An international study shows that 30% of the energy in a certain type of light-absorbing iron molecule disappears in a previously unknown manner. By closing this loophole, the researchers hope to contribute to the development of more efficient solar cells using this iron-based solar cell.
Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) security researchers Berk Sunar and Daniel Moghimi led an international team of researchers that discovered serious security vulnerabilities in computer chips made by Intel Corp. and STMicroelectronics. The flaws affect billions of laptop, server, tablet, and desktop users around the world. The proof-of-concept attack is dubbed TPM-Fail.
The trust between humans and autonomous machines is a top priority for Army researchers — as machines become integral to society, it is critical to understand the impact on human decision-making.
With the demonstration of a sub-picosecond thin-disk laser oscillator delivering a record-high 350-W average output power, physicists at ETH Zurich set a new benchmark and pave the path towards even more powerful lasers.
HONG KONG—For months now, I've been told that Hong Kong's protests would end soon. They'll end when school starts, I heard during the summer. School did start, but the protests wore on, only now I saw high-school students in crisp school uniforms joining the protesters' ranks. Next, the mask ban of early October was supposed to slow protesters down, but the very first day after that ban, I watche
Reproducibility is a major challenge in experimental biology. New research identifies a frequent technical bias in data generated by RNA-seq technology, which allows in a single test the simultaneous measurement of the expression level of all the genes in a given sample. This bias recurrently leads to false results.
The generation of species-specific singing in songbirds is associated with species-specific patterns of gene activity in brain regions called song nuclei, according to a new study. According to the authors, the findings could be a promising step toward a better understanding of the contribution of multiple genes to the evolution of behaviors.
Tiny threads of plastics are showing up in Pacific oysters and razor clams along the Oregon coast — and the yoga pants, fleece jackets, and sweat-wicking clothing that Pacific Northwesterners love to wear are a source of that pollution, according to a new study.
Outlines 22, 2019 new measures for the diagnosis and treatment of high blood pressure (HBP), including 6 performance measures, 6 process quality measures and 10 structural quality measures. Developed by a Writing Committee of 12 expert members convened by the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association Task Force on Performance Measures with the support of the Physician Consortium fo
Wildfires such as those raging across eastern Australia have become more common across the world in recent years. AFP talked to scientists about the ways in which climate change can make them worse.
Interesting Choice Campbell Brown, who Facebook has named as head of news partnerships for its recently-launched news service, is also the cofounder of an aggressively anti-Elizabeth Warren media outlet. Brown's outlet, The 74 , recently ran a slew of attack op-eds like this one , which argued that the presidential candidate's education plan would cripple schoolchildren's future careers, Business
Citrus greening, a devastating disease, has reduced Florida citrus production by 70%, according to most accounts. Efforts to develop disease control methods have been stymied because scientists have been unable to culture and experimentally manipulate the causal bacterial pathogen, Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus.
Right now, there are trillions of bacteria living in your gut, making up about one percent of your body weight. They're supposed to be there—we need them to help us digest food and fight off diseases. The same is true for most mammals; in general, just about every mammal from dogs to dolphins relies on a community of helpful bacteria, called a microbiome, living inside them for health and survival
Citrus greening, a devastating disease, has reduced Florida citrus production by 70%, according to most accounts. Efforts to develop disease control methods have been stymied because scientists have been unable to culture and experimentally manipulate the causal bacterial pathogen, Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus.
Right now, there are trillions of bacteria living in your gut, making up about one percent of your body weight. They're supposed to be there—we need them to help us digest food and fight off diseases. The same is true for most mammals; in general, just about every mammal from dogs to dolphins relies on a community of helpful bacteria, called a microbiome, living inside them for health and survival
Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are valuable for a wide variety of applications. Made of graphene sheets rolled into tubes 10,000 times smaller than a human hair, CNTs have an exceptional strength-to-mass ratio and excellent thermal and electrical properties. These features make them ideal for a range of applications, including supercapacitors, interconnects, adhesives, particle trapping and structural co
While crystals have been studied for centuries and are ubiquitous in daily life—they are in our bones, the food we eat and the batteries we use—scientists still don't fully understand how crystals grow or how to efficiently manufacture them. As a result, scientific efforts to improve a wide range of crystalline materials, from self-healing biomaterials to solar panels, have been limited.
