An analysis of data from almost 46,000 people has found that weight loss, nutrient boosting and fat reduction diets can all reduce the symptoms of depression.
Using eye tracking technology, ECU researchers have demonstrated that people don't need to mindfully look at the eyes of their audience to be perceived as making eye contact during face-to-face conversation. Simply gazing somewhere around the face or head will suffice.
What We're Following Today It's Tuesday, February 5. President Donald Trump will deliver his second State of the Union address tonight at 9 p.m. ET. What to Expect: Americans don't need anyone to explain how the country is doing, argues David A. Graham. Instead, tonight's speech will serve more as a kind of checkup on the president himself , an assessment of his own position after he's had his fi
Recommending that pregnant women not drink alcohol has been called old-fashioned and even patriarchal. So, as a feminist, my opinion may come as a surprise.
Snap Inc said the number of people using its Snapchat app would remain at current levels this quarter, easing worries the company would continue to lose users to rival Facebook Inc's Instagram …
A new book by Kristen Ghodsee argues that women had much better sex in communist Eastern Europe than in the West. She attributes this to steps those states took to empower women and their resulting economic independence. While rebuilding the Iron Curtain isn't called for, the author suggests we can learn ways to empower women from these communist regimes. Think of every image of communist Eastern
Technology Shining a UV light on the gliding mammals reveals something beautiful. Flying squirrels are adorable little mammals that weigh less than half a pound—and have fluorescent bellies.
Sinks situated next to patient toilets in hospital rooms may be reservoirs for Klebsiella pneumoniae carbapenemase (KPC), increasing the risk of dangerous germ transmission, according to new research.
How bariatric surgery helps people with obesity and diabetes is related to changes in the way the gut senses food and nutrients after the operation, researchers report. They found that following surgery, altered patterns of digestion and absorption lower in the gut trigger production of higher levels of gut hormones, especially glucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP-1), which in turn causes higher insulin p
Phosphate is a key element in many processes in the body and essential for global food production. Researchers have now developed a method to detect new enzymes from the environment that can release phosphate. This opens up new possibilities for the development and optimization of phytase-based processes for industrial application, biotechnology and environmentally friendly technologies.
Children who have more conflict in relationships with their mothers during early years of elementary school may find it more difficult to find a sense of purpose in life as they reach adulthood, suggests new research from Washington University in St. Louis.
Ever since Darwin first set foot on the Galapagos, evolutionary biologists have long known that the geographic isolation of archipelagos has helped spur the formation of new species. Now, an international research team led by Theresa Cole at the University of Otago, New Zealand, has found the same holds true for penguins. They have found the first compelling evidence that modern penguin diversity
Certain practices in dialysis facilities related to managing fluid volume and low blood pressure during dialysis are important to patients' health and survival.
Phosphate is a key element in many processes in the body and essential for global food production. Researchers have now developed a method to detect new enzymes from the environment that can release phosphate. This opens up new possibilities for the development and optimization of phytase-based processes for industrial application, biotechnology and environmentally friendly technologies.
When we think of life on Earth, we might think of individual examples ranging from animals to bacteria. When astrobiologists study life, however, they have to consider not only individual organisms, but also ecosystems, and the biosphere as a whole.
Before the pair of briefcase-sized spacecraft known collectively as MarCO launched last year, their success was measured by survival: If they were able to operate in deep space at all, they would be pushing the limits of experimental technology.
In May, Denver will vote on whether or not to decriminalize magic mushrooms. In addition to their ability to combat depression and anxiety, magic mushrooms can also affect people's perspective, including their political positions. If Denverites begin to use more magic mushrooms, how will this change their community? None The Mile-High City might be about to get a bit higher. In May, the citizens
In astrobiology, there is an increasing interest in whether life as we know it is a quirk of the particular evolutionary history of the Earth or, instead, if life might be governed by more general organizing principles.
Ever since Darwin first set foot on the Galapagos, evolutionary biologists have long known that the geographic isolation of archipelogos has helped spur the formation of new species.
Customers of QuadrigaCX are out as much as $190 million after CEO Gerry Cotten died; Cotten reportedly was the only one with the key to retrieve the money.
Astronomers designed an astronomy workshop for students with hearing loss that can be easily used in classrooms, museums, fairs, and other public events. The workshop utilized a sound stage that allowed the CSDR students to 'feel' vibrations from rockets, stars, galaxies, supernovae, and even remnants of the Big Bang itself.
Ever since Darwin first set foot on the Galapagos, evolutionary biologists have long known that the geographic isolation of archipelogos has helped spur the formation of new species.
Medical marijuana has gained attention in recent years for its potential to relieve pain and short-term anxiety and depression. Now, Penn State College of Medicine researchers say some cannabinoid compounds may actually inhibit the growth of colon cancer cells in the lab.
A research team designed a study to investigate the role depression symptoms play in an increased risk of death over time. The team also examined the role heart disease and stroke play in the link between depression symptoms and increased risk of death.
Cadillac's bold venture in NYC ends in April. The Cadillac House execs are headed back to Warren, Michigan. The first-floor display area, showroom (look, buy elsewhere), espresso bar, and local-design showroom closes April 1. The post Risking Irrelevance, NYC's Cadillac House to Close in SoHo appeared first on ExtremeTech .
A new article argues that early human ancestors acquired a taste for fat long before they began hunting for meat by scavenging marrow from the skeletal remains of large animals.
Instead of throwing away your broken boots or cracked toys, why not let them fix themselves? Researchers have developed 3D-printed rubber materials that can do just that.
Scientists have found four new anti-CRISPR proteins that are distributed across different environments. The new study suggests that some anti-CRISPR proteins are more widespread in nature than previously anticipated. These anti-CRISPRs can potentially be used to regulate the activity of CRISPR-Cas9 systems better in the future.
The update to the 2011 publication, which includes a large amount of new information that applies to a child considered for tonsillectomy, emphasizes education, counseling, and pain management with several tables and handouts that are user-friendly and helpful to caregivers.
Qatar Petroleum and Exxon Mobil announced Tuesday a final decision to build a natural gas export facility in Texas, giving the official green light to a long-discussed project.
Laser physicists have succeeded in reducing the acquisition time for data required for reliable characterization of multidimensional electron motions by a factor of 1000.
Those spontaneous sounds we make to express everything from elation (woohoo) to embarrassment (oops) say a lot more about what we're feeling than previously understood, according to an analysis of listener responses to more than 2,000 vocal bursts.
Century Club A newly proposed law in Hawaii doesn't outright ban cigarette sales — but it comes close. On Sunday, the Hawaii Tribune-Herald reported that state Rep. Richard Creagan had introduced a new bill in Hawaii's State House. The bill calls for a gradual increase in the minimum age to buy cigarettes in the state, from the current 21 years old to 100 years old by 2024 — and if it passes, the
A Canadian cryptocurrency exchange was granted bankruptcy protection on Monday after its president took passwords for accounts containing Can$180 million ($137 million US) to his grave when he died suddenly.
How have stars and planets developed from the clouds of dust and gas that once filled the cosmos? A novel experiment at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) has demonstrated the validity of a widespread theory known as "magnetorotational instability," or MRI, that seeks to explain the formation of heavenly bodies.
A nationwide study on economic distress was recently released by the Ohio Alliance for Innovation in Population Health ranking the economic performance of all 50 states in the country from 2009 to 2019. While the economy in New Hampshire has remained the healthiest in the United States over the past decade and Mississippi has continued to be the most economically distressed state over that same ti
A decree by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has established a national space agency, but many details are still to come — Read more on ScientificAmerican.com
In traditional seismology, researchers studying how the earth moves in the moments before, during, and after an earthquake rely on sensors that cost tens of thousands of dollars to make and install underground. And because of the expense and labor involved, only a few seismic sensors have been installed throughout remote areas of California, making it hard to understand the impacts of future earth
As self-driving cars continue to develop, there will be plenty of data amassed through cars' navigational technologies. Questions regarding privacy, ownership, cybersecurity and public safety arise, as heavily guarded mapping data is collected and leveraged by companies. The geospatial data can be used to draw new maps identifying the spaces where we live and travel. That information is currently
Researchers have analyzed data from more than 40,000 people in the UK, and found that changes in fruit and vegetable consumption are correlated with changes in mental well-being.
Burn Book One of the Navy's advanced weaponry research facilities is about to wipe its own memory. But instead of formatting a hard drive or two, a research office of the Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) has a call out for contractors who would be able to incinerate some 4,000 pounds of IT equipment, hard drives, and other data storage devices down "to ash," according to Nextgov . Laser Beams T
The Departed When the CEO of a bank dies, the bank's assets and holdings don't get buried along with them. But when it comes to cryptocurrency exchanges — places where you can trade your real-world money for digital currencies like Bitcoin — things work differently. At least, that was the case for Vancouver-based exchange QuadrigaCX. The exchange was plunged into turmoil when the ostensible widow
Long before human ancestors began hunting large mammals for meat, a fatty diet provided them with the nutrition to develop bigger brains, posits a new paper in Current Anthropology.
The production of sperm—otherwise known as spermatogenesis—generates more than 1,000 sperm per second in normal males. This productivity comes, in part, from a special cell type called the spermatogonial stem cell. The staying power of this stem cell has allowed many celebrities, including Robert DeNiro and Pablo Picasso, to father children after the age of 65.
A pragmatic system-based intervention within cancer treatment centers can eliminate existing disparities in treatment and outcomes for black patients with early-stage lung cancer across the U.S. The treatment rates before this three-part intervention were 78 percent for white patients versus 69 percent for black patients. With the intervention in place, treatment rates climbed to 95 percent for wh
The production of sperm—otherwise known as spermatogenesis—generates more than 1,000 sperm per second in normal males. This productivity comes, in part, from a special cell type called the spermatogonial stem cell. The staying power of this stem cell has allowed many celebrities, including Robert DeNiro and Pablo Picasso, to father children after the age of 65.
Instead of throwing away your broken boots or cracked toys, why not let them fix themselves? Researchers at the University of Southern California Viterbi School of Engineering have developed 3-D-printed rubber materials that can do just that.
Health It should be no surprise that dense population centers with low vaccination rates would get outbreaks. Of the 14 counties that researchers predicted last June would have measles outbreaks, three have gone on to have them. More cities could be at risk in the near future as…
Tropical Cyclone 12S has developed east of the African island nation of Madagascar. NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP satellite passed over the Southern Indian Ocean and captured a visible image of the newly formed storm that has triggered a warning for Rodrigues, an outer island of the Republic of Mauritius.
Researchers have found genetic evidence of adaptations in 2,859 regions of the human genome, including some well-known examples such as those responsible for milk tolerance or high-altitude adaptation. The data is part of the PopHumanScan project, an exhaustive catalog of regions that show evidence of natural selection in the human genome.
More than 1 in 10 people successfully treated with antibiotics for Lyme disease go on to develop chronic, sometimes debilitating, and poorly understood symptoms of fatigue and brain fog that may last for years after their initial infection has cleared up.
Researchers have found that the brain stores detailed information of a missing hand decades after amputation, regardless of whether amputees still experience phantom hand sensations.
The authors describe how the modern golfer repeatedly experiences minor traumatic injuries to the spine, which over time can result in a pathogenic process termed 'repetitive traumatic discopathy.'
The ferroelectric polymer PVDF (polyvinylidene fluoride) has interesting properties and could be used to store information or energy. One of the main drawbacks of PVDF is that if you add extra functional groups to improve certain properties, this also interferes with its ferroelectricity. To solve this, scientists have created block copolymers from PVDF that leave its ferroelectricity intact, but
Medical researchers have found that the CD4 surface protein, which is used by HIV and SIV as the receptor to enter immune cells, is highly variable among wild chimpanzees. Understanding how these viruses are transmitted within and between species may reveal clues for novel vaccine strategies in humans.
Nearly 30 years ago, when just 15 percent of Americans had a computer , and even fewer had internet access, Thomas Parkinson set up a rack of modems on a Crate and Barrel wine rack and started accepting orders for the internet's first grocery delivery company, Peapod, which he founded with his brother Andrew. Back then, ordering groceries online was complicated—most customers had dial-up, and Pea
'We wanted to build an AI system that can collaborate with human beings, and at the same time is learning about how humans think, how they act,' one researcher says
A new paper argues that early human ancestors acquired a taste for fat long before they began hunting for meat by scavenging marrow from the skeletal remains of large animals.
In her latest research paper Sirry Alang questions why there is a significant unmet need for mental health care among Blacks and identifies solutions among healthcare systems to fix it: teach the history of racism in medicine; and actively seek, privilege and legitimize the narratives of black people.
Tropical Cyclone 12S has developed east of the African island nation of Madagascar. NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP satellite passed over the Southern Indian Ocean and captured a visible image of the newly formed storm that has triggered a warning for Rodrigues, an outer island of the Republic of Mauritius.
Researchers at Berkeley Lab have turned parts of a 13,000-mile-long testbed of 'dark fiber', unused fiber-optic cable, owned by the DOE Energy Sciences Network (ESnet) into a highly sensitive seismic activity sensor that could potentially augment the performance of earthquake early warning systems currently being developed in the western United States.
As self-driving cars continue to develop, there will be plenty of data amassed through cars' navigational technologies. Questions regarding privacy, ownership, cybersecurity and public safety arise, as heavily guarded mapping data is collected and leveraged by companies. The geospatial data can be used to draw new maps identifying the spaces where we live and travel; yet, is currently housed in te
Under Control Chinese researchers claim they've built a brain-to-brain interface (BBI) that lets humans guide rats through a complex maze — using only their minds. This isn't the first time humans have used BBIs to control other animals. Other researchers have used the devices to wag rats' tails and even control the hands of their fellow humans . But it is the first time a person has used a BBI t
Students from 23 schools across the five boroughs and Westchester County came together to test their smarts in the New York City Regional Brain Bee this past Saturday. Held in the Great Hall at The City College of New York, the 2019 competition concluded after eight rounds of five brain-related questions each, with the top three winners walking away with cash prizes, plaques, and the knowledge th
Asteroid exploration has been all the rage lately, and the European Space Agency (ESA) isn't missing out on the fun. On February 4, ESA released new details about its upcoming Hera mission — the first spacecraft to explore a binary asteroid. The mission will launch to asteroid 65803 Didymos, a binary pair made up of one large body and a smaller object that orbits around it, in 2023. Aptly nickname
While New Horizons is exploring new targets, researchers are still working on the mountains of data it returned in 2015 from its visit to Pluto and its moon Charon. Charon is Pluto's largest companion, and like Pluto, it has a complicated, icy surface dotted with mountains and canyons. Large parts of Charon's surface appear to have been resurfaced in the past, leading to theories of an underground
There is no scientifically significant evidence that expensive prescription pain creams and gels relieve soreness better than a placebo, a study finds. Many who suffer from chronic pain pay anywhere from $20 to thousands of dollars for a tube of prescription topical pain cream or gel, say scientists who conducted a rigorous study that Congress mandated. "Our study of nearly 400 pain patients sugg
Jordens magnetfält har använts för navigering sedan de första kompasserna uppfanns i Kina för tusen år sedan. Men alla kanske inte vet att den magnetiska nordpolen rör sig – och har ökat takten. Och man vet inte varför.
