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As lumber prices skyrocket, professor develops method to predict future price changes

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At a time when lumber prices are skyrocketing, an Oregon State University researcher has developed a new way to predict the future price of logs that uses readily accessible economic information.

“Log prices are really variable,” said Jeff Reimer, a professor of applied economics at Oregon State. “That makes this a difficult business, whether you are land manager, mill owner, timberland investor or, as we are seeing now, a home builder.”

The timber industry is critical to the economy of many regions of the world, including the Pacific Northwest. [Read more…] about As lumber prices skyrocket, professor develops method to predict future price changes

Droughts longer, rainfall more erratic over the last 50 years in most of the West

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Dry periods between rainstorms have become longer and annual rainfall has become more erratic across most of the western United States during the past 50 years, according to a new study published by the US Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service and the University of Arizona.

Against the backdrop of steadily warming temperatures and decreasing total yearly rainfall, rain has been falling in fewer and sometimes larger storms, with longer dry intervals between.

Total yearly rainfall has decreased by an average of four inches over the last half century, while the longest dry period in each year increased from 20 to 32 days across the West, explained co-senior author Joel Biederman, a research hydrologist with the ARS Southwest Watershed Research Center in Tucson, Arizona. [Read more…] about Droughts longer, rainfall more erratic over the last 50 years in most of the West

Why the brain enjoys music

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Communication between the brain’s auditory and reward circuits is the reason why humans find music rewarding, according to new research published in JNeurosci.

Despite no obvious biological benefits, humans love music. Neuroimaging studies highlight similarities between how the brain’s reward circuits process music and other rewards like food, money, and alcohol.

Yet neuroimaging studies are correlational by nature. [Read more…] about Why the brain enjoys music

Brain activity foreshadows changes in stock prices

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Society for Neuroscience

Activity in the brains’ risk circuits can forecast changes in stock prices

Forecasting changes in stock prices may be possible with the help of brain activity in regions associated with how people feel before making investment choices.

Scientists could accurately forecast market price changes based on the average brain activity among a group but failed when using only prior stock trends or people’s investment choices, according to new research published in JNeurosci.

Scientists have used the average brain activity among a group to predict which videos will go viral and which crowdfunding campaigns will receive funding. [Read more…] about Brain activity foreshadows changes in stock prices

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  • Why writing by hand makes kids smarter
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    Why writing by hand makes kids smarterProfessor Audrey van der Meer at NTNU believes that national guidelines should be put into place to ensure that children receive at least a minimum of handwriting training. Results from several studies have shown that both children and adults learn more and remember better when writing by hand. Now another…
    Tags: brain, activity, news

Climate and carbon cycle trends of the past 50 million years reconciled

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Predictions of future climate change require a clear and nuanced understanding of Earth’s past climate. In a study published today in Science Advances, University of Hawai’i (UH) at Mānoa oceanographers fully reconciled climate and carbon cycle trends of the past 50 million years–solving a controversy debated in the scientific literature for decades.

Throughout Earth’s history, global climate and the global carbon cycle have undergone significant changes, some of which challenge the current understanding of carbon cycle dynamics.

Less carbon dioxide in the atmosphere cools Earth and decreases weathering of rocks and minerals on land over long time scales. Less weathering should lead to a shallower calcite compensation depth (CCD), which is the depth in the ocean where the rate of carbonate material raining down equals the rate of carbonate dissolution (also called “snow line”). The depth of the CCD can be traced over the geologic past by inspecting the calcium carbonate content of seafloor sediment cores. [Read more…] about Climate and carbon cycle trends of the past 50 million years reconciled

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  • The seven rocky planets of TRAPPIST-1 seem to have very similar compositions
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    The seven rocky planets of TRAPPIST-1 seem to have very similar compositionsA new international study led by astrophysicist Eric Agol from the University of Washington has measured the densities of the seven planets of the exoplanetary system TRAPPIST-1 with extreme precision, the values obtained indicating very similar compositions for all the planets. This fact makes the system even more remarkable and…
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Current food production systems could mean far-reaching habitat loss

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The global food system could drive rapid and widespread biodiversity loss if not changed, new research has found.

Findings published in Nature Sustainability shows that the global food system will need to be transformed to prevent habitat loss across the world. It shows that what we eat and how it is produced will need to change rapidly and dramatically to prevent widespread and severe biodiversity losses.