Bambang Hero Saharjo has received death threats for testifying against companies A scientist who takes on the companies responsible for massive wildfires across Indonesia has won the prestigious John Maddox prize for standing up for science in the face of harassment, intimidation and lawsuits. Bambang Hero Saharjo, a fire forensics specialist at Bogor Agricultural University, gathers evidence for
Disney Plus is ready to stream—if it's working for you. It's Disney Plus day. All across the land, people are firing up their streaming devices to let the sweet, digitally remastered visions of their favorite pop culture creations flood into their eyeballs. Of course, Disney is a very late entry into this world, but the launch of its $7 per month service is widely regarded as the beginning of the
While the field of morphology—the study of the form and function of organisms—is centuries old, the last two decades have brought incredible leaps forward through the emergence of new technologies and genetic research methods. And the impact of these advances has been revolutionary for the scientists working to untangle the vast biodiversity and evolutionary paths of the world of insects.
An ant the size of a lion isn't as far-fetched as you would think. From as small as a sesame seed to the size of a big cat, ants come in all sizes—in augmented reality, at least.
According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), whale sharks are considered endangered, which means the species has suffered a population decline of more than 50% in the past three generations. The whale shark is only two classifications from being extinct. Improvements and conservation efforts are in place, but there is still a long way to go to protect these gentle underw
Changes in groundwater millions of years ago created alternating layers of vivid yellow and brown in the mineral sphalerite, and those variations align with movements in Earth's orbit that impacted climate in the deep past, Penn State scientists found.
While the field of morphology—the study of the form and function of organisms—is centuries old, the last two decades have brought incredible leaps forward through the emergence of new technologies and genetic research methods. And the impact of these advances has been revolutionary for the scientists working to untangle the vast biodiversity and evolutionary paths of the world of insects.
An ant the size of a lion isn't as far-fetched as you would think. From as small as a sesame seed to the size of a big cat, ants come in all sizes—in augmented reality, at least.
According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), whale sharks are considered endangered, which means the species has suffered a population decline of more than 50% in the past three generations. The whale shark is only two classifications from being extinct. Improvements and conservation efforts are in place, but there is still a long way to go to protect these gentle underw
The generation of species-specific singing in songbirds is associated with species-specific patterns of gene activity in brain regions called song nuclei, according to a study published November 12 in the open-access journal PLOS Biology by Kazuhiro Wada of Hokkaido University in Japan, and colleagues. According to the authors, the findings could be a promising step toward a better understanding o
Reproducibility is a major challenge in experimental biology, and with the increasing complexity of data generated by genomic-scale techniques this concern is immensely amplified. RNA-seq, one of the most widely used methods in modern molecular biology, allows in a single test the simultaneous measurement of the expression level of all the genes in a given sample. New research publishing November
When British teen Ewan Fisher was 16 years old, he traded in his cigarette-smoking habit for vaping because he "thought it would be healthier," the now-19-year-old recently told The Press Association . But instead of seeing his health improve, Fisher soon found himself with a fever, a persistent cough, and difficulty breathing that eventually landed him in the hospital with serious respiratory fa
The generation of species-specific singing in songbirds is associated with species-specific patterns of gene activity in brain regions called song nuclei, according to a study published November 12 in the open-access journal PLOS Biology by Kazuhiro Wada of Hokkaido University in Japan, and colleagues. According to the authors, the findings could be a promising step toward a better understanding o
Reproducibility is a major challenge in experimental biology, and with the increasing complexity of data generated by genomic-scale techniques this concern is immensely amplified. RNA-seq, one of the most widely used methods in modern molecular biology, allows in a single test the simultaneous measurement of the expression level of all the genes in a given sample. New research publishing November
For the first time in the history of space exploration, scientists have measured the seasonal changes in the gases that fill the air directly above the surface of Gale Crater on Mars. As a result, they noticed something baffling: oxygen, the gas many Earth creatures use to breathe, behaves in a way that so far scientists cannot explain through any known chemical processes.
Broadly speaking, sleep got worse in the United States from 2013 to 2017. New research finds more Americans have trouble falling asleep and staying asleep. The changes were independent of sleep duration, and difficulties were most prevalent in people with healthy sleep length, the findings show. Zlatan Krizan, professor of psychology at Iowa State University, and his research team analyzed data c
A team of Russian scientists carried out a study on the cell immunity level and found out how an adjuvant called azoximer bromide increases the immunogenicity of the anti-flu vaccine. The results of the study were presented at the Russian-Chinese Symposium on Infectious Diseases in Saint-Petersburg (5-7 November, 2019).
