understanding the Mechanism of Star-Block Copolymers as Nanoreactors for Synthesis of Well-Defined Silver Nanoparticles
Here, the authors characterize how silver ions nucleate a star-block copolymer to generate nano-sized silver particles.
Read More...Reducing Crop Damage Caused by Folsomia candida by Providing an Alternate Food Source
Tamura and Moché found that Folsomia candida, a common crop pest, prefers to consume yeast instead of lettuce seedlings. The authors confirmed that even with the availability of both lettuce seedlings and yeast in the same dish, Folsomia candida preferred to eat the yeast, thereby reducing the number of feeding injuries on the lettuce seedlings. The authors propose that using this preference for yeast may be a way to mitigate crop damage by this pest.
Read More...The Tendency of Teenagers to be Conformists and Follow the Crowd
Social psychologist Solomon Asch designed conformity tests to study how peer pressure from a group can influence an individual's own perception and behavior. In this study, students evaluate conformity behavior in a teenage group.
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