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Topic Review
Women in Positions of Power
Women in positions of power are women who hold an occupation that gives them great authority, influence, and/or responsibility. Historically, power has been distributed among the sexes disparately. Power and powerful positions have most often been associated with men as opposed to women. As gender equality increases, women hold more and more powerful positions. Accurate and proportional representation of women in social systems has been shown to be important to the long-lasting success of the human race. Additionally, a study shows that “absence is not merely a sign of disadvantage and disenfranchisement, but the exclusion of women from positions of power also compounds gender stereotypes and retards the pace of equalization".
  • 3.6K
  • 10 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Ecosystem Services
Ecosystem services are the many and varied benefits to humans gifted by the natural environment and from healthy ecosystems. Such ecosystems include, for example, agroecosystems, forest ecosystems, grassland ecosystems and aquatic ecosystems. These ecosystems, functioning in healthy relationship, offer such things like natural pollination of crops, clean air, extreme weather mitigation, human mental and physical well-being. Collectively, these benefits are becoming known as 'ecosystem services', and are often integral to the provisioning of clean drinking water, the decomposition of wastes, and resilience and productivity of food ecosystems. While scientists and environmentalists have discussed ecosystem services implicitly for decades, the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) in the early 2000s popularized this concept. There, ecosystem services are grouped into four broad categories: provisioning, such as the production of food and water; regulating, such as the control of climate and disease; supporting, such as nutrient cycles and oxygen production; and cultural, such as spiritual and recreational benefits. To help inform decision-makers, many ecosystem services are being valuated in order to draw equivalent comparisons to human engineered infrastructure and services.
  • 3.6K
  • 28 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Singlet Fission
Singlet fission is a process that occurs in organic molecules upon the absorption of light. It produces a singlet excited state (S1) in one molecule that is shared with a neighbouring one in the ground state (S0), thus splitting into two triplet excited states (T1).
  • 3.6K
  • 01 Jun 2021
Topic Review
Glucose-Lowering Medications in Erectile Dysfunction
Erectile dysfunction (ED) is a common underestimated complication of diabetes mellitus that affects more than 50% of people with diabetes. Diabetes dramatically raises the risk of developing ED by 2.5-fold. Despite that several studies have explained the pathogenetic mechanisms involved in the generation of erectile failure, few studies to date have described the efficacy of glucose-lowering medications in the restoration of normal sexual activity. Herein, we will present current knowledge about the main starters of the pathophysiology of diabetic ED and explore the role of different anti-diabetes therapies in the potential remission of ED, highlighting specific pathways whose activation or inhibition could be fundamental for sexual care in a diabetes setting.
  • 3.6K
  • 28 Jun 2021
Topic Review
Silicate Minerals
Silicate minerals are rock-forming minerals made up of silicate groups. They are the largest and most important class of minerals and make up approximately 90 percent of the Earth's crust. In mineralogy, silica (silicon dioxide) SiO2 is usually considered a silicate mineral. Silica is found in nature as the mineral quartz, and its polymorphs. On Earth, a wide variety of silicate minerals occur in an even wider range of combinations as a result of the processes that have been forming and re-working the crust for billions of years. These processes include partial melting, crystallization, fractionation, metamorphism, weathering, and diagenesis. Living organisms also contribute to this geologic cycle. For example, a type of plankton known as diatoms construct their exoskeletons ("frustules") from silica extracted from seawater. The frustules of dead diatoms are a major constituent of deep ocean sediment, and of diatomaceous earth.
  • 3.6K
  • 25 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Occupational Burnout
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), occupational burnout is a syndrome resulting from chronic work-related stress, with symptoms characterized by "feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion; increased mental distance from one’s job, or feelings of negativism or cynicism related to one's job; and reduced professional efficacy". While burnout may influence health and can be a reason for people contacting health services, it is not itself classified by the WHO as a medical condition or mental disorder. WHO additional states that "Burn-out refers specifically to phenomena in the occupational context and should not be applied to describe experiences in other areas of life."
  • 3.6K
  • 15 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Quinolones
Fluoroquinolones (FQs) are arguably among the most successful antibiotics of recent times. They have enjoyed over 30 years of clinical usage and become essential tools in the armoury of clinical treatments. FQs target the bacterial enzymes DNA gyrase and DNA topoisomerase IV, where they stabilise a covalent enzyme-DNA complex in which the DNA is cleaved in both strands. This leads to cell death and turns out to be a very effective way of killing bacteria. However, resistance to FQs is increasingly problematic, and alternative compounds are urgently needed.
  • 3.6K
  • 25 Dec 2020
Topic Review
Stokes's Law
In 1851, George Gabriel Stokes derived an expression, now known as Stokes's law, for the frictional force – also called drag force – exerted on spherical objects with very small Reynolds numbers in a viscous fluid. Stokes's law is derived by solving the Stokes flow limit for small Reynolds numbers of the Navier–Stokes equations.