No president in American history has been so deft at capturing public attention as Donald Trump, and yet, paradoxically, he has few tangible political achievements to show for it. In the State of the Union, the president will once more attempt to convert public attention, in the form of his most high-profile speech of the year, into political capital. But he's likely to find that task harder than
A moderate level of piracy can have a positive impact on the bottom line for both the manufacturer and the retailer—and not at the expense of consumers. Millions of fans continue to illegally download HBO's popular television series Game of Thrones , for example, giving it the dubious distinction of being the most pirated program. Many may wonder why the TV network hasn't taken a more aggressive
The famous fossilized feather found in the 1860s is from some unknown animal. The fossil's missing quill has long kept its identity unknown. We're just at the beginning of our awareness of feathered dinosaurs. None Some time in the early 1860s, at the Solnhofen Community Quarry located about halfway between Munich and Nuremburg in Germany, a fossilized feather was discovered in shale deposits. Th
Should you date your coworker? Should workplace couples keep their relationships secret? And why are coworkers so often attracted to each other? Organizational psychologist Amy Nicole Baker shares the real answers to commonly asked questions about romance at the office.
Women's brains appear to be about three years younger than men's of the same chronological age, metabolically speaking, according to a new study. The findings, which appear in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences , could be one clue to why women tend to stay mentally sharp longer than men. "We're just starting to understand how various sex-related factors might affect the trajectory of
The American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery Foundation published the Clinical Practice Guideline: Tonsillectomy in Children (Update) today in Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery. The update to the 2011 publication, which includes a large amount of new information that applies to a child considered for tonsillectomy, emphasizes education, counseling, and pain management with sever
An educational intervention aimed at rural Chinese primary care doctors reduced antibiotic prescriptions for childhood upper respiratory tract infections (URTIs) by 36 percent, even a year after the intervention ended, according to a study published this week in PLOS Medicine by Xiaolin Wei from Dalla Lana School of Public Health of the University of Toronto in Canada, Qiang Sun from School of Hea
In a large UK population-based study, Ian Wong and colleagues at the University of Hong Kong and University College London, UK, found no statistically significant association between the antidepressant trazodone and a reduced risk of dementia when compared to other antidepressants. Their findings were published this week in PLOS Medicine.
Gender-sensitized lifestyle programs delivered in professional football clubs have shown promise in increasing physical activity in Europe and could play an important public health role in engaging underserved men, according to a study published Feb. 5 in the open-access journal PLOS Medicine by Sally Wyke of the University of Glasgow, and colleagues.
Cheap fix saves thousands of seabirds a year Cheap fix saves thousands of seabirds a year, Published online: 05 February 2019; doi:10.1038/d41586-019-00469-3 Streamers on Alaska's fishing fleet prove a boon to rare albatross and other bird species.
Most companies operate on a set of policies: mandated vacation days, travel guidelines, standard work hours, annual goals. But what happens when a company looks less to control and more to trust? Patty McCord, the iconic former chief talent officer at Netflix, shares the key insights that led her to toss the handbook out the window.
Past generations found a company to work for and then stayed there for decades. But today, we rarely stay in the same job (let alone on the same career path) and we don't rely on a single income stream. The tools and resources are out there for us to do our own thing, and more of us are going with the entrepreneurial spirit — even if it's on the side of a traditional job. Podcaster and marketer N
Finding a job used to start with submitting your résumé to a million listings and never hearing back from most of them. But more and more companies are using tech-forward methods to identify candidates. If AI is the future of hiring, what does that mean for you? Technologist Priyanka Jain gives a look at this new hiring landscape.
As the popularity of remote working continues to spread, workers today can collaborate across cities, countries and even multiple time zones. How does this change office dynamics? And how can we make sure that all employees, both at headquarters and at home, feel connected? Matt Mullenweg, cofounder of WordPress and CEO of Automattic (which has a 100 percent distributed workforce), shares his secr
We all want to save more money — but overall, people today are doing less and less of it. Behavioral scientist Wendy De La Rosa studies how everyday people make decisions to improve their financial well-being. What she's found can help you painlessly make the commitment to save more and spend less.
There are three billion working people on this planet, and only 40 percent of them report being happy at work. Michael C. Bush shares his insights into what makes workers unhappy — and how companies can benefit their bottom lines by fostering satisfaction.
Dan Clay was worried about being dismissed as "too gay" at work, so he dialed down his personality. But then his alter ego, Carrie Dragshaw, went viral online. Here's what happened next.
In the early-to-mid 1960s, sci-fi television shows like The Jetsons and Lost In Space introduced America to the idea of personal, at-home robots (Rosey and "the Robot," respectively) that also served a practical purpose. Rosey was primarily used for domestic chores, while "the Robot" helped the Robinson family with travel and security. And as the years went on, countless other science fiction ser
Waymo has already worked with the likes of Fiat Chrysler and Jaguar Land Rover on self-driving cars and is now said to be in talks about a potential partnership with the powerful Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi …
Those spontaneous sounds we make to express everything from elation (woohoo) to embarrassment (oops) say a lot more about what we're feeling than previously understood, according to an analysis of listener responses to more than 2,000 vocal bursts.
Instead of throwing away your broken boots or cracked toys, why not let them fix themselves? Researchers at the University of Southern California Viterbi School of Engineering have developed 3D-printed rubber materials that can do just that.
Scientists from the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Biosustainability (DTU) have found four new anti-CRISPR proteins that are distributed across different environments. The new study published in Cell Host & Microbe suggests that some anti-CRISPR proteins are more widespread in nature than previously anticipated. These anti-CRISPRs can potentially be used to regulate the activity of CRISPR-Cas9
Researchers at the universities of Leeds and York analysed data from more than 40,000 people in the UK, and found that changes in fruit and vegetable consumption are correlated with changes in mental well-being.
Laser physicists have succeeded in reducing the acquisition time for data required for reliable characterization of multidimensional electron motions by a factor of 1000.
Using a leading-edge technique, UC San Diego School of Medicine researchers defined the cell types in both newborn and adult human testes and identified biomarkers for spermatogonial stem cells, opening a path for new strategies to treat male infertility.
Twelve-year-old Vilde lives in Telemark, Norway, a lush rural region famous for its folk music and dance traditions. She is one of the few young women in the country who performs the halling , a Norwegian solo dance traditionally practiced by young men as a show of virility. It is a physically demanding undertaking, with various challenging acrobatic moves that require strength and agility in equ
Today marks the start of the Chinese Lunar New Year 2019, the Year of the Pig. The last of the 12 animals of the Chinese zodiac, the pig is thought of as easygoing and fortunate. In the larger Chinese astrological cycle, this year is also associated with the element of earth, which makes 2019 the Year of the Earth Pig, exemplified by the traits of sociability, kindness, and thoughtfulness. People
Four years after he first came across an unidentified dinosaur in southern Argentina, the paleontologist Pablo Gallina uncovered one of its neck bones and got a surprise. In 2010, he had found a set of dinosaur teeth in Bajada Colorada. This area is rich in fossils, but because many of them are in fragile condition, Gallina had decided not to expose the teeth any further. Instead, he and his coll
Last September, an earthquake triggered a deadly tsunami in Indonesia. Scientists now have clocked the speed of rupture at a blistering 9,600 miles per hour.
Technology What's good for art may also be good for you. Are museums good for wintertime dryness? I decided to investigate and found out exactly what our skin and respiratory system need to thrive.
Thousands of scientists run up against Elsevier's paywall Thousands of scientists run up against Elsevier's paywall, Published online: 05 February 2019; doi:10.1038/d41586-019-00492-4 Researchers have been left without access to new papers as libraries and the major publisher fail to agree on subscription deals.
Second Home It now seems like just a matter of time before humans are living on the Moon. NASA , China's CNSA , Russia's Roscomos , and various private companies are all planning lunar colonization missions. Less certain is what a Moon base should look like — but a team of students at Greece's National Technical University of Athens (NTUA) has a worthwhile suggestion . Team NTUA As a part of the
A San Francisco lawmaker is proposing what would be a nationwide first: a complete moratorium on local government use of facial-recognition technology. Introduced by San Francisco Supervisor Aaron Peskin, the Stop Secret Surveillance Ordinance would ban all city departments from using facial-recognition technology and require board approval before departments purchase new surveillance devices. Th
Enlarged prostates may actually impede the growth of prostate cancer tumors, according to a new study. The findings suggest that it might be a bad idea to downsize an enlarged prostate through surgery or drugs, because doing so could lead to faster growth of prostate cancer. While the five-year survival rate for prostate cancer is generally very high, it is still one of the leading causes of deat
Budget airline Germania filed for bankruptcy on Tuesday, becoming the latest low-cost carrier to go under after the highly competitive industry suffered from rising fuel prices last year.
US officials are fanning out across Europe to warn about the security risks of allowing Chinese telecoms giant Huawei to help build 5G mobile networks, a US diplomat said Tuesday.
Astronomers at the University of California, Riverside, have teamed with teachers at the California School for the Deaf, Riverside, or CSDR, to design an astronomy workshop for students with hearing loss that can be easily used in classrooms, museums, fairs, and other public events.
Undocumented Mexican and Central American immigrants who came to the United States as children or teens, commonly known as "Dreamers," live in more complex and less stable households than their documented or native-born counterparts, according to a new study from Cornell University researchers.
For all their destructive power, most volcanic eruptions are local events. Lava flows tend to reach only a few miles at most, while airborne ash and soot travel a little farther. But occasionally, larger eruptions can launch particles into the stratosphere, more than 6 miles above Earth's surface. The 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines—the world's largest eruption in the past 100 y
A genus of deaf moth has evolved to develop an extraordinary sound-producing structure in its wings to evade its primary predator the bat. The finding, made by researchers from the University of Bristol and Natural History Museum, is described in Scientific Reports today.
A genus of deaf moth has evolved to develop an extraordinary sound-producing structure in its wings to evade its primary predator the bat. The finding, made by researchers from the University of Bristol and Natural History Museum, is described in Scientific Reports today.
Chinese experts say the country's economic, social and political environment played a major role in shaping He Jiankui, the scientist who led controversial research altering the DNA of human embryos. (Image credit: Anthony Wallace/AFP/Getty Images)
The heart at the heart of the room Hasn't stopped. When it does, The room will go on Being a room, without heart. The room has a life of its own Apart from breath, a breath apart.
Similar to forests on land, the most important source of energy for tropical shallow water coral reefs is light. Photosynthetic algae, called zooxanthellae, live within the tissues of reef-building corals and provide them with oxygen and the products of photosynthesis, including glucose and amino acids. The corals, in turn, use these products as the energy source for building calcium carbonate ske
Hanabi is a card game that relies on theory of mind and a higher level of reasoning than either Go or chess—no wonder DeepMind's researchers want to tackle it next.
A ceramic that becomes more or less conductive under different types of strain could lead to a new generation of sensors able to monitor their own health. Those sensors would be embedded in structures like buildings, bridges, and aircraft. The electrical disparity that the two types of strain—elastic and plastic—foster wasn't obvious until researchers modeled a novel two-dimensional compound, gra
The discovery of a new to science species of rare and primitive arthropod from the depths of a cave that was covered by a thick ice sheet until recently is certain to raise questions. In their study, published in the open-access journal Subterranean Biology, entomologist Alberto Sendra and local caver Craig Wagnell describe a new species of cave-dwelling, insect-like campodeid dipluran from the is
A University of Kansas geologist's work in the remote High Arctic of Norway has exposed the startling global spread of antibiotic-resistant microbes—including multidrug-resistant "superbugs"—that could have dire implications for human health worldwide.