Retired Army Sergeant Terry Hannigan Vereline just made history at the 2019 New York City Marathon. When she crossed the finish line on November 3, the 65-year-old became the first paralyzed American to successfully complete a marathon — and she did so with the help of a robotic exoskeleton. "Words cannot express the feelings I had crossing the finish line," Vereline said in a press release . "Th
The augmented-reality game isn't just Microsoft's most ambitious mobile title to date; it's a play to change the way we interact with the world and each other.
New research reveals that carbon nanotubes (CNTs) as a coating can both repel and hold water in place, a useful property for applications like printing, spectroscopy, water transport, or harvesting surfaces. When water is dropped on a CNT forest, the CNTs repel the water, and it forms a sphere. However, when flipped over, the drop does not fall to the ground but rather clings to the surface.
Researchers have developed a way to perform optical coherence tomography (OCT) in hard-to-reach areas of the body such as joints. The advance could help bring this high-resolution biomedical imaging technique to new surgical and medical applications.
The effect of losing intact tropical forests is more devastating on the climate than previously thought, researchers report. A new international study reveals that between 2000 and 2013, the clearance of intact tropical forests led to much higher levels of carbon being emitted into the atmosphere than first believed—resulting in a 626% increase in the calculated impact on climate. This difference
Recent technological breakthroughs in artificial intelligence have made it possible for machines, or bots, to pass as humans. A team of researchers studied study how people interact with bots they believe to be human, and how such interactions are affected once bots reveal their identity. The researchers found that bots are more efficient than humans at certain human-machine interactions, but only
Mr. Cool ICE As electric cars are becoming more and more common, cities are making small changes to infrastructure to accommodate them, from dedicated charging stations to replacing fuel pumps with chargers at gas stations. But not everybody is cooperating with those infrastructure shifts. Police used a crane to lift an enormous Ford pickup truck away from a parking spot in Berlin this week, afte
For the first time, researchers show that deep learning algorithms perform similar to human experts when classifying blood samples from patients suffering from acute myeloid leukemia (AML). Their proof of concept study paves the way for an automated, standardized and on-hand sample analysis in the near future.
To facilitate the scientific community's ability to use L. crescens in citrus greening research, scientists have published an article that outlines, step-by-step, highly reproducible and detailed protocols that they have standardized for culturing L. crescens.
If you have trouble sleeping, you're not alone. New research finds more Americans have trouble falling asleep and staying asleep. The difficulties were most prevalent in people with healthy sleep length.
A review of the evidence on the use of complementary and alternative (CAM) therapies to treat babies with colic has shown some that some treatments — including probiotics, fennel extract and spinal manipulation — do appear to help, but that overall the evidence on the use of these therapies is limited so should be treated with caution.
Recent technological breakthroughs in artificial intelligence have made it possible for machines, or bots, to pass as humans. A team of researchers studied study how people interact with bots they believe to be human, and how such interactions are affected once bots reveal their identity. The researchers found that bots are more efficient than humans at certain human-machine interactions, but only
To persuade some migrating Caspian terns to stop short of the Columbia River, scientists planted plastic decoys and patio speakers in San Francisco Bay.
Researchers from Drexel University's College of Nursing and Health Professions in the Creative Arts Therapies Department conducted a study to see if virtual reality can be used as an expressive tool in art therapy.
National attention has been drawn to the plight of patients who have experienced the unintended side effects of prolonged ICU care such as memory loss and muscle weakness. Now, a research team led by UC San Diego have evaluated the employment impacts to ICU patients, with concerning findings.
All those different shapes aren't just for aesthetic reasons. (AllaSerebrina via Depositphotos/) I'll always remember the day a Paris cheesemonger told me there is actually a right way to cut up each type of cheese. I looked at him, incredulous. "It's about making sure everyone has the same experience," he explained as he cut a wheel of cheese into wedges. Up until that point, I'd been perfectly
Researchers have developed a portable electrospinning device with a confined electric field that can safely deposit bandages and drugs directly onto biological surfaces, using air to spray the fibers out onto the surface, like a can of spray paint. The device can be used to cover wounds and provide controlled drug release over time.
Dave Morris on the collective power of research and Alastair Leake on the decline in moth populations The efforts of campaigners to highlight important issues can often be overlooked by a historical approach that focuses on individuals, often academics or politicians. An example is in the obituary of the biologist Victoria Braithwaite ( Obituary , 9 November), which asserts that "until the early
Boarding schools | Wellington college fees | Steve McQueen's Year 3 project | Spike Milligan's election advice | Shared ancestry | Parliamentary disillusion George Monbiot's article on boarding schools ( Journal , 7 November) will have been a painful read for many, and may well have been painful for him to write. As a director for Boarding School Survivors Support (BSSS), I read of experience afte
Researchers have developed a portable electrospinning device with a confined electric field that can safely deposit bandages and drugs directly onto biological surfaces, using air to spray the fibers out onto the surface, like a can of spray paint. The device can be used to cover wounds and provide controlled drug release over time.
