Biodiversity genomics may hold the key to Europe’s nature crisis, helping identify species, monitor ecosystems and inform policy at an unmatched scale. A landmark agreement between the European Reference Genome Atlas (ERGA), the International Barcode of Life Europe (iBOL Europe), and the Consortium of European Taxonomic Facilities (CETAF) commits to building a coordinated European infrastructure for biodiversity genomics, manifested through the Biodiversity Genomics Europe plus (BGE+) project aimed at creating a system of shared resources, technology and data across the continent.

Researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst have analyzed nearly 86,500 surgeries at Baystate Medical Center to identify the top factors that influence inefficiencies in surgeon schedules. Having an efficiently organized surgical schedule has the potential to lower costs and reduce surgeon burnout, which would also improve patient outcomes.

Every mechanical assembly produces acoustic emissions. Cranks, bearings, switches and far more make noise — the kind that can be heard and the kind that advanced technology can detect to determine the health of the mechanism. One area where this acoustic emission technology has not kept up, though, is for journal bearings: the support for rotating shafts in various machines, including transmission engines. Journal bearings depend on a film of oil surrounding the shaft to maintain operation. Should the oil become contaminated or some other mechanical failure occur, the entire mechanism can be at risk. Researchers have studied acoustic emissions for detecting mechanical failure since the 1950s and specifically for journal bearings since 1985. Now, an international team has pulled together the latest in the field to better understand how far it has come and what direction it should go.

A 100-year-old equation and a fibre-optic cable off the coast of Svalbard led researchers to discover they could detect swimming whales — even if they were completely silent. The discovery broadens the tools that biologists could someday use to detect and monitor these marine giants.

Photodetectors require complex evaporation-based fabrication processes and exhibit relatively high dark currents and noise levels under operation. Besides, system size, cost, and the mismatch in responsivity between different types of photodetectors hinder further commercial application. Now, researchers from Dalian Minzu University have proposed the construction of a perovskite/In0.53Ga0.47As thin-film heterojunction, thereby realizing broadband photodetectors covering the deep-ultraviolet to short-wavelength infrared range.