New Zealand scientists just discovered the most random object in a frozen seal poo sample: A USB stick that contains adorable sea lion pictures. On Tuesday, the National Institute of Water and …
Astronomers at the University of California, Riverside, have teamed with teachers at the California School for the Deaf, Riverside, or CSDR, to design an astronomy workshop for students with hearing loss that can be easily used in classrooms, museums, fairs, and other public events. The workshop utilized a sound stage that allowed the CSDR students to 'feel' vibrations from rockets, stars, galaxie
The modification of the effect of interactions of a particle as a function of its preselected and postselected states is analyzed theoretically and experimentally. The universality property of this modification in the case of local interactions of a spatially preselected and postselected particle has been found. It allowed us to…
The human pathogen Mycobacterium tuberculosis encodes a proteasome that carries out regulated degradation of bacterial proteins. It has been proposed that the proteasome contributes to nitrogen metabolism in M. tuberculosis, although this hypothesis had not been tested. Upon assessing M. tuberculosis growth in several nitrogen sources, we found that a…
Purkinje neurons in the caudal cerebellar vermis combine semicircular canal and otolith signals to segregate linear and gravitational acceleration, evidence for how the cerebellum creates internal models of body motion. However, it is not known which cerebellar circuit connections are necessary to perform this computation. We first showed that this…
The positioning of chromosomes in the nucleus of a eukaryotic cell is highly organized and has a complex and dynamic relationship with gene expression. In the human malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum, the clustering of a family of virulence genes correlates with their coordinated silencing and has a strong influence on…
The rice SUB1A-1 gene, which encodes a group VII ethylene response factor (ERFVII), plays a pivotal role in rice survival under flooding stress, as well as other abiotic stresses. In Arabidopsis, five ERFVII factors play roles in regulating hypoxic responses. A characteristic feature of Arabidopsis ERFVIIs is a destabilizing N…
Monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus) decline over the past 25 years has received considerable public and scientific attention, in large part because its decline, and that of its milkweed (Asclepias spp.) host plant, have been linked to genetically modified (GM) crops and associated herbicide use. Here, we use museum and herbaria…
Recent Zika virus (ZIKV) outbreaks have highlighted the necessity for development of novel vector control strategies to combat arboviral transmission, including genetic versions of the sterile insect technique, artificial infection with Wolbachia to reduce population size and/or vectoring competency, and gene drive-based methods. Here, we describe the development of mosquitoes…
Structural hierarchy, in which materials possess distinct features on multiple length scales, is ubiquitous in nature. Diverse biological materials, such as bone, cellulose, and muscle, have as many as 10 hierarchical levels. Structural hierarchy confers many mechanical advantages, including improved toughness and economy of material. However, it also presents a…
Adenosine-to-inosine (A-to-I) RNA editing, catalyzed by ADAR enzymes, is a ubiquitous mechanism that generates transcriptomic diversity. This process is particularly important for proper neuronal function; however, little is known about how RNA editing is dynamically regulated between the many functionally distinct neuronal populations of the brain. Here, we present a…
Mutations in the MFN2 gene encoding Mitofusin 2 lead to the development of Charcot–Marie–Tooth type 2A (CMT2A), a dominant axonal form of peripheral neuropathy. Mitofusin 2 is localized at both the outer membrane of mitochondria and the endoplasmic reticulum and is particularly enriched at specialized contact regions known as mitochondria-associated…
Plant specialized metabolism (SM) enzymes produce lineage-specific metabolites with important ecological, evolutionary, and biotechnological implications. Using Arabidopsis thaliana as a model, we identified distinguishing characteristics of SM and GM (general metabolism, traditionally referred to as primary metabolism) genes through a detailed study of features including duplication pattern, sequ
The clade A protein phosphatase 2C Highly ABA-Induced 1 (HAI1) plays an important role in stress signaling, yet little information is available on HAI1-regulated phosphoproteins. Quantitative phosphoproteomics identified phosphopeptides of increased abundance in hai1-2 in unstressed plants and in plants exposed to low-water potential (drought) stress. The identity and localization…
In nature, plants must respond to multiple stresses simultaneously, which likely demands cross-talk between stress-response pathways to minimize fitness costs. Here we provide genetic evidence that biotic and abiotic stress responses are differentially prioritized in Arabidopsis thaliana leaves of different ages to maintain growth and reproduction under combined biotic and…
The unicellular green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii displays metabolic flexibility in response to a changing environment. We analyzed expression patterns of its three genomes in cells grown under light–dark cycles. Nearly 85% of transcribed genes show differential expression, with different sets of transcripts being up-regulated over the course of the day…
Adaptive immune response is part of the dynamic changes that accompany motoneuron loss in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). CD4+ T cells that regulate a protective immunity during the neurodegenerative process have received the most attention. CD8+ T cells are also observed in the spinal cord of patients and ALS mice…
In most flowering plants, the asymmetric cell division of the zygote is the initial step in establishing the apical–basal axis of the mature plant. The zygote is polarized, possessing the nucleus at the apical tip and large vacuoles at the basal end. Despite their known polar localization, whether the positioning…
MEDICAL SCIENCES Correction for "KDM4B protects against obesity and metabolic dysfunction," by Yingduan Cheng, Quan Yuan, Laurent Vergnes, Xin Rong, Ji Youn Youn, Jiong Li, Yongxin Yu, Wei Liu, Hua Cai, Jiandie D. Lin, Peter Tontonoz, Christine Hong, Karen Reue, and Cun-Yu Wang, which was first published May 29, 2018;…
NEUROSCIENCE Correction for "Activity-dependent bulk endocytosis proteome reveals a key presynaptic role for the monomeric GTPase Rab11," by A. C. Kokotos, J. Peltier, E. C. Davenport, M. Trost, and M. A. Cousin, which was first published October 9, 2018; 10.1073/pnas.1809189115 (Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 115:E10177–E10186). The authors note that…
How reef-building corals attract photosynthetic symbionts Green fluorescence from corals. Most reef-building corals acquire the symbiotic alga Symbiodinium from surrounding waters, but how the immobile corals attract free-living Symbiodinium remains unclear. Yusuke Aihara et al. (pp. 2118–2123) tested the hypothesis that bright green fluorescence emitted by the corals' green fluorescent…
Whole-genome duplication (WGD) is considered a key evolutionary event for genetic innovation and has occurred in diverse eukaryotic lineages (1). In PNAS, Li et al. (2) report multiple WGD events in hexapods, which is surprising because WGD is thought to be disruptive in animals with chromosomal sex determination and therefore…
As we wrote in our original report of these events (1), readers should not rush to interpret the six ancient large-scale duplications in hexapods as whole-genome duplications (WGDs). Analyses of syntenic relationships are needed to understand the evolutionary processes underlying these large-scale duplications that we inferred with phylogenomic methods (1)….
Recently in PNAS, Luo et al. (1) report the observation of heteroplasmic mixtures of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) in the blood of three unrelated patients suffering from different mitochondrial disorders. The affected mixed positions coincide with signature mutations of established haplogroups (2), suggesting that each mixture consists of a different pair…
In Luo et al. (1), we report the transmission of paternal mtDNA in 17 individuals across three unrelated families. In their letter responding to this paper, Lutz-Bonengel et al. (2) argue that these results do not provide sufficient evidence for paternal inheritance of mtDNA. Instead, they propose that these biparental…
The freezing of a liquid into a crystalline solid is a ubiquitous and familiar phase transition that affects many aspects of our daily life. The crystallization of water, for example, has broad implications for our planet's climate and geography, and for diverse applications ranging from food and energy production to…
Determinants of Successful Neurocognitive Aging One of the major scientific problems of the 21st century is determining how to maintain cognitive vitality in late adulthood and prevent age-related cognitive decline. There is considerable evidence that adults age 60 y and older have better cognition in late adulthood when they maintain…
Virtually the first thing a young population genetics student will learn is that changes in gene frequency can be caused by genetic drift, natural selection, and migration. However, quantifying the relative importance of these mechanisms on changes in a population's genetic composition is a major challenge in any study system….
Interactions between glycans and glycan binding proteins are essential for numerous processes in all kingdoms of life. Glycan microarrays are an excellent tool to examine protein–glycan interactions. Here, we present a microbe-focused glycan microarray platform based on oligosaccharides obtained by chemical synthesis. Glycans were generated by combining different carbohydrate synthesis…
Ordered intermetallic nanoparticles are promising electrocatalysts with enhanced activity and durability for the oxygen-reduction reaction (ORR) in proton-exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs). The ordered phase is generally identified based on the existence of superlattice ordering peaks in powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD). However, after employing a widely used postsynthesis annealing treatment,.
Paleomagnetic observations provide valuable evidence of the strength of magnetic fields present during evolution of the Solar System. Such information provides important constraints on physical processes responsible for rapid accretion of the protoplanetesimal disk. For this purpose, magnetic recordings must be stable and resist magnetic overprints from thermal events and…
We challenge the conventional designation of structural matrix proteins primarily as supporting scaffolds for resident cells. The extracellular matrix protein tropoelastin is classically regarded as a structural component that confers mechanical strength and resilience to tissues subject to repetitive elastic deformation. Here we describe how tropoelastin inherently induces a range…
The gene encoding the cyanobacterial ferritin SynFtn is up-regulated in response to copper stress. Here, we show that, while SynFtn does not interact directly with copper, it is highly unusual in several ways. First, its catalytic diiron ferroxidase center is unlike those of all other characterized prokaryotic ferritins and instead…
Nectin-like (Necl) molecules are Ca2+-independent Ig-like transmembrane cell adhesion molecules that participate in junctions between different cell types. The specific cell–cell adhesions mediated by Necl proteins are important in neural development and have been implicated in neurodegenerative diseases. Here, we present the crystal structure of the mouse Necl-4 full ectodomain…
Allosteric couplings underlie many cellular signaling processes and provide an exciting avenue for development of new diagnostics and therapeutics. A general method for identifying important residues in allosteric mechanisms would be very useful, but remains elusive due to the complexity of long-range phenomena. Here, we introduce an NMR method to…
Cells of all mammals recognize double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) as a foreign material. In response, they release interferons (IFNs) and activate a ubiquitously expressed pseudokinase/endoribonuclease RNase L. RNase L executes regulated RNA decay and halts global translation. Here, we developed a biosensor for 2′,5′-oligoadenylate (2-5A), the natural activator of RNase L….
Voluntary sustainability standards (VSS) are stakeholder-derived principles with measurable and enforceable criteria to promote sustainable production outcomes. While institutional commitments to use VSS to meet sustainable procurement policies have grown rapidly over the past decade, we still have relatively little understanding of the (i) direct environmental benefits of large-scale VSS…
Reactive nitrogen oxides (NOy; NOy = NO + NO2 + HONO) decrease air quality and impact radiative forcing, yet the factors responsible for their emission from nonpoint sources (i.e., soils) remain poorly understood. We investigated the factors that control the production of aerobic NOy in forest soils using molecular techniques,…
A central goal of population genetics is to understand how genetic drift, natural selection, and gene flow shape allele frequencies through time. However, the actual processes underlying these changes—variation in individual survival, reproductive success, and movement—are often difficult to quantify. Fully understanding these processes requires the population pedigree, the set…
A comprehensive analysis of relative gene order, or microsynteny, can provide valuable information for understanding the evolutionary history of genes and genomes, and ultimately traits and species, across broad phylogenetic groups and divergence times. We have used our network-based phylogenomic synteny analysis pipeline to first analyze the overall patterns and…
Pre-mRNA splicing must occur with extremely high fidelity. Spliceosomes assemble onto pre-mRNA guided by specific sequences (5′ splice site, 3′ splice site, and branchpoint). When splice sites are mutated, as in many hereditary diseases, the spliceosome can aberrantly select nearby pseudo- or "cryptic" splice sites, often resulting in nonfunctional protein….
Secondary hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis (sHLH) is a highly mortal complication associated with sepsis. In adults, it is often seen in the setting of infections, especially viral infections, but the mechanisms that underlie pathogenesis are unknown. sHLH is characterized by a hyperinflammatory state and the presence hemophagocytosis. We found that sequential challenging…
In ovarian cancer patients, tumor fibrosis and angiotensin-driven fibrogenic signaling have been shown to inversely correlate with survival. We sought to enhance drug delivery and therapeutic efficacy by remodeling the dense extracellular matrix in two orthotopic human ovarian carcinoma xenograft models. We hypothesized that targeting the angiotensin signaling axis with…
Extensive studies have detailed the molecular regulation of individual components of the hemostatic system, including platelets, coagulation factors, and regulatory proteins. Questions remain, however, about how these elements are integrated at the systems level within a rapidly changing physical environment. To answer some of these questions, we developed a puncture…
The genus Legionella comprises 65 species, among which Legionella pneumophila is a human pathogen causing severe pneumonia. To understand the evolution of an environmental to an accidental human pathogen, we have functionally analyzed 80 Legionella genomes spanning 58 species. Uniquely, an immense repository of 18,000 secreted proteins encoding 137 different…
In antiviral RNA interference (RNAi), Dicer plays a primary role in processing double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) molecules into small-interfering RNAs (siRNAs) that guide Argonaute effectors to posttranscriptional suppression of target viral genes. Here, we show a distinct role for Dicer in the siRNA-independent transcriptional induction of certain host genes upon viral…
HIV-1 integrates into the genome of target cells and establishes latency indefinitely. Understanding the molecular mechanism of HIV-1 latency maintenance is needed for therapeutic strategies to combat existing infection. In this study, we found an unexpected role for Apobec3A (apolipoprotein B MRNA editing enzyme catalytic subunit 3A, abbreviated "A3A") in…
Differentiation between self-produced tactile stimuli and touch by others is necessary for social interactions and for a coherent concept of "self." The mechanisms underlying this distinction are unknown. Here, we investigated the distinction between self- and other-produced light touch in healthy volunteers using three different approaches: fMRI, behavioral testing, and…
The Sackler Colloquium "Creativity and Collaboration: Revisiting Cybernetic Serendipity" was held at the building of the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, DC on March 13–14, 2018 (www.nasonline.org/Cybernetic_Serendipity). This Sackler Colloquium celebrated the 50th anniversary of the famed art exhibit "Cybernetic Serendipity" by reconsidering how disciplinary partnerships could more rel
Alex Manu describes an "imagination gap," that is, "the gap between current capability and future possibility" [Manu A (2006) The Imagination Challenge: Strategic Foresight and Innovation in the Global Economy]. Merriam-Webster defines imagination as "the act of forming a mental image of something not present to the senses or never…
A potential path for enabling greater creativity and collaboration is through increased arts and science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) integration in education and research. This approach has been a growing discussion in US national forums and is the foundation of the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics plus arts and…
A tumor is made up of a heterogeneous collection of cell types, all competing on a fitness landscape mediated by microenvironmental conditions that dictate their interactions. Despite the fact that much is known about cell signaling, cellular cooperation, and the functional constraints that affect cellular behavior, the specifics of how…
Fundamental to classical and quantum vortices, superconductors, magnetic flux tubes, liquid crystals, cosmic strings, and DNA is the phenomenon of reconnection of line-like singularities. We visualize reconnection of quantum vortices in superfluid 4He, using submicrometer frozen air tracers. Compared with previous work, the fluid was almost at rest, leading to…
Photoexcitation in solids brings about transitions of electrons/holes between different electronic bands. If the solid lacks an inversion symmetry, these electronic transitions support spontaneous photocurrent due to the geometric phase of the constituting electronic bands: the Berry connection. This photocurrent, termed shift current, is expected to emerge on the timescale…
From early 2003 to mid-2013, the total mass of ice in Greenland declined at a progressively increasing rate. In mid-2013, an abrupt reversal occurred, and very little net ice loss occurred in the next 12–18 months. Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) and global positioning system (GPS) observations reveal that…
Inflammasomes are large protein complexes that trigger host defense in cells by activating inflammatory caspases for cytokine maturation and pyroptosis. NLRP6 is a sensor protein in the nucleotide-binding domain (NBD) and leucine-rich repeat (LRR)-containing (NLR) inflammasome family that has been shown to play multiple roles in regulating inflammation and host…
Living systems produce "persistent" copies of information-carrying polymers, in which template and copy sequences remain correlated after physically decoupling. We identify a general measure of the thermodynamic efficiency with which these nonequilibrium states are created and analyze the accuracy and efficiency of a family of dynamical models that produce persistent…
Self-replication and exponential growth are ubiquitous in nature but until recently there were few examples of artificial self-replication. Often replication is a templated process where a parent produces a single offspring, doubling the population in each generation. Many species however produce more than one offspring at a time, enabling faster…
We developed the RexPoN force field for water based entirely on quantum mechanics. It predicts the properties of water extremely accurately, with Tmelt = 273.3 K (273.15 K) and properties at 298 K: ΔHvap = 10.36 kcal/mol (10.52), density = 0.9965 g/cm3 (0.9965), entropy = 68.4 J/mol/K (69.9), and dielectric…