The international research team was led by the University of Leeds and the University of Oxford. [Read more…] about Current food production systems could mean far-reaching habitat loss

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  • Bioplastics in the sustainability dilemma
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    Bioplastics in the sustainability dilemmaPlastics made from crops such as maize or sugarcane instead of fossil fuels are generally considered sustainable. One reason is that plants bind CO2, which compensates for the carbon released into the atmosphere when plastics are disposed. However, there is a catch: With increasing demand for raw materials for bioplastic…
    Tags: production, study, land, global, university, sustainability, country
  • Better health for people and the planet grows on trees
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    Better health for people and the planet grows on treesTwo of humanity's biggest problems – the climate crisis and abysmal eating habits – can partly be solved by one healthy solution: eating more food from trees, specifically tropical ones. While global trends in agriculture and diets are not easily reversed, scientists say that creating incentives to grow and eat…
    Tags: food, systems, global, land, diets, production, healthy, lead, species, change
  • Serving size, satisfaction influence food waste on campus
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    Serving size, satisfaction influence food waste on campusUnderstanding what drives food choices can help high-volume food service operations like universities reduce waste, according to a new study. Researchers have concluded that food waste in places like university cafeterias is driven by how much people put on their plates, how familiar they are with what's on the menu…
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  • Virtual pollination trade uncovers global dependence on biodiversity for food consumption
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    Virtual pollination trade uncovers global dependence on biodiversity for food consumptionRecently, a published study in Science Advances assessed the contribution of pollinators to international market flows and showed that biodiversity conservation is essential to sustain global consumption patterns. This study results from the work of an interdisciplinary team that integrated researchers across the fields of economics, ecology, environmental sciences and social sciences.…
    Tags: biodiversity, global, international, loss, production, expansion, study, habitat, conservation, university

AI-designed serotonin sensor may help scientists study sleep and mental health

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Serotonin is a neurochemical that plays a critical role in the way the brain controls our thoughts and feelings. For example, many antidepressants are designed to alter serotonin signals sent between neurons.

In an article in Cell, National Institutes of Health-funded researchers described how they used advanced genetic engineering techniques to transform a bacterial protein into a new research tool that may help monitor serotonin transmission with greater fidelity than current methods. Preclinical experiments, primarily in mice, showed that the sensor could detect subtle, real-time changes in brain serotonin levels during sleep, fear, and social interactions, as well as test the effectiveness of new psychoactive drugs.

The study was funded, in part, by the NIH’s Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative which aims to revolutionize our understanding of the brain under healthy and disease conditions. [Read more…] about AI-designed serotonin sensor may help scientists study sleep and mental health

Time to rethink predicting pandemic infection rates?

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During the first months of the Covid-19 pandemic, Joseph Lee McCauley, a physics professor at the University of Houston, was watching the daily data for six countries and wondered if infections were really growing exponentially. By extracting the doubling times from the data, he became convinced they were.

Doubling times and exponential growth go hand in hand, so it became clear to him that modeling based on past infections is impossible, because the rate changes unforeseeably from day to day due to social distancing and lockdown efforts. And the rate changes differ for each country based on the extent of their social distancing.

In AIP Advances, from AIP Publishing, McCauley explains how he combined math in the form of Tchebychev’s inequality with a statistical ensemble to understand how macroscopic exponential growth with different daily rates arise from person-to-person disease infection. [Read more…] about Time to rethink predicting pandemic infection rates?

Smart ‘bottle brushes’ on the nanoscale

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They look like microscopic bottle brushes: Polymers with a backbone and tufts of side arms. This molecular design gives them unusual abilities: For example, they can bind active agents and release them again when the temperature changes.

With the help of neutrons, a research team from the Technical University of Munich (TUM) has now succeeded to unveil the changes in the internal structure in course of the process.

“The structure of the bottle-brush polymers, which are only nanometers in size, cannot be investigated using classical optical methods: It can be seen that an aqueous solution containing these polymers becomes turbid at a certain temperature. But why this is the case, and how the backbone and the side arms stretch out into in the water or contract, has not yet been clarified,” reports Prof Christine Papadakis. [Read more…] about Smart ‘bottle brushes’ on the nanoscale

Early results from DETECT study suggest fitness trackers can predict Covid-19 infections

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Examining data from the first six weeks of their landmark DETECT study, a team of scientists from the Scripps Research Translational Institute sees encouraging signs that wearable fitness devices can improve public health efforts to control Covid-19.

The DETECT study, launched on March 25, uses a mobile app to collect smartwatch and activity tracker data from consenting participants, and also gathers their self-reported symptoms and diagnostic test results. Any adult living in the United States is eligible to participate in the study by downloading the research app, MyDataHelps.

In a study that appears today in Nature Medicine, the Scripps Research team reports that wearable devices like Fitbit are capable of identifying cases of COVID-19 by evaluating changes in heart rate, sleep and activity levels, along with self-reported symptom data – and can identify cases with greater success than looking at symptoms alone. [Read more…] about Early results from DETECT study suggest fitness trackers can predict Covid-19 infections

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    Caltech researcher unveils sensor that rapidly detects Covid-19 infectionOne feature of the Covid-19 virus that makes it so difficult to contain is that it can be easily spread to others by a person who has yet to show any signs of infection. The carrier of the virus might feel perfectly well and go about their daily business--taking the…
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  • Mapping the 1.6 billion people who live near forests
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    Mapping the 1.6 billion people who live near forestsGlobal maps of places where people and forests coexist show that an estimated 1.6 billion people live within 5 kilometers of a forest. The assessment, based on data from 2000 and 2012 and published September 18 in the journal One Earth, showed that of these 1.6 billion “forest-proximate people”, 64.5 percent…
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