In their Letter to the Editor, Friedman and Banich (1) suggest we (2) "overstate" the higher suitability of dependent variables (DVs) derived from surveys for individual difference analyses. We appreciate this opportunity for a continued discussion regarding the measurement of self-regulation. However, their critiques (1) do not provide evidence against…
In this work, we explore fundamental energy requirements during mammalian cell movement. Starting with the conservation of mass and momentum for the cell cytosol and the actin-network phase, we develop useful identities that compute dissipated energies during extensions of the cell boundary. We analyze 2 complementary mechanisms of cell movement:…
In response to our article (1), Mislavsky et al. (2) claim that "experiment aversion" does not exist because they found no evidence of it in their own research on low-stakes corporate experiments (3) and because our studies used between- rather than within-subjects designs. First, as we noted, we do not…
We develop a method for completing the genetics of natural living systems by which the absence of expected future discoveries can be established. We demonstrate the method using bacteriophage øX174, the first DNA genome to be sequenced. Like many well-studied natural organisms, closely related genome sequences are available—23 Bullavirinae genomes…
Fluorescence lifetime imaging (FLI) provides unique quantitative information in biomedical and molecular biology studies but relies on complex data-fitting techniques to derive the quantities of interest. Herein, we propose a fit-free approach in FLI image formation that is based on deep learning (DL) to quantify fluorescence decays simultaneously over a…
Supercentenarians, people who have reached 110 y of age, are a great model of healthy aging. Their characteristics of delayed onset of age-related diseases and compression of morbidity imply that their immune system remains functional. Here we performed single-cell transcriptome analysis of 61,202 peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs), derived from…
The "veil of ignorance" is a moral reasoning device designed to promote impartial decision making by denying decision makers access to potentially biasing information about who will benefit most or least from the available options. Veil-of-ignorance reasoning was originally applied by philosophers and economists to foundational questions concerning the overall…
Enzymes that generate ribosomally synthesized and posttranslationally modified peptide (RiPP) natural products have garnered significant interest, given their ability to produce large libraries of chemically diverse scaffolds. Such RiPP biosynthetic enzymes are predicted to bind their corresponding peptide substrates through sequence-specific recognition of the leader sequence, which is removed af
Genetic diversity acts as a reservoir for potential adaptations, yet selection tends to reduce this diversity over generations. However, sexually antagonistic selection (SAS) may promote diversity by selecting different alleles in each sex. SAS arises when an allele is beneficial to one sex but harmful to the other. Usually, the…
As monofacial, single-junction solar cells approach their fundamental limits, there has been significant interest in tandem solar cells in the presence of concentrated sunlight or tandem bifacial solar cells with back-reflected albedo. The bandgap sequence and thermodynamic efficiency limits of these complex cell configurations require sophisticated numerical calculation. Therefore, the…
Thermosensitive transient receptor potential (TRP) ion channels detect changes in ambient temperature to regulate body temperature and temperature-dependent cellular activity. Rodent orthologs of TRP vanilloid 2 (TRPV2) are activated by nonphysiological heat exceeding 50 °C, and human TRPV2 is heat-insensitive. TRPV2 is required for phagocytic activity of macrophages which are…
Infection of animal cells by numerous viruses is detected and countered by a variety of means, including recognition of nonself nucleic acids. The zinc finger antiviral protein (ZAP) depletes cytoplasmic RNA that is recognized as foreign in mammalian cells by virtue of its elevated CG dinucleotide content compared with endogenous…
Researchers have developed a way to perform optical coherence tomography (OCT) in hard-to-reach areas of the body such as joints. The advance could help bring this high-resolution biomedical imaging technique to new surgical and medical applications.
Purdue University scientists have provided the first comprehensive characterization of both the blood-brain and blood-tumor barriers in brain metastases of lung cancer, which will serve as a road map for treatment development. The work was recently published in Oncotarget.
Organizational and functional features of general practitioner practices in 11 countries were studied in search of underlying reasons for job dissatisfaction.