  • 3.6K
  • 24 Nov 2022
Biography
Richard Carrier
Richard Cevantis Carrier (born December 1, 1969) is an American historian, atheist activist, author, public speaker and blogger. Carrier has a doctorate in ancient history from Columbia University where his thesis was on the history of science in antiquity. He originally gained prominence as an advocate of atheism and metaphysical naturalism, authoring many articles on The Secular Web and later
  • 3.6K
  • 08 Dec 2022
Topic Review
Photocatalytic Properties of SnO2
SnO2 is an n-type semiconductor with a band gap between 3.6 and 4.0 eV, whose intrinsic characteristics are responsible for its electrical conductivity, good optical characteristics, high thermal stability, and other qualities. Such characteristics have provided excellent results in advanced oxidative processes, i.e., heterogeneous photocatalysis applications. This process involves semiconductors in the production of hydroxyl radicals via activation by light absorption, and it is considered as an emerging and promising technology for domestic-industrial wastewater treatment.
  • 3.6K
  • 05 May 2022
Topic Review Peer Reviewed
Mediterranean Diet
The Mediterranean diet is a food pattern incorporated into a set of lifestyle practices typical of Greece and Southern Italy in the early 1960s, where adult life expectancy was notably high, while rates of diet-related chronic diseases were low. The Mediterranean diet was described initially by the work of LG Allbaugh, commissioned by the Rockefeller foundation and the Greek government post-WW2 on the Greek island of Crete in 1948. The Mediterranean diet was accepted as Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO in 2013. The primary advantages of the Mediterranean diet include health benefits pertinent to cardiovascular, metabolic syndrome, and cognition.
  • 3.6K
  • 13 Apr 2022
Topic Review
Precision Spraying
Precision spraying, defined as the targeted spraying, obtains the target information (e.g., size, shape, structure, and canopy density, etc.) of the tree and then apply pesticides as needed. It addresses overdosing or underdosing problem by efficiently applying pesticides to the target area and substantially reducing pesticide usage while maintaining efficacy at preventing crop losses.
  • 3.6K
  • 24 May 2021
Topic Review
Moringa oleifera
Moringa oleifera belongs to the Moringaceae family and is the best known of the native Moringa oleifera genus. For centuries, it has been used as a system of Ayurvedic and Unani medicine and has a wide range of nutritional and bioactive compounds, including proteins, essential amino acids, carbohydrates, lipids, fibre, vitamins, minerals, phenolic compounds, phytosterols and others. These characteristics allow it to have pharmacological properties, including anti-diabetic, anti-inflammatory, anticarcinogenic, antioxidant, cardioprotective, antimicrobial and hepatoprotective properties. The entire Moringa oleifera plant is edible, including its flowers, however, it is not entirely safe, because of compounds that have been found mainly in the root and bark, so the leaf was identified as the safest. Moringa oleifera is recognised as an excellent source of phytochemicals, with potential applications in functional and medicinal food preparations due to its nutritional and medicinal properties; many authors have experimented with incorporating it mainly in biscuits, cakes, brownies, meats, juices and sandwiches. The results are fascinating, as the products increase their nutritional value; however, the concentrations cannot be high, as this affects the organoleptic characteristics of the supplemented products.
  • 3.6K
  • 10 Mar 2021
Topic Review
Water-Saving Agricultural Technologies
Increasing food demand has exerted tremendous stress on agricultural water usages worldwide, often with a threat to sustainability in agricultural production and, hence, food security. Various resource-conservation technologies like conservation agriculture (CA) and water-saving measures are being increasingly adopted to overcome these problems. While these technologies provide some short- and long-term benefits of reduced labor costs, stabilized or increased crop yield, increased water productivity, and improved soil health at farm scale, their overall impacts on hydrology outcomes remain unclear at larger temporal and spatial scales. Although directly linked to the regional hydrological cycle, irrigation remains a less understood component. The ecological conditions arising from the hydrology outcomes of resource-conservation technologies are associated with sustainability in agricultural production.
  • 3.6K
  • 22 Mar 2021
Topic Review
Potential Effects of Time Pressure on Intelligence Tests
Intelligence tests are often performed under time constraints for practical reasons, but the effects of time pressure on reasoning performance are poorly understood. A brief review of major expected effects of time pressure is presented herein, which includes forcing participants to skip items, convoking a mental speed factor, constraining response times, qualitatively altering cognitive processing, affecting anxiety and motivation, and interacting with individual differences. 
  • 3.6K
  • 14 Jul 2023
Topic Review Peer Reviewed
Trust in Science and COVID-19
In this entry, trust in science is defined as the reliance, confidence, and dependence on science to understand scientific information. With the outbreak of, and the uncertainty surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, turning towards science and trusting the specialized knowledge of experts is of particular importance during this period.