The amino acid, polyamine, and organocation (APC) superfamily is the second largest superfamily of membrane proteins forming secondary transporters that move a range of organic molecules across the cell membrane. Each transporter in the APC superfamily is specific for a unique subset of substrates, even if they possess a similar…
The aggregation of monomeric amyloid β protein (Aβ) peptide into oligomers and amyloid fibrils in the mammalian brain is associated with Alzheimer's disease. Insight into the thermodynamic stability of the Aβ peptide in different polymeric states is fundamental to defining and predicting the aggregation process. Experimental determination of Aβ thermodynamic…
It is commonly believed that bacterial chemotaxis helps cells find food. However, not all attractants are nutrients, and not all nutrients are strong attractants. Here, by using microfluidic experiments, we studied Escherichia coli chemotaxis behavior in the presence of a strong chemoattractant (e.g., aspartate or methylaspartate) gradient and an opposing…
Activation of the integrated stress response (ISR) by a variety of stresses triggers phosphorylation of the α-subunit of translation initiation factor eIF2. P-eIF2α inhibits eIF2B, the guanine nucleotide exchange factor that recycles inactive eIF2•GDP to active eIF2•GTP. eIF2 phosphorylation thereby represses translation. Persistent activation of the ISR has been linked…
Fluorescent theranostics probes at the second near-IR region (NIR-II; 1.0–1.7 µm) are in high demand for precise theranostics that minimize autofluorescence, reduce photon scattering, and improve the penetration depth. Herein, we designed and synthesized an NIR-II theranostic nanoprobe 1 that incorporates a Pt(II) metallacycle 2 and an organic molecular dye…
Analogy—the ability to find and apply deep structural patterns across domains—has been fundamental to human innovation in science and technology. Today there is a growing opportunity to accelerate innovation by moving analogy out of a single person's mind and distributing it across many information processors, both human and machine. Doing…
Morphogenesis often yields organs with robust size and shapes, whereas cell growth and deformation feature significant spatiotemporal variability. Here, we investigate whether tissue responses to mechanical signals contribute to resolve this apparent paradox. We built a model of growing tissue made of fiber-like material, which may account for the cytoskeleton,…
Hagfish depart so much from other fishes anatomically that they were sometimes considered not fully vertebrate. They may represent: (i) an anatomically primitive outgroup of vertebrates (the morphology-based craniate hypothesis); or (ii) an anatomically degenerate vertebrate lineage sister to lampreys (the molecular-based cyclostome hypothesis). This systematic conundrum has become a…
Citizen science has proved to be a unique and effective tool in helping science and society cope with the ever-growing data rates and volumes that characterize the modern research landscape. It also serves a critical role in engaging the public with research in a direct, authentic fashion and by doing…
Increasing evidence for rapid evolution suggests that the maintenance of species diversity in ecological communities may be influenced by more than purely ecological processes. Classic theory shows that interspecific competition may select for traits that increase niche differentiation, weakening competition and thus promoting species coexistence. While empirical work has demonstrated…
Reef-building corals thrive in nutrient-poor marine environments because of an obligate symbiosis with photosynthetic dinoflagellates of the genus Symbiodinium. Symbiosis is established in most corals through the uptake of Symbiodinium from the environment. Corals are sessile for most of their life history, whereas free-living Symbiodinium are motile; hence, a mechanism…
Amphibians are known to possess a wide variety of compounds stored in their skin glands. While significant progress has been made in understanding the chemical diversity and biological relevance of alkaloids, amines, steroids, and peptides, most aspects of the odorous secretions are completely unknown. In this study, we examined sexual…
Microarchitectural cues drive aligned fibrillar collagen deposition in vivo and in biomaterial scaffolds, but the cell-signaling events that underlie this process are not well understood. Utilizing a multicellular patterning model system that allows for observation of intracellular signaling events during collagen matrix assembly, we investigated the role of calcium (Ca2+)…
The explosive growth in citizen science combined with a recalcitrance on the part of mainstream science to fully embrace this data collection technique demands a rigorous examination of the factors influencing data quality and project efficacy. Patterns of contributor effort and task performance have been well reviewed in online projects;…
What kind of genetic variation contributes the most to adaptation is a fundamental question in evolutionary biology. By resequencing genomes of 80 individuals, we inferred the origin of genomic variants associated with a complex adaptive syndrome involving multiple quantitative traits, namely, adaptation between high and low altitudes, in the vinous-throated…
Cancer is as ancient as multicellularity itself. But not all animals get cancer at the same rate. Some, such as elephants and naked mole rats, rarely get it at all, whereas others, such as ferrets and dogs, have cancer at unusually high rates. The question is why. Despite their size…
The potential impact of structural variants includes not only the duplication or deletion of coding sequences, but also the perturbation of noncoding DNA regulatory elements and structural chromatin features, including topological domains (TADs). Structural variants disrupting TAD boundaries have been implicated both in cancer and developmental disease; this likely occurs…
Angelman syndrome (AS) is a severe neurodevelopmental disorder caused by the loss of function from the maternal allele of UBE3A, a gene encoding an E3 ubiquitin ligase. UBE3A is only expressed from the maternally inherited allele in mature human neurons due to tissue-specific genomic imprinting. Imprinted expression of UBE3A is…
Sex promotes the recombination and reassortment of genetic material and is prevalent across eukaryotes, although our knowledge of the molecular details of sexual inheritance is scant in several major lineages. In social amoebae, sex involves a promiscuous mixing of cytoplasm before zygotes consume the majority of cells, but for technical…
Homoharringtonine (HHT), a known protein synthesis inhibitor, has an anti-myeloid leukemia effect and potentiates the therapeutic efficacy of anthracycline/cytarabine induction regimens for acute myelogenous leukemia (AML) with favorable and intermediate prognoses, especially in the t(8;21) subtype. Here we provide evidence showing that HHT inhibits the activity of leukemia-initiating cells (Lin−/
Malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM) is an aggressive malignancy associated with exposure to asbestos, with poor prognosis and no effective therapies. The strong inhibitory activities of growth hormone-releasing hormone (GHRH) antagonists have been demonstrated in different experimental human cancers, including lung cancer; however, their role in MPM remains unknown. We assessed…
Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) play a fundamental role in cancer progression. However, in mice, limited blood volume and the rarity of CTCs in the bloodstream preclude longitudinal, in-depth studies of these cells using existing liquid biopsy techniques. Here, we present an optofluidic system that continuously collects fluorescently labeled CTCs from…
Esophageal adenocarcinoma (EAC) has a dismal prognosis, and survival benefits of recent multimodality treatments remain small. Cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs) are known to contribute to poor outcome by conferring therapy resistance to various cancer types, but this has not been explored in EAC. Importantly, a targeted strategy to circumvent CAF-induced resistance…
Reversible biological electron transfer usually occurs between redox couples at standard redox potentials ranging from +0.8 to −0.5 V. Dearomatizing benzoyl-CoA reductases (BCRs), key enzymes of the globally relevant microbial degradation of aromatic compounds at anoxic sites, catalyze a biological Birch reduction beyond the negative limit of this redox window….
Endothelial heterogeneity has important implications in health and disease. Molecular markers selectively expressed in the vasculature of different organs and tissues are currently being explored in targeted therapies with promising results in preclinical and clinical studies. Noteworthy is the role that combinatorial approaches such as phage display have had in…
The macaque dorsal occipital cortex is generally thought to contain an elongated third visual area, V3d, extending along most of the rostral border of area V2. In contrast, our submillimeter retinotopic fMRI maps (0.6-mm isotropic voxels, achieved by implanted phased-array receive coils) consistently show three sectors anterior to V2d. The…
By investigating the bulk superconducting state via dc magnetization measurements, we have discovered a common resurgence of the superconducting transition temperatures (Tcs) of the monolayer Bi2Sr2CuO6+δ (Bi2201) and bilayer Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+δ (Bi2212) to beyond the maximum Tcs (Tc-maxs) predicted by the universal relation between Tc and doping (p) or pressure (P)…
When an ice crystal is born from liquid water, two key changes occur: (i) The molecules order and (ii) the mobility of the molecules drops as they adopt their lattice positions. Most research on ice nucleation (and crystallization in general) has focused on understanding the former with less attention paid…
Translational dynamics of 2D glass-forming fluids is strongly influenced by soft, long-wavelength fluctuations first recognized by D. Mermin and H. Wagner. As a result of these fluctuations, characteristic features of glassy dynamics, such as plateaus in the mean-squared displacement and the self-intermediate scattering function, are absent in two dimensions. In…
Much contemporary rhetoric regards the prospects and pitfalls of using artificial intelligence techniques to automate an increasing range of tasks, especially those once considered the purview of people alone. These accounts are often wildly optimistic, understating outstanding challenges while turning a blind eye to the human labor that undergirds and…
Previous studies of science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medical (STEMM) professionals have identified a common "mental toolkit" composed of 13 "tools for thinking" that STEMM professionals use in their problem raising and problem solving. The present research surveyed a convenience sample of 225 STEMM professionals to investigate whether these "thinking…
How and when education improves cognitive capacity is an issue of profound societal importance. Education and later-life education-related factors, such as occupational complexity and engagement in cognitive-intellectual activities, are frequently considered indices of cognitive reserve, but whether their effects are truly causal remains unclear. In this study, after accounting for…
Humans move their eyes several times per second, yet we perceive the outside world as continuous despite the sudden disruptions created by each eye movement. To date, the mechanism that the brain employs to achieve visual continuity across eye movements remains unclear. While it has been proposed that the oculomotor…
In the information age, the ability to read and construct data visualizations becomes as important as the ability to read and write text. However, while standard definitions and theoretical frameworks to teach and assess textual, mathematical, and visual literacy exist, current data visualization literacy (DVL) definitions and frameworks are not…
The nature of work is changing rapidly in the digital age, increasing the demand for skills in specific disciplines. Across the United States and beyond, this evolution has led to an increased emphasis on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education at every level. Meanwhile, at US institutions of higher…
Water is becoming an increasingly precious resource across the world, but citizens can help ensure good-quality water by helping to manage their local watersheds. Local, place-based advocacy projects that are strongly grounded within their geographical area have the potential to inspire environmental change as citizens come together to collectively address…
Many leaders today do not rise through the ranks but are recruited directly out of graduate programs into leadership positions. We use a quasi-experiment and instrumental-variable regression to understand the link between students' graduate school social networks and placement into leadership positions of varying levels of authority. Our data measure…
Gender inequality starts early in life. Parents tend to prefer boys over girls, which is manifested in reproductive behavior, marital life, and parents' pastimes and investments in their children. While social media and sharing information about children (so-called "sharenting") have become an integral part of parenthood, whether and how gender…
The discovery of a new to science species of rare and primitive arthropod from the depths of a cave that was covered by a thick ice sheet until recently is certain to raise questions. In their study, published in the open-access journal Subterranean Biology, entomologist Alberto Sendra and local caver Craig Wagnell describe a new species of cave-dwelling, insect-like campodeid dipluran from the is
Phosphate is a key element in many processes in the body and essential for global food production. Researchers at the University of Göttingen have now developed a method to detect new enzymes from the environment that can release phosphate. This opens up new possibilities for the development and optimisation of phytase-based processes for industrial application, biotechnology and environmentally f
A ceramic that becomes more electrically conductive under elastic strain and less conductive under plastic strain could lead to a new generation of sensors embedded into structures like buildings, bridges and aircraft able to monitor their own health.
Optimizing advanced composites for specific end uses can be costly and time consuming, requiring manufacturers to test many samples to arrive at the best formulation. Investigators at the NYU Tandon School of Engineering have designed a machine learning system employing artificial neural networks (ANN) capable of extrapolating from data derived from just one sample, thereby quickly formulating and
Phosphate is a key element in many processes in the body and essential for global food production. Researchers at the University of Göttingen have now developed a method to detect new enzymes from the environment that can release phosphate. This opens up new possibilities for the development and optimisation of phytase-based processes for industrial application, biotechnology and environmentally f
We rely on antibiotics to treat bacterial infections, but the rise of antibiotic-resistant bacteria forces doctors and patients to contend with shifting treatment plans. Furthermore, current laboratory tests to determine what bacteria is causing a particular infection takes days to complete and, in cases of serious infection, the results are often too late for the patient.
British new car sales slid in January from a year earlier, as weak demand for high-polluting diesel overshadowed a surge for electric-powered vehicles, industry data showed Tuesday.
We thought that the Last Universal Common Ancestor of all living things was adapted to live in scorching heat, but a new study suggests it was missing a key gene
We may be more likely to correctly evaluate a news stories' accuracy and agree with stories that contradict our views when there's cash on the line, according to new research. People are far more likely to say that news stories are true if they align with their own political views regardless of the outlet, the findings show. "There's an issue of expressive responding, where people say what they w
Space Toilet Russian media is reporting that the American toilet on the International Space Station (ISS) burst late last week, spilling gallons of fluid that astronauts had to catch with towels. Sure, it sounds like a story about an exceptionally bad roommate — but it might also be the latest escalation in the deterioration of relations between Russia and the U.S. in space, lending grim gravitas
Researchers have combined the largest description of ST3GAL5 (GM3 synthase) deficiency using detailed natural history data from 104 individuals of Amish ancestry born between 1986 and 2017 with a definite or probable diagnosis of ST3GAL5 deficiency. The study examined objective measures of biochemistry, auditory function, brain development, and caregiver burden. GM3 synthase is encoded by ST3GAL5,
Plants compete with each other for sunlight, which is essential for plants to feed and grow. When plants perceive the shade of other plants, a mechanism known as the shade avoidance syndrome (SAS) activates to grow more than the neighbouring plants. Nevertheless, overgrowing might put the plant at risk if the light conditions change. Researchers have now discovered that, through retrograde signall
Common Sense Artificial intelligence has made incredible strides analyzing data to find obscure patterns, but it still can't come anywhere near a human understanding of context or common sense. To help algorithms learn some common sense, the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence has created an unusual task: pitting machine learning algorithms against humanity in a game of online Pictionary,
While it was believed you cannot learn new information while asleep, a new study in Switzerland makes the case for sleep encoding. 41 native German speakers were introduced to a nonsense word alongside a German word to forge a relationship. When tested while awake, the real word was defined by the nonsense word 10 percent higher than random chance, suggesting a bond was formed while asleep. None
A new paper suggests the Moon is mostly made of material from Earth, not the impactor that struck our planet. The post NASA Study: Moon Is Made of Material From Earth, Not Theia appeared first on ExtremeTech .
The mummies spanned all ages and were buried in various types of tombs, all seeming to date back to the Ptolemaic dynasty, which lasted from 305 to 30 B.C.
Trying to model what the cascading impact of anthropogenic climate change might be around the world is challenging to say the least. This isn't a simple relationship where global average temperature goes up and everything changes in concert. As we've seen in the United States with the Polar Vortex, a warmer average global climate can also mean much colder short-term weather as typical patterns are
(Inside Science) — Researchers from Japan have come up with a way to encourage materials to grow stronger over time, like the muscles in our body. The new technique could allow engineers to design adaptable and healable materials for a wide range of applications. When we lift weights in the gym, the mechanical stress causes our muscle fibers to rip and tear, but this damaging action actually allo
A team of researchers led by Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego has created a scale to characterize the strength and impacts of the weather phenomenon known as 'atmospheric rivers.'
Step Aside When people talk about the gene-editing tool CRISPR, they usually mean CRISPR-Cas9 . But Cas9 is just one of several CRISPR-associated proteins. A few others are Cas12a , CasY, and CasX . These proteins act as the "scissors" in the CRISPR system, which acts as a natural defense against viruses for some bacteria, similarly to the immune system in humans. The proteins cut DNA at just the
Anarchists are often typecast in popular opinion as black-clothed bomb-throwers. However, many would be surprised by the number and identities of different anarchists. What's more, anarchist beliefs aren't simply that the state should be overthrown; there are many different variations and interpretations. None It takes an independent mind to declare oneself an anarchist , but even so, the stories
Strings of ocean storms called atmospheric rivers flood California and other western coastlines, although sometimes they can be beneficial — Read more on ScientificAmerican.com
Gut hormone adds to obesity surgery's benefits Gut hormone adds to obesity surgery's benefits, Published online: 05 February 2019; doi:10.1038/d41586-019-00466-6 Weight-loss operation raises levels of a hormone involved in appetite and insulin release.