New research in the journal Carbon reveals that carbon nanotubes (CNTs) as a coating can both repel and hold water in place, a useful property for applications like printing, spectroscopy, water transport, or harvesting surfaces. When water is dropped on a CNT forest, the CNTs repel the water, and it forms a sphere. However, when flipped over, the drop does not fall to the ground but rather clings
Researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago used computer-based simulations to analyze how atoms and molecules move in a solution and identified a general mechanism governing crystal growth that scientists can manipulate when developing new materials.
A study by Brazilian researchers suggests that cardiac overload due to the stress of driving in heavy traffic can be attenuated by listening to instrumental music.
For the first time, researchers from Helmholtz Zentrum München and the University Hospital of LMU Munich show that deep learning algorithms perform similar to human experts when classifying blood samples from patients suffering from acute myeloid leukemia (AML). Their proof of concept study paves the way for an automated, standardized and on-hand sample analysis in the near future. The paper was p
With the rate of burnout as high as 63% among family physicians, it is important to identify risk factors for physician burnout. The relationship between burnout and personal environmental and organizational risk factors was examined in a study of family physicians.
If you have trouble sleeping, you're not alone. New research from Iowa State University finds more Americans have trouble falling asleep and staying asleep. The difficulties were most prevalent in people with healthy sleep length.
A social prescribing initiative, designed to improve patients' well-being and quality of life by connecting them to non-medical resources, did not prove effective overall.
Reduced serum testosterone (T), or hypogonadism, affects millions of men and is associated with many pathologies, including infertility, cardiovascular diseases, metabolic syndrome, and decreased libido and sexual function. Administering T-replacement therapy (TRT) reverses many of the symptoms associated with low T levels. However, TRT is linked to side effects such…
Antimicrobial-resistant (AMR) infections pose a major threat to global public health. Similar to other AMR pathogens, both historical and ongoing drug-resistant tuberculosis (TB) epidemics are characterized by transmission of a limited number of predominant Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) strains. Understanding how these predominant strains achieve sustained transmission, particularly during the
The atmosphere is vastly underexplored as a habitable ecosystem for microbial organisms. In this study, we investigated 795 time-resolved metagenomes from tropical air, generating 2.27 terabases of data. Despite only 9 to 17% of the generated sequence data currently being assignable to taxa, the air harbored a microbial diversity that…
The recycling of particulate organic matter (POM) by microbes is a key part of the global carbon cycle. This process is mediated by the extracellular hydrolysis of polysaccharides, which can trigger social behaviors in bacteria resulting from the production of public goods. Despite the potential importance of public good-mediated interactions,…
The type VI secretion system (T6SS) is a lethal yet energetically costly weapon in gram-negative bacteria. Through contraction of a long sheath, the T6SS ejects a few copies of effectors accompanied by hundreds of structural carrier proteins per delivery. The few ejected effectors, however, dictate T6SS functions. It remains elusive…
Use-dependent long-term changes of neuronal response properties must be gated to prevent irrelevant activity from inducing inappropriate modifications. Here we test the hypothesis that local network dynamics contribute to such gating. As synaptic modifications depend on temporal contiguity between presynaptic and postsynaptic activity, we examined the effect of synchronized gamma…
Retinotopic specializations in the ventral visual stream, especially foveal adaptations, provide primates with high-acuity vision in the central visual field. However, visual field specializations have not been studied in the dorsal visual stream, dedicated to processing visual motion and visually guided behaviors. To investigate this, we injected retrograde neuronal tracers…
Apoptosis activation by cytochrome c release from mitochondria to cytosol is a normal cellular response to mitochondrial damage. Using cellular apoptosis assay, we have found small-molecule apoptosis inhibitors that protect cells from mitochondrial damage. Previously, we reported the discovery of a small molecule, Compound A, which blocks dopaminergic neuron death…
Drosophila CRYPTOCHROME (dCRY) mediates electrophysiological depolarization and circadian clock resetting in response to blue or ultraviolet (UV) light. These light-evoked biological responses operate at different timescales and possibly through different mechanisms. Whether electron transfer down a conserved chain of tryptophan residues underlies biological responses following dCRY light activati
Mechanical stimuli, such as wind, rain, and touch affect plant development, growth, pest resistance, and ultimately reproductive success. Using water spray to simulate rain, we demonstrate that jasmonic acid (JA) signaling plays a key role in early gene-expression changes, well before it leads to developmental changes in flowering and plant…
