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From front-line emergency service workers to policy professionals, teachers, and nurses, the public sector is filled with everyday heroes. But how motivated is your friendly neighborhood public servant? Findings from a new study conducted across Australia and New Zealand have discovered that the answer is in their work environment. The findings are published in the journal Review of Public Personnel Administration.

A method developed by the University of Córdoba (UCO) predicts the fatty acid, phenol, and volatile compound profile of extra virgin olive oil (EVOO) quickly, easily, and accurately by using the olives directly. Virgin olive oil is one of the cornerstones of the Mediterranean diet, and—according to scientific evidence—a source of health benefits. Three chemical families ensure the quality of olive oil: fatty acids, phenols, and volatile compounds responsible for the oil's health benefits, organoleptic properties (such as its fruity aroma), and its oxidative stability, which refers to how long the oil remains in optimal condition without becoming rancid.

Australia's animal sectors now have a comprehensive framework to help strengthen the industry's response to antimicrobial resistance. The Animal Antimicrobial Stewardship Framework helps animal sectors improve and verify day-to-day stewardship practices. The work was co-designed by veterinarians and animal managers based on the study led by CSIRO, Australia's national science agency. The corresponding paper is published in the journal Cambridge Prisms: Antimicrobial Resistance.

Scientists have found that young stellar cousins of our sun are calming down and dimming more quickly in their X-ray output than previously thought, according to a new study using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory. A paper describing the results is published in The Astrophysical Journal. Unlike in the new movie "Project Hail Mary," this quieting of young stars is a benefit for the prospects for life on orbiting planets around these stars, not a threat.

In a new study, appearing in Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, scientists selectively bred Japanese quails into two groups: laying either relatively large or small eggs. As the quails don't do much "parenting" after eggs hatch, mothers' main contribution is the resources they transfer to their eggs (chicks from larger eggs are more likely to survive).

Research on graphene has made great strides in recent years. However, to fully harness its potential in applications such as desalination membranes, sensors, and energy storage and conversion, a deeper understanding of the interaction between graphene and water is required.

Hidden among the red sandstone escarpments of Mutawintji National Park in western New South Wales lives a rare lizard, long isolated in this arid landscape.

Rice has historically been a heat-loving plant. In fact, the wild ancestor of cultivated rice once grew primarily on the sweltering, rain-swept Malay and Indochina peninsulas as well as the islands of Southeast Asia. It wasn't until Earth's climate warmed after the last ice age that wild rice substantially spread into central China and South Asia, where it was independently domesticated by humans in two events that arguably rank among the most important in the history of our species.

Researchers at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev have identified simple rules that explain how complex protein structures assemble correctly and remain functional over time, despite having many theoretically possible configurations. The study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, focuses on bacterioferritin, a bacterial protein complex responsible for safely storing iron. Unlike simpler protein assemblies made of identical parts, many bacterioferritins are built from two different types of subunits, each with a distinct role.

At first glance, the world of ants may seem far removed from our everyday lives. Yet, on closer inspection, they often face surprisingly similar challenges. They live in complex societies where the functioning of a colony relies on tightly organized logistical networks. These networks are structured around key resources and must be both efficient and resilient to disturbances. Wood ants (Formica lugubris) are particularly fascinating in this respect, as they operate genuine transport networks in forest ecosystems.

A new study led by the University of Exeter examined the alpine "vegetation line" (the upper limit of continuous plants) in six regions across the Himalaya, from Ladakh, India in the far west of the mountain range, to the extreme east in Bhutan. The researchers found that plants are growing higher up mountains across the Himalayan region. The paper is published in the journal Ecography.

A major obstacle in the development of powerful quantum computers is the growing number of cables required to control a computer as the number of qubits increases. Researchers at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden have now demonstrated that several qubits can share the same cable—without significantly increasing computation time. Their study is the most comprehensive of its kind and could become an important piece of the puzzle in developing quantum computers. These computers have the potential to revolutionize such areas as drug development and logistics.

Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are nanoscale lipid bilayer particles secreted by cells that mediate intercellular communication by transporting biomolecules such as proteins and RNA. Among them, exosomes have attracted significant attention for applications in diagnostics and therapeutics, including cancer and neurodegenerative diseases. However, standardized criteria for evaluating their quality and functionality remain insufficient.

Beginning in the 1950s, silicon transformed the electronics industry by enabling smaller and faster devices that could be reliably manufactured at scale. More than six decades later, silicon-based semiconductors remain at the heart of many modern technologies, including so-called "classical" computers.