The research team has developed the method of neural source-filter (NSF) models for high-speed, high-quality voice synthesis. This technique, which combines the recent deep-learning algorithms and a classical speech production model dated back to the 1960s, is capable not only of generating high-quality voice waveforms — closely resembling the human voice — but also of conducting stable learning
Scientists have revealed how a protein produced by HIV-1 plays a broader role in suppressing the immune system's response to infection than previously thought.
A team of researchers led by Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego has created a scale to characterize the strength and impacts of "atmospheric rivers," long narrow bands of atmospheric water vapor pushed along by strong winds. They are prevalent over the Pacific Ocean and can deliver to the Western United States much of its precipitation during just a few i
Study finds failure of English language medical journals to comply with international ethical standards A world-first study has called for the mass retraction of more than 400 scientific papers on organ transplantation, amid fears the organs were obtained unethically from Chinese prisoners. The Australian-led study exposes a mass failure of English language medical journals to comply with interna
We rely on antibiotics to treat bacterial infections, but the rise of antibiotic-resistant bacteria forces doctors and patients to contend with shifting treatment plans. Furthermore, current laboratory tests to determine what bacteria is causing a particular infection takes days to complete and can be too late for the patient. Mechanical engineers in Korea recently developed a microchip antibiotic
Researchers have developed a new isotopic method to analyze the recent history of large stratospheric volcanic eruptions, using 2,600 years' worth of records contained in ice cores from Antarctica. Stratospheric eruptions can launch sulfate particles more than 6 miles above Earth's surface, where they reflect sunlight and temporarily cool the planet. By understanding the history of big eruptions,
Sinks situated next to patient toilets in hospital rooms may be reservoirs for Klebsiella pneumoniae carbapenemase (KPC), increasing the risk of dangerous germ transmission, according to new research published in the American Journal of Infection Control (AJIC), the journal of the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology.
Surface water protection is well below global targets in over half of the world's countries, according to a new study from the Joint Research Centre, the European Commission's science and knowledge service.
Strings of ocean storms called atmospheric rivers flood California and other western coastlines, although sometimes they can be beneficial — Read more on ScientificAmerican.com
Biofuel After you get a medical device like a pacemaker implanted, you'll probably need occasional surgeries to replace its batteries. But thanks to new research, that could soon change. A new device can take the kinetic energy of a beating heart and converts it into electricity — a bold glimpse of a cyborg future in which your heart could power up implants like pacemakers. Slow and Steady Dartmo
Vom Cannon The Russian Navy has outfitted two warships with a weapon that it says makes enemies hallucinate and become disoriented. That's according to a fearsome description of the weapon in RIA Novosti , a state-run media outlet in Russia — and it could be a terrifying peek at the future of warfare. Light Lunch Russia-owned Ruselectronics developed the weapon, called the Filin . It works, accor
Hundreds of genes have been newly linked to depression, shedding light on the origins of the condition and highlighting personality types that could be at risk. The international study, involving more than two million people, is the largest of its kind.
A new transistor based on organic materials has been developed. It has the ability to learn, and is equipped with both short-term and long-term memory. The work is a major step on the way to creating technology that mimics the human brain.
When it comes to realizing low-power electronic devices, spintronics looks promising. However, to generate a suitable spin current, you need a relatively large magnet. An alternative method that uses a special type of molecule has been proposed, but the big question is: does it work? Researchers have constructed a theoretical model which describes how to put this new method to the test.
Using eye tracking technology, researchers have demonstrated that people don't need to mindfully look at the eyes of their audience to be perceived as making eye contact during face-to-face conversation. Simply gazing somewhere around the face or head will suffice.
When it comes to realizing low-power electronic devices, spintronics looks promising. However, to generate a suitable spin current, you need a relatively large magnet. An alternative method that uses a special type of molecule has been proposed, but the big question is: does it work? Researchers have constructed a theoretical model which describes how to put this new method to the test.
Scientists at the Gladstone Institutes, led by Senior Investigator Katerina Akassoglou, Ph.D., showed for the first time that a blood-clotting protein called fibrinogen is responsible for a series of molecular and cellular events that can destroy connections between neurons in the brain and result in cognitive decline.
In the past 25 years it has become clear that some symptoms of Parkinson's disease (PD) occur decades before the development of motor symptoms and clinical diagnosis, and that monitoring these emerging symptoms may provide important insights into the origin and development of the disease. Understanding this 'prodromal' phase, along with the development of new treatments, may enable earlier treatme
According a study published in Restorative Neurology and Neuroscience, eight weeks of intensive yoga practice significantly decreases the severity of physical and psychological symptoms in patients with active rheumatoid arthritis (RA), a debilitating chronic auto-immune inflammatory disease. Marked improvements were seen in the levels of certain inflammatory biomarkers and assessments of function
The nail salon industry has seen rapid growth within the last 20 years, becoming increasingly popular among women of all ages. For the technicians in those salons — many of whom are non-native English speakers — this beauty comes with a cost: an exposure to potentially unsafe chemicals and other health hazards. A study by Drexel University found that educational outreach and change in public pol
New research provides the first national estimates of the living arrangements for 'Dreamers' by comparing undocumented immigrants' households to those of documented immigrants and U.S.-born groups.
Glioblastoma is a devastating disease with poor survival stats due in part to a lack of preclinical models for new drug testing. To address these challenges a multidisciplinary team of researchers have developed a human relevant 3D model containing tumor and normal cells and a platform for accurate drug efficacy measurements. An experimental therapy doxorubicin (DOX) was tested and found to be mor
25 670 människor dog och 130 000 skadades allvarligt i trafikolyckor på europeiska vägar under 2016. Ny digital teknik och intelligenta fordon förväntas leda till färre mänskliga misstag, vilket är den främsta orsaken till trafikolyckor i dag. På samma sätt kan intelligenta transportsystem, med uppkopplade och automatiserade fordon, leda till mer hållbar och kostnadseffektiv vägtransport. Vägtran
Surge affects navigation and is believed to be caused by a 'jet' stream in Earth's liquid outer core Something's up in the Arctic: the north magnetic pole is on the move. But rather than drifting around aimlessly as it has for centuries, the pole has picked up speed and is heading fast for Siberia. The curious shift has caught scientists' attention and forced them to take rare action. Concerned f
Health How medicine is made: the nitty-gritty of drug research and development. You might have read something last week about how we'll have a cure for cancer within the year. You read wrong, but it's not your fault. The Jerusalem Post published an…
Analysis of soil samples the University of Kansas' Jennifer Roberts collected in the Kongsfjorden region of Svalbard, Norway, shows antibiotic-resistant genes have transferred into soil-microbe populations in one of Earth's most remote locations.
Scientists at the Center for Cardiology of the Mainz University Medical Center have examined the success of more than 13,575 minimally invasive procedures on the mitral valve in the largest study of their kind to date. Key findings: Although patients grew older during the period from 2011 to 2015 and the number of procedures increased from year to year, mortality and complication rates remained co
MIT biological engineers have devised a toxicity test that can measure chemical effects on cell survival with much greater sensitivity than the tests commonly used today. The MicroColonyChip could make it easier to accurately measure cell toxicity, helping drug companies and academic researchers identify and evaluate new drugs more rapidly.
New research led by the University of Plymouth has shed light on the science behind peripheral nerve repair, by highlighting the novel function of a large cell called a macrophage.
For the first time, researchers have revealed the different molecular identities of important immune cells, called T regulatory cells, in peripheral non-lymphoid tissues like skin and colon. Researchers from the Wellcome Sanger Institute and collaborators revealed that T regulatory cells have tissue-specific receptors and other adaptations, allowing them to move to the correct place. In future thi
Value-based incentive programs (VBIPs) aim to drive improvements in quality and reduce costs by linking financial incentives or penalties to hospital performance. However, a new study has found no evidence these programs had any measurable association with changes in catheter-associated urinary tract infection (CAUTI) rates in US hospitals. This is the first study to look at how these federal paym
This observational study compared standardized test scores in reading and math for more than 630,000 Danish public school children with and without type 1 diabetes. Researchers found no significant difference in reading and math scores between the groups of children who were attending second, third, fourth, sixth and eighth grades in Denmark. The findings may not apply to other countries.
One in four older adults experiences delirium after surgery. Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis attempted to change that by closely monitoring brain activity during surgery, but they have found that such monitoring, and minimizing anesthesia if needed, has no significant effect on the occurrence of delirium after surgery.
A team led by researchers from the National Institute for Physiological Sciences in Japan successfully use stem cells to grow mouse kidneys inside rats.
How bariatric surgery helps people with obesity and diabetes is related to changes in the way the gut senses food and nutrients after the operation, researchers report Feb. 5 in the journal Cell Reports. They found that following surgery, altered patterns of digestion and absorption lower in the gut trigger production of higher levels of gut hormones, especially glucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP-1), wh
Advances in stem cell research offer hope for treatments that could help patients regrow heart muscle tissue after heart attacks, a key to patients achieving more complete recoveries. Scientists today report success in creating functional blood vessels in vitro for hearts of rats that had sustained a heart attack.
There was a comment on the blog the other day about how there are people in academia who feel that the discovery of a new target or pathway is basically finding a new drug, and that the rest is "technicalities". I've encountered that view of the world before ( Donald Light/Rebecca Warburton , Marcia Angell , and similarly Arnold Relman ), so it's not just some aberration, but it's just amazingly
Is women's sexuality actually more complicated than men's? The answer is no, says author Sarah Barmak. In an eye-opening talk, she shows how a flawed understanding of the female body has shaped our culture for centuries, debunking some age-old myths and offering a richer definition of pleasure that gets closer to the (actual) truth about women's sexuality.
Evolutionary biologists have puzzled over why nature, with vast genetic resources at its disposal, sometimes seems stuck in a rut. Against the odds, separate species and populations independently evolve the same solutions to life's challenges, and the same genes are recruited to mutate and enable certain adaptations again and again. Now researchers at Stanford University think they have found par
Measuring the toxic effects of chemical compounds on different types of cells is critical for developing cancer drugs, which must be able to kill their target cells. Analyzing cell survival is also an important task in fields such as environmental regulation, to test industrial and agricultural chemicals for possible harmful effects on healthy cells.
En ny studie pekar mot att ett läkemedel som brukar användas mot akne skulle kunna minska risken för schizofreni, om det sätts in under tonåren hos högriskpatienter.
The increased deposition of connective tissue is a problem in chronic diseases of many organs. Up to 40 percent of all deaths in industrial nations are caused by the deposition of connective tissue with subsequent tissue scarring. In spite of this, there are very few effective treatments available. Scientists from Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU) have now decrypted a molecul
The discovery of a new to science species of rare and primitive arthropod in a cave that was covered by a thick ice sheet until recently is certain to raise questions. In their study, published in the open-access journal Subterranean Biology, entomologist Alberto Sendra and local caver Craig Wagnell describe a new species of cave-dwelling, insect-like dipluran from the island of Vancouver (Canada)
Research uncovers how lung tissue is remodelled to support an immune response to influenza. The findings hold promise for broader immunisation against flu and the development of new therapeutic strategies for autoimmune diseases.
Augmented reality is when apps and games overlay a real-time camera feed with images, characters and data to provide all kinds of interactive experiences. Pokémon GO is a very popular augmented reality game and University of Tokyo researchers revealed for the first time how the game positively impacted the physical activity in players over 40. They hope the findings will inform urban planners and
Measuring the toxic effects of chemical compounds on different types of cells is critical for developing cancer drugs, which must be able to kill their target cells. Analyzing cell survival is also an important task in fields such as environmental regulation, to test industrial and agricultural chemicals for possible harmful effects on healthy cells.
It's almost time for that day with all the mushy love stuff. But how will you pick out the perfect gift for that special someone? Which gift would you love to receive? Watch as flowers and chocolate battle it out, and find out who will be crowned the ultimate Valentine's Day champion! Flowers Pros Cons Beautiful colors Allergies Nature! Potential bee party location Smells like love Will eventuall
The North American flying squirrel fluoresces pink at night under ultraviolet light, but the purpose of the pink color is still a mystery to researchers.
New research confirms that leaves are nature's most sophisticated environment sensors. We can therefore use leaves to tell us about the management of the land they are growing in. The experiment was spread over four continents, from the semiarid grasslands and savannas of Australia to lush pastures in Europe and prairies in America.
Antibiotics And Your Ever-Changing Gut The effects of antibiotics on the human gut. Antibiotics And Your Ever-Changing Gut Video of Antibiotics And Your Ever-Changing Gut Human Tuesday, February 5, 2019 – 10:15 Nala Rogers, Contributor (Inside Science) — Our bodies are full of bacteria and other microbes, known collectively as the human microbiome. And while it may seem icky, most of those micro
F-150 Mini Not every American has the need for a giant Ford F-150 pickup truck. At least, that's what Chinese automaker Kaiyun Motors is banking on. The company's Pickman is a petite but spartan electric pickup truck that the company plans to sell in the U.S. And the price tag is only a fraction of a full-size American-built pickup truck, starting at just $8,950 for a road-legal version, accordin
A team of researchers has succeeded in demonstrating in an animal model that previously entirely unknown types of immune cells are present in the inflamed brain in the course of multiple sclerosis (MS). The discovery was made by means of a new, high-resolution method for analyzing single cells. The method allowed the researchers to create a kind of immune cell atlas for the brain. They also showed
Ceramics with networked nanosheets of graphene and white graphene would have the unique ability to alter their electrical properties when strained. The surprising ability could lead to new types of structural sensors.
Considering that light is the driving force behind the growth and productivity of reef ecosystems, scientists are interested in understanding the relationship between primary productivity and varying light conditions. In a recent PLoS ONE paper, postdoctoral researcher Yvonne Sawall and her advisor, associate scientist Eric Hochberg (both at the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences) present evidenc
A new special issue of Negotiation Journal presents an overview of the negotiation tactics of US President Donald Trump and their wider implications across the field. Thought leaders have been brought together to comment on the various ramifications of the Trump presidency for negotiation and conflict resolution.
Investigators at the NYU Tandon School of Engineering paired artificial neural networks (ANN) with dynamic mechanical analysis to quickly formulate and provide analytics on theoretical graphene-enhanced advanced composites.
An observational study using data covering more than half of the US population suggests that incidence rates of cancers linked to obesity are increasing most rapidly in young adults. The findings, published in The Lancet Public Health journal on World Cancer Day, could indicate that an even greater disease burden is on the horizon.