  • 3.6K
  • 13 Apr 2022
Topic Review
Ornithorhynchus
The platypus (Ornithorhynchus anatinus), sometimes referred to as the duck-billed platypus, is a semiaquatic, egg-laying mammal endemic to eastern Australia, including Tasmania. The platypus is the sole living representative or monotypic taxon of its family (Ornithorhynchidae) and genus (Ornithorhynchus), though a number of related species appear in the fossil record. Together with the four species of echidna, it is one of the five extant species of monotremes, mammals that lay eggs instead of giving birth to live young. Like other monotremes, it senses prey through electrolocation. It is one of the few species of venomous mammals, as the male platypus has a spur on the hind foot that delivers a venom, capable of causing severe pain to humans. The unusual appearance of this egg-laying, duck-billed, beaver-tailed, otter-footed mammal baffled European naturalists when they first encountered it, and the first scientists to examine a preserved platypus body (in 1799) judged it a fake, made of several animals sewn together. The unique features of the platypus make it an important subject in the study of evolutionary biology, and a recognisable and iconic symbol of Australia . It is culturally significant to several Aboriginal peoples of Australia, who also used to hunt the animal for food. It has appeared as a mascot at national events and features on the reverse of the Australian twenty-cent coin, and the platypus is the animal emblem of the state of New South Wales. Until the early 20th century, humans hunted the platypus for its fur, but it is now protected throughout its range. Although captive-breeding programs have had only limited success, and the platypus is vulnerable to the effects of pollution, it is not under any immediate threat. (As of 2020), the platypus is a legally protected species in all states where it occurs. It is listed as an endangered species in South Australia and Victoria and has been recommended for listing in New South Wales. The species is classified as a near-threatened species by the IUCN, but a November 2020 report has recommended that it is upgraded to threatened species under the federal EPBC Act, due to habitat destruction and declining numbers in all states.
  • 3.6K
  • 10 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Indoor Air Quality in Healthcare Units
Indoor air quality (IAQ) in Healthcare Units is a complex and dynamic issue of utmost importance for patient safety and occupational health purposes, since healthcare providers, medical practitioners, staff and patients spend long hours in the facilities subject to their inherent air quality. IAQ is affected by outdoor air quality, indoor activities, indoor occupant density, ventilation practices, indoor intrinsic emissions (e.g., equipment/furniture/coatings). The presence of vulnerable individuals and the characteristics of the ongoing activities highlight the importance of adequately managing IAQ in healthcare facilities. Headaches, fatigue, dryness and irritation of the eyes and skin are common complaints of healthcare professionals, which have often been associated with poor IAQ. In addition, hospitals operate on a full-time basis (24 h per day, seven days a week), with no idle time to recover from activities’ emissions and consequent impact on IAQ.
  • 3.6K
  • 20 Jan 2022
Topic Review
Arsenic metabolism, excretion, and toxicity
       Arsenic is a global, naturally present pollutant found in drinking water that is consumed by millions of people throughout the world. Humans have evolved an arsenic methyltransferase present in high levels in the liver to expedite its excretion from the body. Most organisms have this enzyme. The enzyme generates monomethyl (MMA) and dimethyl arsenic (DMA). These methylated species are considered more toxic than arsenite, but they bind less tightly to proteins and thereby are excreted more rapidly from the body. Individuals who have been chronically exposed to arsenite were found to possess advantageous genotypes to metabolize arsenites. However, higher expression of AS3MT was found to yield more toxic MMA but lower amounts were still capable of metabolizing arsenite to DMA. This likely reflects the complex metabolic processes involving not only AS3MT, but antioxidants and upstream regulators of AS3MT, potentially transcription factor NRF2. This article discusses arsenic metabolism, excretion, toxicity, and the evolution of this enzyme across various species. The fact that so many organisms have evolved to possess this arsenite metabolizing enzyme is indicative of the widespread and ancient pollution of our drinking water by arsenite.
  • 3.6K
  • 09 Oct 2020
Topic Review
Normative Social Influence
Normative social influence is a type of social influence that leads to conformity. It is defined in social psychology as "...the influence of other people that leads us to conform in order to be liked and accepted by them." The power of normative social influence stems from the human identity as a social being, with a need for companionship and association. Normative social influence involves a change in behaviour that is deemed necessary in order to fit in a particular group. The need for a positive relationship with the people around leads us to conformity. This fact often leads to people exhibiting public compliance—but not necessarily private acceptance—of the group's social norms in order to be accepted by the group. Social norms refers to the unwritten rules that govern social behavior. These are customary standards for behavior that are widely shared by members of a culture. In many cases, normative social influence serves to promote social cohesion. When a majority of group members conform to social norms, the group generally becomes more stable. This stability translates into social cohesion, which allows group members to work together toward a common understanding, or "good," but also has the unintended impact of making the group members less individualistic.
  • 3.6K
  • 08 Nov 2022
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