Food choices are shifting globally in ways that are negatively affecting both human health and the environment. Here we consider how consuming an additional serving per day of each of 15 foods is associated with 5 health outcomes in adults and 5 aspects of agriculturally driven environmental degradation. We find…
EVOLUTION Correction for "Multiple modes of convergent adaptation in the spread of glyphosate-resistant Amaranthus tuberculatus," by Julia M. Kreiner, Darci Ann Giacomini, Felix Bemm, Bridgit Waithaka, Julian Regalado, Christa Lanz, Julia Hildebrandt, Peter H. Sikkema, Patrick J. Tranel, Detlef Weigel, John R. Stinchcombe, and Stephen I. Wright, which was first…
Expanding the temperature range of CRISPR-Cas9 Homology model of IgnaviCas9, with colors indicating various domains. CRISPR-Cas9 has become a valuable tool for genome editing, but most Cas9 enzymes are active only at moderate temperatures. Stephanie Tzouanas Schmidt et al. (pp. 23100–23105) identified a Cas9 protein from unculturable Ignavibacterium that can…
Ledger et al. (1) report some exciting findings from the well-known site of L'Anse aux Meadows (LAM) in Newfoundland. However, their eye-catching conclusion that "Norse activity at LAM may have endured for a century" is misleading and arises from a misinterpretation of the outputs of their chronological model, constructed in…
We thank Dee and Kuitems (1) for their reply and welcome their criticism and the opportunity to elaborate on our analysis presented in Ledger et al. (2). We agree that estimating the duration of Norse activity at L'Anse aux Meadows (LAM) with any certainty is hindered by the imprecision of…
In PNAS, Cao et al. (1) employ track-etched membranes for the intracellular delivery of various molecular cargoes via electroporation in both adherent and suspended cells. While the concept of utilizing such membranes for electroporation is not novel (2, 3), its extension to suspended cells and the wide parametric space covered…
We are pleased to see that simulation results by Mukherjee et al. (1) and Nathamgari et al. (2) are accordant with our experimental results (3). We also very much appreciate the detailed simulation study by Mukherjee et al. (1), specifically, on the prediction of the existence of an intermediate optimum…
Prof. Richard P. Van Duyne (Fig. 1), a National Academy of Sciences member who played a pivotal role in starting the field of plasmonics and promoting nanoscience, died on July 28, 2019, at the age of 73. Rick's prominence as a great intellect and visionary is apparent by his tremendous…
The World Health Organization forecasts that within 2 decades neurodegenerative disorders will eclipse cancer to become the foremost cause of death in the developed world after cardiovascular disease. Accurate detection of pathological processes goes hand in hand with the goals of treatment and prevention and, in light of their protracted…
In recent years, it has become increasingly apparent that the material characteristics of a cell's environment are an important aspect of cell functions, whether they are in the context of developmental biology (1, 2) or implantable devices (3, 4). While the importance of this is well known, the specific ways…
Animal mating displays provide some of nature's most dramatic and curious spectacles. Ring doves (Streptopelia risoria) are a case in point (Fig. 1). According to Cheng (ref. 1, p. 2), "When a male ring dove courts a female, he starts with majestic bowing and cooing (bow coo) interspersed with strutting…
Immunity evolved as an impossibly elegant, yet devastatingly destructive force to combat pathogens, environmental insults, and rogue malignant cellular agents arising from within. The immunologic arsenal developed in a veritable coevolutionary arms race with the world's pathogens, culminating in lymphocytic weapons of mass destruction. Indeed, T cells and B cells…
Male hypogonadism (abnormally low levels of circulating serum testosterone resulting from a variety of medical and lifestyle issues) can affect males throughout their life span, often because of aging. The Leydig cells, located in the interstitial compartment of the testis and nestled between the seminiferous tubules, produce testosterone in response…
Developing a mechanistic understanding of protein dynamics and conformational changes at polymer interfaces is critical for a range of processes including industrial protein separations. Salting out is one example of a procedure that is ubiquitous in protein separations yet is optimized empirically because there is no mechanistic description of the…
Jockeying and competing for higher status is an inherent feature of rank-ordered hierarchies. Despite theoretically acknowledging rank changes within hierarchies, the extant literature has ignored the role of competitors' dynamic movements on a focal actor's resulting behavior. By using a dynamic lens to examine these movement in competitive situations, we…
Recent work with prion diseases and synucleinopathies indicates that accurate diagnostic methods for protein-folding diseases can be based on the ultrasensitive, amplified measurement of pathological aggregates in biospecimens. A better understanding of the physicochemical factors that control the seeded polymerization of such aggregates, and their amplification in vitro, should allow…