Phosphate is a key element in many processes in the body and essential for global food production. Researchers at the University of Göttingen have now developed a method to detect new enzymes from the environment that can release phosphate. This opens up new possibilities for the development and optimisation of phytase-based processes for industrial application, biotechnology and environmentally f
A genus of deaf moth has evolved to develop an extraordinary sound-producing structure in its wings to evade its primary predator the bat. The finding, made by researchers from the University of Bristol and Natural History Museum, is described in Scientific Reports today.
Daily briefing: Gut bacteria linked to depression Daily briefing: Gut bacteria linked to depression, Published online: 05 February 2019; doi:10.1038/d41586-019-00494-2 Mounting evidence of a 'gut–brain axis', new satellite divides polar scientists, and biology on the blockchain.
I frequently write about genetic engineering (GE) and genetically modified organisms (GMOs) on this blog, and I do that because GMOs are often misunderstood and villainized when, in reality, they have enormous benefits and a huge potential both for human … Continue reading →
New research confirms that leaves are nature's most sophisticated environment sensors. We can therefore use leaves to tell us about the management of the land they are growing in.
Google has partnered with cryptography experts at Stanford University on the development of a new Chrome extension designed to help keep your accounts safe from hijacking.
New research confirms that leaves are nature's most sophisticated environment sensors. We can therefore use leaves to tell us about the management of the land they are growing in.
Oscar Wilde, the famed Irish essayist and playwright, had a gift, among other things, for counterintuitive aphorisms. In "The Soul of Man Under Socialism," an 1891 article, he wrote, "Charity creates a multitude of sins." Oscar Wilde Wikicommons So perhaps Wilde wouldn't have been surprised to hear of a series of recent scandals in the U.K.: The all-male charity, the President's Club, which raise
The experiment was spread over four continents, from the semiarid grasslands and savannas of Australia to lush pastures in Europe and prairies in America.
In the right intestines, feces can save lives. This is shown by a new study of feces transplantation and the life-threatening intestinal disease Clostridium difficile. Medical doctors and researchers from Aarhus, Denmark, are presently building up a feces bank, but both the treatment and its non-targeted research could be about to come under pressure.
At the University of Konstanz, in cooperation with Harvard University, a key enzyme for formation of harmful hydrogen sulphide in the human gut by Bilophila bacteria has been discovered.
As we currently know, dark energy and dark matter comprise 96 percent of the total mass of the Universe. Two main hypotheses about the nature of dark matter are presently debated. One of them posits that dark matter consists of massive compact halo objects, the other ascribes this property to weakly interacting mass particles.
In an effort to reduce chronic pain, many people look for hope by paying $20 to thousands of dollars for a tube of prescription topical pain cream or gel.
Radiologists may play a crucial role in identifying signs of intimate partner violence, a type of domestic violence, according to a new study. Radiologists can identify potential violence-related patterns of injury and work closely with referring providers to provide care for the victims.
Forget Go or StarCraft—guessing the phrase behind a drawing will require machines to gain some understanding of the way concepts fit together in the real world.
Publisher Correction: Dynamics of oligodendrocyte generation in multiple sclerosis Publisher Correction: Dynamics of oligodendrocyte generation in multiple sclerosis, Published online: 05 February 2019; doi:10.1038/s41586-019-0935-7 Publisher Correction: Dynamics of oligodendrocyte generation in multiple sclerosis
En ny screening viser, at DMS – et stof der stammer fra et svampemiddel til bæravl og træbeskyttelse – er sivet ned i mere end hver femte grundvandsboring.
How did DNA and RNA evolve to form such neat spirals? The rotation may have occurred with ease billions of years ago when RNA's chemical ancestors casually spun into spiraled strands. In the lab, researchers were surprised to see them do it under conditions thought to be common on Earth just before first life evolved: in plain water, with no catalysts, and at room temperature. The neat spiraling
Author Correction: c-MAF-dependent regulatory T cells mediate immunological tolerance to a gut pathobiont Author Correction: c-MAF-dependent regulatory T cells mediate immunological tolerance to a gut pathobiont, Published online: 05 February 2019; doi:10.1038/s41586-019-0922-z Author Correction: c-MAF-dependent regulatory T cells mediate immunological tolerance to a gut pathobiont
The relationship between pop artist Roy Lichtenstein and the creators of comics was famously fraught, with accusations of imitation and idea-stealing from the 'strip men'. However, new research published in the journal Art History reveals a more complex and collaborative dynamic of mutual admiration.
Feeding birds in winter is one of the nation's most popular wildlife-watching activities, yet many ornithologists say it's often more rewarding for people than for birds. And it might even put wild birds at risk.
Aalborg Universitet vil opruste forskningsmiljøet omkring almen praksis med to kliniklaboratorier i henholdsvis Thisted og Sæby. Her skal tværfaglig forskning tilvejebringe nye og mere effektive måder at arbejde på som praktiserende læge.
The latest episode of Community Neuroscience is out and all about how to build an outreach organization from the ground up. Neuroscientist Bill Griesar, Ph.D., and artist Jeff Leake, M.F.A., are faculty members of Portland State University's psychology department, and together they are the brains behind NW Noggin (Northwest Neuroscience Outreach Group: Growing in Networks). Founded in 2012, the a
Feeding birds in winter is one of the nation's most popular wildlife-watching activities, yet many ornithologists say it's often more rewarding for people than for birds. And it might even put wild birds at risk.
When it comes to realizing low-power electronic devices, spintronics looks promising. However, to generate a suitable spin current, you need a relatively large magnet. An alternative method that uses a special type of molecule has been proposed, but the big question is: does it work? University of Groningen Ph.D. student Xu Yang has constructed a theoretical model which describes how to put this n
Hundreds of genes have been newly linked to depression, shedding light on the origins of the condition and highlighting personality types that could be at risk. The international study, involving more than two million people, is the largest of its kind.
The relationship between pop artist Roy Lichtenstein and the creators of comics was famously fraught, with accusations of imitation and idea-stealing from the 'strip men.' However, new research published in the journal Art History reveals a more complex and collaborative dynamic of mutual admiration.
Myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPNs) are still difficult to treat. A team from Vetmeduni Vienna and the CeMM Research Center for Molecular Medicine of the Austrian Academy of Sciences/Medical University of Vienna has discovered a new therapeutic approach that could fundamentally change this situation, as evidenced by a study that was published recently in the academic journal Blood.
A research team has described the first case of a patient affected by dysfunctions in a nucleoside transporter of the SLC28 gene family, which brings a set of genes which were not related to human pathologies in the scientific bibliography so far.
Scientists have revealed how a protein produced by HIV-1 plays a broader role in suppressing the immune system's response to infection than previously thought.
A new transistor based on organic materials has been developed by scientists at Linköping University. It has the ability to learn, and is equipped with both short-term and long-term memory. The work is a major step on the way to creating technology that mimics the human brain.
Placebo effects do not only occur in medical treatment — placebos can also work when psychological effects are attributed to them. Psychologists from the University of Basel reported these findings in the journal Scientific Reports, based on three studies with over 400 participants.
The plethora of bacteria and other tiny organisms that live in your gut, often referred to as the gut microbiome , don't just help you digest food and fight disease. As detailed in a new study, they also provide a very accurate biological clock that shows your physical age—a fact that may open up wide-ranging possibilities for health and longevity studies. Combining Machine Learning and Your Gut
Gadgets Useful gear found outside of the dealership. Not all products used for motorcycling are available at the local dealership. This list highlights some useful products not designed for riding.
McCormick & Co. Inc. plans to use artificial intelligence to create new flavors and products through a research collaboration with IBM, the spice maker said Monday.
An international team of researchers from Aalto University and Université Paris-Sud has significantly improved the propagation of data inside a microchip.
Gay-straight alliances (GSAs) help make schools safer for students the longer they are in place, even among straight students, finds new research from the Stigma and Resilience Among Vulnerable Youth Centre at the University of British Columbia.
The research team in National Institute of Informatics (NII/Tokyo, Japan) – Xin Wang, Shinji Takaki, and Junichi Yamagishi — has developed the method of neural source-filter (NSF) models for high-speed, high-quality voice synthesis. This technique, which combines the recent deep-learning algorithms and a classical speech production model dated back to the 1960s, is capable not only of generating
Previously unknown cell types play a crucial role in brain autoimmune diseases like multiple sclerosis / Hopes for more specific therapeutic approaches less prone to side effects / Study published in the journal Science.
When an HIV outbreak hit Indiana's rural Scott County in 2015, the sparsely staffed health department was stretched to confirm cases among an entire community with lab tests that aren't portable and could take weeks to return results.
Tre partier i Region Hovedstaden kritiserer Venstre og SF for at tale med to tunger om at beholde eller skrotte Sundhedsplatformen. Forfejlet kritik, siger venstres gruppeformand.
Regeringen vil med sin sundhedsreform medvirke til at skabe lighed i sundhed, men der er markante forskelle på, hvor syge borgerne er i de 21 sundhedsfælleskaber.
A study by the research group Bioinformatics of Genome Diversity at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), published in the journal Nucleic Acids Research, increases by 40% the total number of signals of natural selection detected in the human genome to date. Researchers were able to add a total of 873 new regions of the human genome as firm candidates to have been the target of natural sele
A study by the research group Bioinformatics of Genome Diversity at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), published in the journal Nucleic Acids Research, increases by 40% the total number of signals of natural selection detected in the human genome to date. Researchers were able to add a total of 873 new regions of the human genome as firm candidates to have been the target of natural sele
Gay-straight alliances (GSAs) help make schools safer for students the longer they are in place, even among straight students, finds new research from the Stigma and Resilience Among Vulnerable Youth Centre at the University of British Columbia.
The North American flying squirrel fluoresces pink at night under ultraviolet light, but the purpose of the pink color is still a mystery to researchers.
The North American flying squirrel fluoresces pink at night under ultraviolet light, but the purpose of the pink color is still a mystery to researchers.
Much like shoelaces or dangly necklaces, DNA strands can tangle up in unruly knots. Specialized enzymes keep DNA organized when cells divide, so the cells split smoothly and don't get stuck. But in tumor cells, this failsafe allows cancer to spread. Now, scientists at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University (OIST) have learned how this mechanism works in fission yeast a
Advances in stem cell research offer hope for treatments that could help patients regrow heart muscle tissue after heart attacks, a key to patients achieving more complete recoveries. Scientists today report success in creating functional blood vessels in vitro for hearts of rats that had sustained a heart attack.
More than 1 in 10 people successfully treated with antibiotics for Lyme disease go on to develop chronic, sometimes debilitating, and poorly understood symptoms of fatigue and brain fog that may last for years after their initial infection has cleared up.
Bocconi University scholars look at the songs with a featured artist on the Billboard's Hot 100 between 1996 and 2018. Their likelihood of entering the top 10 is 18.4 percent, significantly greater than the 13.9 percent likelihood for songs that do not include a featured artist. As genre distance between host and guest increases, the likelihood of reaching the top 10 increases. Artists must be car
Walking through our gardens in Australia, we may not realise that buzzing around us is one of our greatest natural resources. Bees are responsible for pollinating about a third of food for human consumption, and data on crop production suggests that bees contribute more than US$235 billion to the global economy each year.
A team of researchers with the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis has found a connection between fertility rates in many African countries and access to education for girls living in those countries. In their paper published Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the group describes their analysis of population and economic data in multiple African countries and what th
Walking through our gardens in Australia, we may not realise that buzzing around us is one of our greatest natural resources. Bees are responsible for pollinating about a third of food for human consumption, and data on crop production suggests that bees contribute more than US$235 billion to the global economy each year.
The migration of blacktip sharks to South Florida is a well-documented pulse of wintertime energy as schools of the streamlined predators prowl their way south to warmer climes.
Udkastet til en frivillig bæredygtighedsklasse for byggeri ligger klar i Ole Birk Olesens skuffe. En samlet byggebranche ønsker den offentliggjort hurtigst muligt, men ministeren tøver.
The migration of blacktip sharks to South Florida is a well-documented pulse of wintertime energy as schools of the streamlined predators prowl their way south to warmer climes.
Researchers have investigated wave-particle interactions between energetic electrons and chorus waves evolving in the space surrounding the Earth using the scientific satellite Arase and, simultaneously, transient auroral flashes by the ground-based global observation network. The investigation visualized asymmetric spatial development of wave-particle interaction regions on the order of sub-secon
Astronomers have detected a highly collimated, bipolar jet from the so-called Red Square Nebula (RSN) surrounding the B[e]-type star MWC 922. The newly discovered jet could reveal more insights into the nature of the RSN and its emission. The finding is detailed in a paper published January 24 on the arXiv pre-print repository.
It's been more than a decade since the start of the worst financial crisis since since Great Depression. And while measures to strengthen the global financial system have undoubtedly paid off, one question haunts policymakers: Have we done enough to prevent the next crisis?
The periodic table has become an icon of science. Its rows and columns provide a tidy way of showcasing the elements—the ingredients that make up the universe.
250.000 københavnere skal skifte akuthospital, hvis Københavns Kommune skal indgå i sundhedsfællesskab med Frederiksberg. Ellers ender en kvart million københavnere med at være tilknyttet et hospital, som Københavns Kommune ikke har indflydelse på, advarer sundhedsborgmester.
From the archive From the archive, Published online: 05 February 2019; doi:10.1038/d41586-019-00446-w How Nature reported a strange natural phenomenon in 1969, and an anti-louse campaign in 1919.
A new transistor based on organic materials has been developed by scientists at Linköping University. It has the ability to learn, and is equipped with both short-term and long-term memory. The work is a major step on the way to creating technology that mimics the human brain.
Crop pathogens and pests reduce the yield of agricultural production, causing substantial economic losses and reducing food security. Yet, their global burden and their variation over time and among different agroecosystems remains poorly quantified. New research, published in Nature Ecology & Evolution, by a collaboration between the French National Institute for Agricultural Research (INRA), Cor
Crop pathogens and pests reduce the yield of agricultural production, causing substantial economic losses and reducing food security. Yet, their global burden and their variation over time and among different agroecosystems remains poorly quantified. New research, published in Nature Ecology & Evolution, by a collaboration between the French National Institute for Agricultural Research (INRA), Cor
Researchers at the UAB have found genetic evidence of adaptations in 2,859 regions of the human genome, including some well-known examples such as those responsible for milk tolerance or high-altitude adaptation.The data is part of the PopHumanScan project, an exhaustive catalog of regions that show evidence of natural selection in the human genome.
Light is more energy-efficient and a faster way of transferring data than electricity. Until now, the rapid attenuation of light signals in microchips has prevented the use of light as a source of an information signal.
Much like shoelaces or dangly necklaces, DNA strands can tangle up in unruly knots. Specialized enzymes keep DNA organized when cells divide, so the cells split smoothly and don't get stuck. But in tumor cells, this failsafe allows cancer to spread. Now, scientists at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University (OIST) have learned how this mechanism works in fission yeast a
Across six decades, scientists and engineers have transformed the briefest flash of laser light into ultrafast pulses that pack a powerful punch. Rebecca Pool from ESCI talks to Nobel Laureate, Professor Gerard Mourou, to find out more.
