ResearchPod

Plastic pollution is an environmental catastrophe in progress. 32% of the plastic we use escapes into the environment, and only 9% currently gets recycled. British company Polymateria have developed additives for conventional plastics which facilitate biodegradation if they escape the waste stream. Their proposal has now been taken up by the American Society for Testing and Materials, as well as t...

Darwins theory of evolution underpins much of our current understanding of biology, and its concepts have even come to be applied in other disciplines. Ideas like ’Survival of the fittest’ and ‘mutations’ are part of common language today. Applying those concepts to the dog-eat-dog world of business, Professor Gino Cattani of the Stern School, NYU, works on uncovering what gives successful compani...

Do prisoners with religious beliefs and behaviours experience their incarceration differently? How does their emotional state affect the likelihood of rehabilitation, or repeat offences? Professors Sung Joon Jang and Byron R. Johnson at the Institute for Studies of Religion at Baylor University, examine the effects of religion on offenders in the South African correctional system. Read more about...

How exactly do birds ‘talk’ to one another? And might research into how birds listen to birdsong help us understand communication both in humans and birds? Dr Robert Dooling and his team, based at the University of Maryland, USA, showed that – for zebra finches at least – the subtle nuances in sound texture or timbre are more important than the sequence of repeated sounds. Find more on their work...

A millisecond may seem a short time to you, but for molecules, this may be longer than their entire lifetime.  Dr Sergio Carbajo and his team at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory  capture these high speed changes using a laser that is several kilometres long, known as a free-electron laser (FEL). Read more about their work in Research Outreach , or read the original research at  https://arx...

Optical microscopes, with the help of cell-staining to colour cells, can help us peer into the invisible world of cells. However, they only show us a 2D image of a very thin slice of tissue. But how can we see what the cells and tissue actually look like in 3D? Dr Madleen Busse from the Technical University of Munich has been developing X-ray stains that can be used to visualise cells and tissues...

Dairy farming can have negative effects on the environment, polluting waterways with an excess of nitrogen that can have long-term impacts. Past work has addressed this problem by looking at ways to reduce the cow’s urinary urea nitrogen concentration, but this has involved mitigation techniques that paint the cow as the problem rather than the solution. Cameron Marshall, a PhD student under Prof...

Dr Christine Wekerle discusses the MAP study on trauma resilience among youth, well-venture interventions , and the JoyPop mobile platform for well-being and recovery support among survivors. You can find more information about the app at youthresilience.net and the ResilienceInYouth YouTube Channel Download the JoyPop app in the Apple App Store: https://apps.apple.com/ca/app/joypop/id1483835598?i...

This year has proven a unique challenge to the mental health and resilience of many across the globe. Dr Christine Wekerle discusses how, for young people with mental health concerns, the challenges and opportunities of distanced society can be faced and embraced. You can find more information about the app at youthresilience.net and the ResilienceInYouth YouTube Channel Download the JoyPop app in...

While nicotine is perhaps the most notorious component of tobacco smoke, what can be said of its biological and chemical activity by itself? A recent paper by Dr Leonie Price and Dr Javier Martinez has dug into a century of scientific literature to find out. Read their paper in F1000 Research : https://doi.org/10.12688/f1000research.20062.2

How can non-profit National Sport Organizations in Canada create effective brands, especially on social media, from which they can co-create value with stakeholders such as athletes, fans, sponsors, and the media? In a three-phase project funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, Marijke Taks, Benoit Séguin (University of Ottawa) and colleagues examined the challenge...

Leo van Bergen is a medical historian who has spent his career chronicling the history of health and humanitarianism in warfare. In 2009 Van Bergen was awarded the J.A. Verdoorn-prize for his work, and his upcoming book A Cap of Horror  will feature a collection of poems  written on the First World War by nurses and carers. For more of his books, articles and columns, visit www.leovanbergen.nl , o...

Prof Kazushige Yokoyama, State University of New York Geneseo College, investigates how peptide interactions lead to fibrillogenesis, the process in the brain responsible for some  symptoms of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease. Their research involves coating gold nanoparticles with peptides and using spectroscopic techniques to investigate how these peptides interactions lead to the onset of di...

Cannabis and its derivatives have been at the centre of whirlwind of social, legal and medical change, from criminalisation to commercialisation in a single decade. This comes of the back of generations of work, research and advocacy in the potential medical advances and social justice that could come about through its approval and study Steve Goldner, perhaps most famous for inventing liquid dosa...

“Global Quality of Democracy as an Innovation Enabler" by Dr David Campbell, University of Vienna, asks how can we conceptualise and measure democracy? Can we determine the quality of democracy in global comparison, and how does quality of democracy act and play in favour of enabling innovation? Read the book through Palgrave Macmillan here: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-72529-1

Professor Maria Pilar de Lara-Castells from the Institute of Fundamental Physics at the Spanish National Research Council is leading research in order to uncover the special properties of a new generation of materials: subnanometer-sized metal clusters, which could push the next generation of photocatalysts to a new level. Read about the research in these three papers:  https://doi.org/10.1039/C9T...

Prof Alexander David of the Haskayne School of Business, University of Calgary, has developed a new framework that demonstrates the strong link between the slope of the futures curve and long-run exploration and production decisions of energy companies. Prof David’s model analyses the trends seen in the oil market by examining the impact of resource extraction through drilling, the effects of the...

Religions across the world incorporate group prayer, dancing and devotions.  Dr James Jones, clinical psychologist and Emeritus Professor of Religion at Rutgers University, explores how bodily behaviours, such as religious ritual, can affect a person’s perception of the world and their religious experience. Read a summary of his work in Research Outreach: https://researchoutreach.org/articles/neur...

Non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is one of the most widespread forms of the disease. As with many other cancers, the best chance of survival comes with early diagnosis, but that isn't always possible for all patients. Dr Claudio Scafoglio and colleagues at the University of California, Los Angeles have identified a new diagnostic technique that could efficiently identify the earliest stages...

Cooperation with others, including strangers, has helped humanity prosper throughout history. However, much of the psychology of cooperation is still unexplained, especially in the realm of indirect reciprocity, or cooperation without repeated encounters.  Dr Isamu Okada, Associate Professor at Soka University, is exploring the responses of people participating in reputation-based cooperation game...

Dr Vishruta Dumane, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, is working on improving breast cancer treatments with the goal of delivering the most effective radiotherapy dose to the tumour, while limiting the risk treatment poses to other parts of the body. Her recent research looks at the use of deep inspiration breath holds (DIBH) during volumetric modulated arc therapy (VMAT) to reduc...

Dr Richard C. Mitchell, Professor of Child and Youth Studies at Brock University in Canada, celebrates the work of youth climate activists and advocates for a transdisciplinary approach to education. Read more about his research here: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02604027.2018.1485435

Decades of conflict in the middle east and north Africa have left scores dead, an entire generation displaced, and lingering damages to health, infrastructure and culture. Meanwhile in America and Europe, surveillance states and civil restrictions have come to be the accepted cost of constant, distant war. As the world rounds on a new War against coronavirus, Drake Logan speaks with us about linge...

We are all increasingly aware of the extent of humanity’s impact on Earth. The increasing concentration of atmospheric greenhouse gases and Earth’s changing climate are constant in our news, but there are other ways that humans are directly impacting the environment. Production of food is vital for society, but finding sustainable and environmentally friendly methods of feeding everyone must be a...

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