Tc toxins are modular toxin systems of insect and human pathogenic bacteria. They are composed of a 1.4-MDa pentameric membrane translocator (TcA) and a 250-kDa cocoon (TcB and TcC) encapsulating the 30-kDa toxic enzyme (C terminus of TcC). Binding of Tc toxins to target cells and a pH shift trigger…
Lignin is an abundant aromatic polymer found in plant secondary cell walls. In recent years, lignin has attracted renewed interest as a feedstock for bio-based chemicals via catalytic and biological approaches and has emerged as a target for genetic engineering to improve lignocellulose digestibility by altering its composition. In lignin…
Many multidomain proteins contain disordered linkers that regulate interdomain contacts, and thus the effective concentrations that govern intramolecular reactions. Effective concentrations are rarely measured experimentally, and therefore little is known about how they relate to linker architecture. We have directly measured the effective concentrations enforced by disordered protein linkers usin
Surface topography profoundly influences cell adhesion, differentiation, and stem cell fate control. Numerous studies using a variety of materials demonstrate that nanoscale topographies change the intracellular organization of actin cytoskeleton and therefore a broad range of cellular dynamics in live cells. However, the underlying molecular mechanism is not well understood,…
The nexin–dynein regulatory complex (N-DRC) in motile cilia and flagella functions as a linker between neighboring doublet microtubules, acts to stabilize the axonemal core structure, and serves as a central hub for the regulation of ciliary motility. Although the N-DRC has been studied extensively using genetic, biochemical, and structural approaches,…
Recently, the World Health Organization recognized that efforts to interrupt schistosomiasis transmission through mass drug administration have been ineffective in some regions; one of their new recommended strategies for global schistosomiasis control emphasizes targeting the freshwater snails that transmit schistosome parasites. We sought to identify robust indicators that would enable…
Species assemble into communities through ecological and evolutionary processes. Phylogenetic niche conservatism—the tendency of species to retain ancestral ecological distributions—is thought to influence which species from a regional species pool can persist in a particular environment. We analyzed data for seed plants in China to test hypotheses about the distribution…
Macrophage polarization is critical to inflammation and resolution of inflammation. We previously showed that high-mobility group box 1 (HMGB1) can engage receptor for advanced glycation end product (RAGE) to direct monocytes to a proinflammatory phenotype characterized by production of type 1 IFN and proinflammatory cytokines. In contrast, HMGB1 plus C1q…
Standard stochastic optimization methods are brittle, sensitive to stepsize choice and other algorithmic parameters, and they exhibit instability outside of well-behaved families of objectives. To address these challenges, we investigate models for stochastic optimization and learning problems that exhibit better robustness to problem families and algorithmic parameters. With appropriately accurat
Noisy matrix completion aims at estimating a low-rank matrix given only partial and corrupted entries. Despite remarkable progress in designing efficient estimation algorithms, it remains largely unclear how to assess the uncertainty of the obtained estimates and how to perform efficient statistical inference on the unknown matrix (e.g., constructing a…
The assembly of small disordered proteins into highly ordered amyloid fibrils in Alzheimer's and Parkinson's patients is closely associated with dementia and neurodegeneration. Understanding the process of amyloid formation is thus crucial in the development of effective treatments for these devastating neurodegenerative diseases. Recently, a tiny, highly conserved and disordered…
The nascent polypeptide exit site of the ribosome is a crowded environment where multiple ribosome-associated protein biogenesis factors (RPBs) compete for the nascent polypeptide to influence their localization, folding, or quality control. Here we address how N-terminal methionine excision (NME), a ubiquitous process crucial for the maturation of over 50%…
Cellulase enzymes deconstruct recalcitrant cellulose into soluble sugars, making them a biocatalyst of biotechnological interest for use in the nascent lignocellulosic bioeconomy. Cellobiohydrolases (CBHs) are cellulases capable of liberating many sugar molecules in a processive manner without dissociating from the substrate. Within the complete processive cycle of CBHs, dissociation from…
Chemical modifications of RNAs have long been established as key modulators of nonprotein-coding RNA structure and function in cells. There is a growing appreciation that messenger RNA (mRNA) sequences responsible for directing protein synthesis can also be posttranscriptionally modified. The enzymatic incorporation of mRNA modifications has many potential outcomes, including…
RNA folding is often studied by renaturing full-length RNA in vitro and tracking folding transitions. However, the intracellular transcript folds as it emerges from the RNA polymerase. Here, we investigate the folding pathways and stability of numerous late-transcriptional intermediates of yeast and Escherichia coli transfer RNAs (tRNAs). Transfer RNA is…