Tiny plastic particles measuring about 100 nanometres (millionths of a millimetre) are used in many products, for example, to encapsulate dye or aromatic substances or as additives to shampoos and cosmetics. Many of them land directly in sewage as soon as the products are used. Together with other plastics, for example from tyre rubber in road runoff, they end up in the water-treatment plants. But
Electronic products, electric vehicles and large-scale energy storage closely related to human life create an ever-growing demand for rechargeable batteries.
Fresh Meat We've already seen companies turn to algae , yeast , and stem cells in the hunt for alternatives to animal protein. Now there's a new startup on the alt-meat scene, Sustainable Bioproducts, and it's found inspiration for its meat alternative somewhere we haven't seen before: Yellowstone National Park. "What we have here is a super protein," CEO Thomas Jonas told Business Insider . "And
In the face of persistent heatwaves, Australians are reaching for the sunscreen. But you might have heard some mixed messages about its harm to the environment – specifically to coral reefs.
While studying the genes in poplar trees that control callus formation, scientists at Oak Ridge National Laboratory have uncovered genetic networks at the root of tumor formation in several human cancers.
A team of researchers from University Paul-Valéry Montpellier and UMR-IMBE, Université d'Avignon has found evidence of possible embalming of severed heads by Iron Age Celts living in southern France. In their paper published in Journal of Archaeological Science, the group describes their study of skull fragments excavated at a dig site near Le Cailar, in southern France, and what their analysis fo
The ferroelectric polymer PVDF (polyvinylidene fluoride) has interesting properties and could be used to store information or energy. One of the main drawbacks of PVDF is that extra functional groups added to improve certain properties also interfere with its ferroelectricity. To solve this, scientists from the University of Groningen have created block copolymers from PVDF that leave its ferroele
While studying the genes in poplar trees that control callus formation, scientists at Oak Ridge National Laboratory have uncovered genetic networks at the root of tumor formation in several human cancers.
Physicists at the Kastler Brossel Laboratory in Paris have reached a milestone in the combination of cold atoms and nanophotonics. Using fiber-addressable atoms, they have created the first wired atomic entangled state that can be stored and later read out as a guided single photon.
– Ändå är det väldigt få av de ensamkommande i vår studie som har tidigare kontakt med barn- och ungdomspsykiatrin, säger Anna-Karin Ivert, docent i kriminologi vid Malmö universitet. Studien är genomförd tillsammans med Mia-Maria Magnusson, polis och doktorand vid institutionen för kriminologi. Undersökningen bygger på uppgifter om ett 60-tal ensamkommande mellan 14-19 år som varit i kontakt med
I de sena tonåren sker en omfattande normal utgallring av antalet kopplingar mellan nervceller, så kallade synapser, genom att mikroglia (hjärnans immunceller) selektivt bryter ned mindre önskvärda kopplingar. Processen, som kallas synaptic pruning, är av stor vikt för utvecklandet av funktionella neurala nätverk. Många insjuknar i schizofreni just under de sena tonåren och man har länge misstänk
Bullying is as old as humanity, but in today's world of ubiquitous and always-connected devices, there is a whole realm of bullying that can take place out of sight but be just as devastating to its victims – cyberbullying. Detecting and so having the opportunity to prevent cyberbullying in open online forums and social networking sites, for instance, requires technology that can automatically det
Restaurants are responsible for high concentrations of organic aerosol, a large source of air pollution, within their immediate surrounding areas, according to new research. "Restaurant food-cooking emissions are a major, if not the major, driver of spatial variability of organic aerosol," says Ellis Robinson, a postdoctoral researcher at Carnegie Mellon University's Center for Atmospheric Partic
Books in contention range from a transgender man's boxing story to a memoir of recovering from psychosis and a novel about narcotic hibernation Thomas Page McBee's memoir about being the first transgender man to box at Madison Square Garden, Amateur, and Tara Westover's account of her survivalist upbringing preparing for the End of Days, Educated, are both competing for the £30,000 Wellcome book
Apples Safari browser will soon stop websites from using your phones motion data by default, potentially breaking web-based AR and VR experiences that rely on this functionality, …
Many parts of Queensland have been declared disaster zones and thousands of residents evacuated due to a 1-in-100-year flood. Townsville is at the epicentre of the "unprecedented" monsoonal downpour that brought more than a year's worth of rain in just a few days, and the emergency is far from over with yet more torrential rain expected.
Agricultural production benefits enormously from flower-visiting bees and other flower-visiting insects. Because of their supply of flowering plants and opportunities for nesting, hedgerows and the edges of forests represent important habitats for pollinators. A team from the departments of Functional Agrobiodiversity and Agroecology at the University of Göttingen has investigated whether hedgerow
Environment Developers buried our streams. It's about time we exhume them. Most streets are either too bright or too dark. If we have the technology, why are we still over-lighting our streets?
Agricultural production benefits enormously from flower-visiting bees and other flower-visiting insects. Because of their supply of flowering plants and opportunities for nesting, hedgerows and the edges of forests represent important habitats for pollinators. A team from the departments of Functional Agrobiodiversity and Agroecology at the University of Göttingen has investigated whether hedgerow
After 54 long days battling subzero temperatures, wind storms, and complete white-outs, Colin O'Brady (33) has become the first person to cross Antarctica alone, unaided without support or supply drops. Colin traveled a record 932 miles all while pulling a sled weighing 375 lbs at the start of his epic journey which gradually lighted to ~140 lbs when he crossed the finish line December 26, 2018.
Efter seks års mission på Mars har Nasa-forskere nu omdannet Curiosity's IMU til en tyngdekraftsmåler. »Ret elegant, og simpel løsning,« lyder det fra DTU-forsker.
BBMRI-LPC (Biobanking and Biomolecular Research Infrastructure—Large Prospective Cohorts) EU infrastructure project was implemented during the years 2013-2017. The main findings of this work have now been published in the New Biotechnology journal.
Using machine learning to improve weather forecasts could help save energy, according to new research. If the forecast calls for rain, you'll probably pack an umbrella. If it calls for cold, you may bring your mittens. That same kind of preparation happens in buildings, where sophisticated heating and cooling systems adjust themselves based on the predicted weather. But when the forecast is imper
BBMRI-LPC (Biobanking and Biomolecular Research Infrastructure—Large Prospective Cohorts) EU infrastructure project was implemented during the years 2013-2017. The main findings of this work have now been published in the New Biotechnology journal.
The first sign of the Oscars' growing inferiority complex came last August, when the Academy announced a series of changes intended to keep the ceremony "relevant in a changing world." A new prize would be established to recognize "outstanding achievement in popular film," though the parameters went undefined. The ceremony, which airs on ABC, would stick to a three-hour run time (it usually lasts
The Cape honeybee of South Africa seems at first like an ordinary bee. Like many bees, it lives in a colony where the only fertile individual is the queen, who returns from mating flights to lay eggs containing more workers, each pairing the genes of the queen and her mates. But in certain situations, in which the queen is absent or a worker happens upon another bee subspecies' hive, a worker bee
I. "My Jaw Dropped" Why do we have the political opinions we have? Why do we embrace one outlook toward the world and not another? How and why do our stances change? The answers to questions such as these are of course complex. Most people aren't reading policy memos to inform every decision. Differences of opinion are shaped by contrasting life experiences: where you live; how you were raised; w
I am still stunned that there are seemingly average people walking around today with the firm belief that the world is actually flat. The numbers, while still small, are also surprisingly high. In a recent survey only 84% of those surveyed were confident that the Earth is "round". The rest expressed some doubt, were confident the Earth is flat, or were unsure. For those 18-24 only 66% were confid
Commodifying creatures that are close to us in moral standing may well itself lead to a slippery slope, says medical ethicist David Hunter of Australia's Flinders University.
Beer lovers widely agree that while the world's most popular alcoholic drink can be slightly bitter or mildly sour, it's pleasant overall. But for about 20 per cent of the population, beer is uncomfortably bitter and sour, a Brock University research team has found.
Most workers and agricultural producers in developing countries are paid on a daily basis. This has a negative impact on their ability to generate savings for large expenses. Researchers from UZH have now shown that dairy farmers and agricultural workers prefer to be paid once at the end of the month rather than daily, since monthly payment schemes are an efficient tool to increase savings.
Scientists must speak out about the benefits of new genetic technologies such as genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and gene editing, according to The University of Queensland's new Director of Crop Science, Professor Ian Godwin.
Smart thermostats, light bulbs, and leak sensors are just a few of the many ways to cut down your electric bill and raise the energy efficiency of your house.
Apple said Tuesday it had reached an agreement with French authorities to settle 10 years of back taxes, becoming the latest US company to reach a deal with France which has led a European push …
Scientists must speak out about the benefits of new genetic technologies such as genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and gene editing, according to The University of Queensland's new Director of Crop Science, Professor Ian Godwin.
While poll after poll tries to predict where millennials stand politically, Cathy Cohen says some of our assumptions about what issues matter to young people are all wrong. Cohen's innovative survey of millennials, GenForward, is a first of its kind. By oversampling young people of color, they investigate differences in responses by race and ethnicity. The data she's collected give us a unique wi
An experiment on the introduction of nanoscale diamond into an aluminum melt using ultrasonic treatment at the Brunel University (London, United Kingdom) has been completed. The result will be used to create new materials, mainly for maritime transport. The experiment was conducted at the Brunel Center for Advanced Solidification Technology (BCAST) under the guidance of Dmitry Eskin, Professor at
During my first campaign to be Chicago's mayor, in 2011, I promised to put education reform at the forefront of my agenda. Having participated in Washington policy debates for the better part of two decades, I felt confident that I knew what to do. Then, as now, education reformers preached a certain gospel: Hold teachers solely accountable for educational gains. Expand charter schools. Focus rel
On Monday, the Senate voted that U.S. troops should stay in Syria, a country where it has never authorized military force, and Afghanistan. There are "continuing threats from terrorist groups operating in Syria and Afghanistan," 70 senators affirmed, adding that "the precipitous withdrawal of United States forces from either country could put at risk hard-won gains and United States national secu
A new screening scheme aims to provide breeders of French bulldogs, pugs and bulldogs with more information about the health of their dogs, helping them reduce the risk of breeding puppies with potentially serious breathing problems.
A new screening scheme aims to provide breeders of French bulldogs, pugs and bulldogs with more information about the health of their dogs, helping them reduce the risk of breeding puppies with potentially serious breathing problems.
From Brussels, China or Milan. "Surnames" aside, cabbages are grown nowadays all over the world. Like them, many other plants from the Brassicaceae family such as cauliflower, broccoli, cabbage and even mustard… yes, strange as it may seem and though their tastes are very different, a Brussels sprout and a mustard seed belong to the same family…have a common enemy. The enemy is white rust, or
A study mapping the eastern Australian grey nurse shark population has found it has declined rapidly over the last few decades, with only 400 breeding sharks left, too few to maintain a healthy population.
From Brussels, China or Milan. "Surnames" aside, cabbages are grown nowadays all over the world. Like them, many other plants from the Brassicaceae family such as cauliflower, broccoli, cabbage and even mustard… yes, strange as it may seem and though their tastes are very different, a Brussels sprout and a mustard seed belong to the same family…have a common enemy. The enemy is white rust, or
A study mapping the eastern Australian grey nurse shark population has found it has declined rapidly over the last few decades, with only 400 breeding sharks left, too few to maintain a healthy population.
– Vare sig britterna lämnar EU med eller utan avtal så kommer det att få konsekvenser för svensk forskning. Det säger Dan Andrée, chef för innovationsmyndigheten Vinnovas kontor i Bryssel. På uppdrag av regeringen följer Vinnova och Vetenskapsrådet hur Brexit påverkar forskningen. Storbritannien är efter Tyskland det land som Sverige har flest samarbeten med i EU:s ramprogram för forskning. Inom m
Recent research suggests that nonviolent civil resistance is far more successful in creating broad-based change than violent campaigns are, a somewhat surprising finding with a story behind it.
Astronomers have found fresh evidence for significant planetary diversity within a single exoplanet system, suggesting that giant high-speed collisions are partly responsible for planetary evolution.
Today, thousands of databases with biological data are publicly available. They include data on gene and protein sequences and detailed measurements of different cellular parameters, such as the exact quantities of all proteins produced and degraded by a given cell in various experimental conditions. Brazilian researchers explored mRNA and protein public databases and found out how gene sequence c
Today, thousands of databases with biological data are publicly available. They include data on gene and protein sequences and detailed measurements of different cellular parameters, such as the exact quantities of all proteins produced and degraded by a given cell in various experimental conditions. Brazilian researchers explored mRNA and protein public databases and found out how gene sequence c
A new study into the genetic makeup of over 1,400 individuals from across Spain has shown that the genetic patterns in modern individuals were shaped by population movements over the past 1,000 years. It also showed that in some regions, there are discernible patterns of genetic differences even between individuals living as close as 10km apart.
The remote town of Barrow, Alaska, home to more than 4,000 people, touts picturesque views of the Arctic Ocean as well as an unparalleled connection to the Alaskan wild, but underneath its stunning beauty lies a major global crisis—permafrost coastal erosion—causing Barrow to gradually slip into the sea.
Decluttering, spring cleaning or watching an episode of a home makeover television show often leads to the question: Why do we have so much junk? According to Stanford archaeologist Ian Hodder, our love for stuff dates back to our ancestors.
UNSW Sydney researchers are providing accurate maps of the Townsville flood frontier within an hour using the latest satellite radar imaging technology.
A new study into the genetic makeup of over 1,400 individuals from across Spain has shown that the genetic patterns in modern individuals were shaped by population movements over the past 1,000 years. It also showed that in some regions, there are discernible patterns of genetic differences even between individuals living as close as 10km apart.
In a mere seven years, Cas9 has shown itself to be a formidable gene editor, employed in humans, plants, animals and bacteria to quickly and accurately cut and splice DNA, transforming biology and opening new avenues for treating disease.
In a mere seven years, Cas9 has shown itself to be a formidable gene editor, employed in humans, plants, animals and bacteria to quickly and accurately cut and splice DNA, transforming biology and opening new avenues for treating disease.
Death, statistics and a disaster zone: the struggle to count the dead after Hurricane Maria Death, statistics and a disaster zone: the struggle to count the dead after Hurricane Maria, Published online: 05 February 2019; doi:10.1038/d41586-019-00442-0 Intense controversies surround studies of how many people perish in conflicts and disasters, but researchers are developing new ways to measure mor
A German historian is collecting and preserving artifacts from the Berlin Wall, before the physical and ideological barrier that divided the city for almost 60 years fades from living memory.
Director David Fincher's movie is not necessarily historically accurate, but its lessons about privacy and power still ring true nearly 10 years later.
Humans are not the only animals to display collective intelligence. Bees, who also copy each other, are well known for their ability to make accurate collective decisions when they search for foods or new nests. Yet they can prevent bad information from becoming viral. How do they do it?
Researchers argue that the decimation of indigenous populations centuries ago set off a chain of events that contributed to a period of global cooling.
More scientists are using video footage in the course of their research on everything from battling hummingbirds to the physics of popcorn. In our ScienceTake series, we bring that footage to Times readers.
PLUS. På et hold med deltagere fra de fleste kontinenter nød Mærsk-ingeniør både at komme helt ned i detaljen og få et bedre overblik over shippingbranchen.
Astronomers using ALMA have detected complex organic molecules around the young star V883 Ori. A sudden outburst from this star is releasing molecules from the icy compounds in the planet-forming disk. The chemical composition of the disk is similar to that of comets in the modern solar system. Sensitive ALMA observations enable astronomers to reconstruct the evolution of organic molecules from th
Of all nocturnal animals, only dung beetles can hold their course using polarized moonlight. Researchers at Lund University in Sweden have now shown that beetles can use polarized light when its signal strength is weak, which may allow them to find their bearings when artificial light from cities swamps natural moonlight.
Of all nocturnal animals, only dung beetles can hold their course using polarized moonlight. Researchers at Lund University in Sweden have now shown that beetles can use polarized light when its signal strength is weak, which may allow them to find their bearings when artificial light from cities swamps natural moonlight.
Hittills har våra hjärnor varit unika i att kunna skapa kopplingar där inga kopplingar tidigare fanns. I en vetenskaplig artikel i Advanced Science visar nu forskare vid Linköpings universitet en transistor som kan skapa en helt ny koppling mellan in- och utsignal. Transistorn har de också bygg in i en elektronisk krets som lär sig att koppla samman ett visst stimuli med en utsignal på samma vis
En svensk patient har blivit den första mottagaren av ett osseo-neuromuskulärt implantat som styr en mycket rörlig handprotes. Patienten har fått sexton elektroder implanterade för att skapa omfattande rörelsekontroll i handprotesen, som har utvecklats i Italien av Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna och Prensilia. Operationen, den första i sitt slag, genomfördes på Sahlgrenska Universitetssjukhuset och l
Canadian company Sunrise Records has agreed to buy ailing British music retailer HMV, safeguarding around three-quarters of jobs, administrators KPMG announced Tuesday.
Japan's Nissan said Tuesday that its board has nominated the new boss of Renault to replace Carlos Ghosn, who is in detention facing charges of financial misconduct.
Apple said Tuesday it had reached an agreement with French authorities to settle 10 years of back taxes, becoming the latest US company to reach a deal with France which has led a European push for higher taxes on tech giants.
A powerful immune molecule helps protect transplanted organs from rejection by putting a silencer on two other immune molecules that converge to take a direct shot at the organ, scientists report.
Hvert år bliver tusindvis af ton forskallingstræ og stilladsrækværk fra byggepladser smidt til forbrænding, selvom det egentlig godt kunne bruges igen. En af de tre vindere af konkurrencen Circular Construction Challenge vil gøre en forretning ud af genbruget.
It's difficult for media outlets to stop using anonymous sources because identified past sources have been prosecuted for leaking information to reporters. Anonymity allows the sources to share information with the public with less threats of jail time and huge legal bills. We have to suspend disbelief, and believe the reporters when anonymous sources are quoted, and decide whether a news outlet
Nanette Senters has worked in the body-shop division of General Motors' Lordstown assembly plant in Lordstown, Ohio, for 20 years. She helps build the shell of what becomes the Chevy Cruze. "Nice little American car, well built, runs very good," she said. Back in 2016, Donald Trump visited near her community, Trumbull County, on the campaign trail. "[He] told everybody, 'Don't sell your houses. M
President Donald Trump says he will stress " unity " in his State of the Union address Tuesday. This is almost unavoidable. The words union and unity spring from the same word root . And it's expected. Presidents are entrusted with husbanding unity, so a president calling for it in a State of the Union is like a groom toasting fidelity at his wedding dinner. On the other hand, Donald Trump doesn'
O n election day 2018, the voters of Arizona went to the polls to replace their retiring Republican senator, Jeff Flake. The election was so close that it took six days to reach a final result. But in the end, the Democrat Kyrsten Sinema defeated the Republican Martha McSally by 56,000 votes out of 2.8 million cast. On January 3, 2019, Sinema was sworn in as a member of the Senate. Standing next
The reporting for this article was supported by The Masthead, The Atlantic's membership program. Learn more . YANGON, Myanmar—By Kamal's own admission, his family used to be "very rich." His father owned a successful trading business, which sent fish and thanaka —a fragrant cosmetic paste made from tree bark—to be sold in neighboring Bangladesh. Their home in Sittwe, the capital of Rakhine State
The second-in-command at the U.S. Office of Research Integrity (ORI), which oversees investigations into scientific misconduct, will be leaving the agency. Scott Moore has been at ORI since 2016. He had previously been at the National Science Foundation's Office of Inspector General, where he was an investigative scientist for 13 years. He was appointed by … Continue reading Deputy director of U.S
Rags, riches and Royal Society rebellion Rags, riches and Royal Society rebellion, Published online: 05 February 2019; doi:10.1038/d41586-019-00443-z Rebekah Higgitt relishes a biography of Charles Hutton, the mathematician who calculated Earth's density and called for scientific reform.
Giraffe are the tallest animal on earth, so naturally scientists have turned to big data solutions for giraffe conservation. Researchers from the Penn State and Wild Nature Institute are conducting one of the biggest large mammal studies ever undertaken by studying births, deaths, and movements of more than 3,000 giraffes across a 4,000 square kilometre landscape in the Tarangire Ecosystem of nort
Giraffe are the tallest animal on earth, so naturally scientists have turned to big data solutions for giraffe conservation. Researchers from the Penn State and Wild Nature Institute are conducting one of the biggest large mammal studies ever undertaken by studying births, deaths, and movements of more than 3,000 giraffes across a 4,000 square kilometre landscape in the Tarangire Ecosystem of nort
Under idealiserede forhold kan konkurrencesvømmere reducere vandets modstandskraft med op til 30-50 pct. ved at placere sig optimalt i forhold til foranliggende svømmere på nabobanerne, viser ny analyse.
I början av 1990-talet förändrades det svenska utbildningssystemet. Skolreformer möjliggjorde införandet av friskolor, konkurrens mellan privata och kommunala huvudmän och fritt skolval, vilket gav elever chansen att välja gymnasieskolor utanför sitt närområde och sin hemkommun. Anna-Maria Fjellman har i sin avhandling kartlagt den geografiska utvecklingen av de svenska skolmarknaderna genom att
Design of training populations for selective phenotyping in genomic prediction Design of training populations for selective phenotyping in genomic prediction, Published online: 05 February 2019; doi:10.1038/s41598-018-38081-6 Design of training populations for selective phenotyping in genomic prediction
SIX1 represses senescence and promotes SOX2-mediated cellular plasticity during tumorigenesis SIX1 represses senescence and promotes SOX2-mediated cellular plasticity during tumorigenesis, Published online: 05 February 2019; doi:10.1038/s41598-018-38176-0 SIX1 represses senescence and promotes SOX2-mediated cellular plasticity during tumorigenesis
Augmenting central arterial stiffness following eradication of HCV by direct acting antivirals in advanced fibrosis patients Augmenting central arterial stiffness following eradication of HCV by direct acting antivirals in advanced fibrosis patients, Published online: 05 February 2019; doi:10.1038/s41598-018-37829-4 Augmenting central arterial stiffness following eradication of HCV by direct acti
Pharmacokinetic-Pharmacodynamic Modeling for Coptisine Challenge of Inflammation in LPS-Stimulated Rats Pharmacokinetic-Pharmacodynamic Modeling for Coptisine Challenge of Inflammation in LPS-Stimulated Rats, Published online: 05 February 2019; doi:10.1038/s41598-018-38164-4 Pharmacokinetic-Pharmacodynamic Modeling for Coptisine Challenge of Inflammation in LPS-Stimulated Rats
Deaf moths employ acoustic Müllerian mimicry against bats using wingbeat-powered tymbals Deaf moths employ acoustic Müllerian mimicry against bats using wingbeat-powered tymbals, Published online: 05 February 2019; doi:10.1038/s41598-018-37812-z Deaf moths employ acoustic Müllerian mimicry against bats using wingbeat-powered tymbals
Transport mechanism of deformable micro-gel particle through micropores with mechanical properties characterized by AFM Transport mechanism of deformable micro-gel particle through micropores with mechanical properties characterized by AFM, Published online: 05 February 2019; doi:10.1038/s41598-018-37270-7 Transport mechanism of deformable micro-gel particle through micropores with mechanical pro
The differences of lipid profiles between only children and children with siblings: A national survey in China The differences of lipid profiles between only children and children with siblings: A national survey in China, Published online: 05 February 2019; doi:10.1038/s41598-018-37695-0 The differences of lipid profiles between only children and children with siblings: A national survey in Chin
Prediction of Optimal Drug Schedules for Controlling Autophagy Prediction of Optimal Drug Schedules for Controlling Autophagy, Published online: 05 February 2019; doi:10.1038/s41598-019-38763-9 Prediction of Optimal Drug Schedules for Controlling Autophagy
Network to help inexperienced scientists Network to help inexperienced scientists, Published online: 05 February 2019; doi:10.1038/d41586-019-00489-z Network to help inexperienced scientists
Aviation pioneers missed out on publicity Aviation pioneers missed out on publicity, Published online: 05 February 2019; doi:10.1038/d41586-019-00491-5 Aviation pioneers missed out on publicity
Farmers could teach scientists a trick or two for lobbying Farmers could teach scientists a trick or two for lobbying, Published online: 05 February 2019; doi:10.1038/d41586-019-00487-1 Farmers could teach scientists a trick or two for lobbying
Save Javan rhinos that survived eruption Save Javan rhinos that survived eruption, Published online: 05 February 2019; doi:10.1038/d41586-019-00488-0 Save Javan rhinos that survived eruption
Medicinal signalling cells: they work, so use them Medicinal signalling cells: they work, so use them, Published online: 05 February 2019; doi:10.1038/d41586-019-00490-6 Medicinal signalling cells: they work, so use them
Responding to the call of home Responding to the call of home, Published online: 05 February 2019; doi:10.1038/d41586-019-00448-8 Why some scientists choose to forgo promising careers abroad to return to their countries of birth.
Versatile kit of robust nanoshapes self-assembling from RNA and DNA modules Versatile kit of robust nanoshapes self-assembling from RNA and DNA modules, Published online: 05 February 2019; doi:10.1038/s41467-019-08521-6 DNA and RNA have been used for nanotechnology applications, though rarely in combination. Here the authors report the use of RNA motifs as structural joints with DNA building bloc
A versatile functionalized ionic liquid to boost the solution-mediated performances of lithium-oxygen batteries A versatile functionalized ionic liquid to boost the solution-mediated performances of lithium-oxygen batteries, Published online: 05 February 2019; doi:10.1038/s41467-019-08422-8 Li-O2 batteries are promising candidates for the next generation of rechargeable batteries, but the side re
Selection rules for all-optical magnetic recording in iron garnet Selection rules for all-optical magnetic recording in iron garnet, Published online: 05 February 2019; doi:10.1038/s41467-019-08458-w The authors computationally and experimentally derive the selection rules on polarization, wavelengths, and magnetic damping for non-dissipative аll-optical magnetic recording with femtosecond laser
Combined loss of LAP1B and LAP1C results in an early onset multisystemic nuclear envelopathy Combined loss of LAP1B and LAP1C results in an early onset multisystemic nuclear envelopathy, Published online: 05 February 2019; doi:10.1038/s41467-019-08493-7 Nuclear envelopathies are a group of diseases caused by genetic mutations in essential nuclear envelope genes. Here, the authors report a nuclear
Cytoskeletal stiffening in synthetic hydrogels Cytoskeletal stiffening in synthetic hydrogels, Published online: 05 February 2019; doi:10.1038/s41467-019-08569-4 Although common in biology, controlled stiffening of hydrogels in vitro is difficult to achieve. Here the authors show how a biomimetic hybrid hydrogel can be stiffened instantaneously and reversibly up to 50 times.
−60 °C solution synthesis of atomically dispersed cobalt electrocatalyst with superior performance −60 °C solution synthesis of atomically dispersed cobalt electrocatalyst with superior performance, Published online: 05 February 2019; doi:10.1038/s41467-019-08484-8 Rapid nucleation and growth hinder the formation of atomically dispersed metals on solid supports in solution. Here the authors repor
Negative differential resistance as a critical indicator for the discharge capacity of lithium-oxygene batteries Negative differential resistance as a critical indicator for the discharge capacity of lithium-oxygene batteries, Published online: 05 February 2019; doi:10.1038/s41467-019-08536-z Understanding the fundamental chemistry in Li-O2 battery holds importance to the development of superior
Permanent porous hydrogen-bonded frameworks with two types of Brønsted acid sites for heterogeneous asymmetric catalysis Permanent porous hydrogen-bonded frameworks with two types of Brønsted acid sites for heterogeneous asymmetric catalysis, Published online: 05 February 2019; doi:10.1038/s41467-019-08416-6 The search for porous materials with strong Brønsted acid sites for challenging chemical
The ferroelectric polymer PVDF (polyvinylidene fluoride) has interesting properties and could be used to store information or energy. One of the main drawbacks of PVDF is that if you add extra functional groups to improve certain properties, this also interferes with its ferroelectricity. To solve this, scientists from the University of Groningen have created block copolymers from PVDF that leave
PLUS. Fleksible bevægelsessensorer kan fremstilles af en blanding af silke og lerpartikler, som alternativ til syntetiske polymerer, viser DTU-projekt, der snart er klar med en prototype.
Planeten Saturnus är en slående syn med sina karakteristiska ringar. Ringarna går att se från jorden i ett ganska enkelt teleskop, och dokumenterades redan av Galileo Galilei på 1600-talet. Men nu pekar flera studier på att ringarna bara är en tillfällig formation. – Det finns minst två processer som gnager på ringarna, säger planetforskaren Henrik Melin som forskar om planetatmosfärer vid univers
Though not a new phenomenon, flat Earth theory has enjoyed a huge resurgence recently. A YouGov poll indicated that a third of Americans aged 18 to 24 were unsure of the shape of our planet, in spite of scientific proofs from Pythagoras to Nasa. Why has this happened now, and what does it tell us about society today? Continue reading…
Researchers have found that the brain stores detailed information of a missing hand decades after amputation, regardless of whether amputees still experience phantom hand sensations.
Studying birds that nest in grasslands on the firing ranges and runways of active military installations is not for the faint of heart, but it proved to be a successful strategy for solving some vexing migration mysteries. Fundamental questions regarding the timing and choice of migration routes, and what that means for conservation of grassland bird populations have been surprisingly difficult to
Studying birds that nest in grasslands on the firing ranges and runways of active military installations is not for the faint of heart, but it proved to be a successful strategy for solving some vexing migration mysteries. Fundamental questions regarding the timing and choice of migration routes, and what that means for conservation of grassland bird populations have been surprisingly difficult to