The most widely used antimalarial drugs belong to the quinoline family. Their mode of action has not been characterized at the molecular level in vivo. We report the in vivo mode of action of a bromo analog of the drug chloroquine in rapidly frozen Plasmodium falciparum-infected red blood cells. The…
Clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)-associated 9 (Cas9) systems have been effectively harnessed to engineer the genomes of organisms from across the tree of life. Nearly all currently characterized Cas9 proteins are derived from mesophilic bacteria, and canonical Cas9 systems are challenged by applications requiring enhanced stability or elevated…
To understand how antibiotic use affects the risk of a resistant infection, we present a computational model of the population dynamics of gut microbiota including antibiotic resistance-conferring plasmids. We then describe how this model is parameterized based on published microbiota data. Finally, we investigate how treatment history affects the prevalence…
The human endometrium is essential in providing the site for implantation and maintaining the growth and survival of the conceptus. An unreceptive endometrium and disrupted maternal−conceptus interactions can cause infertility due to pregnancy loss or later pregnancy complications. Despite this, the role of uterine glands in first trimester human pregnancy…
Optimization of hydride transfer (HT) catalysts to enhance rates and selectivities of (photo)electroreduction reactions could be a crucial component of a sustainable chemical industry. Here, we analyze how ring functionalization of the adsorbed transient intermediate 2-pyridinide (2-PyH−*)—predicted to form in situ from pyridine (Py) in acidified water at a cathode…
Mycorrhizal fungi are critical members of the plant microbiome, forming a symbiosis with the roots of most plants on Earth. Most plant species partner with either arbuscular or ectomycorrhizal fungi, and these symbioses are thought to represent plant adaptations to fast and slow soil nutrient cycling rates. This generates a…
When managing natural systems, the importance of recognizing the role of uncertainty has been formalized as the precautionary approach. However, it is difficult to determine the role of stochasticity in the success or failure of management because there is almost always no replication; typically, only a single observation exists for…
Plants defend themselves against herbivores through the production of toxic and deterrent metabolites. Adapted herbivores can tolerate and sometimes sequester these metabolites, allowing them to feed on defended plants and become toxic to their own enemies. Can herbivore natural enemies overcome sequestered plant defense metabolites to prey on adapted herbivores?…
Jumping spiders (Salticidae) rely on accurate depth perception for predation and navigation. They accomplish depth perception, despite their tiny brains, by using specialized optics. Each principal eye includes a multitiered retina that simultaneously receives multiple images with different amounts of defocus, and from these images, distance is decoded with relatively…
We study the droplet-forming instability of a thin jet extruded from a nozzle moving horizontally below the surface of an isoviscous immiscible fluid bath. While this interfacial instability is a classic problem in fluid mechanics, it has never been studied in the context of the deposition of a thread into…
One-sixth of the global terrestrial surface now falls within protected areas (PAs), making it essential to understand how far they mitigate the increasing pressures on nature which characterize the Anthropocene. In by far the largest analysis of this question to date and not restricted to forested PAs, we compiled data…
Accelerated soil erosion has become a pervasive feature on landscapes around the world and is recognized to have substantial implications for land productivity, downstream water quality, and biogeochemical cycles. However, the scarcity of global syntheses that consider long-term processes has limited our understanding of the timing, the amplitude, and the…
In the United States, the iconic groundfish fishery for Gulf of Maine cod has endured several dramatic reductions in annual catch limits and been federally declared an economic disaster. Using a repeated cross-sectional survey of fishing captains to assess potential social impacts of the fishery failure, we found that psychological…
Transposable elements are one of the major contributors to genome-size differences in metazoans. Despite this, relatively little is known about the evolutionary patterns of element expansions and the element families involved. Here we report a broad genomic sampling within the genus Hydra, a freshwater cnidarian at the focal point of…
Using appropriate antipredatory responses is crucial for survival. While slowing down reduces the chances of being detected from distant predators, fleeing away is advantageous in front of an approaching predator. Whether appropriate responses depend on experience with moving objects is still an open question. To clarify whether adopting appropriate fleeing…
Adaptive radiations are prominent components of the world's biodiversity. They comprise many species derived from one or a small number of ancestral species in a geologically short time that have diversified into a variety of ecological niches. Several authors have proposed that introgressive hybridization has been important in the generation…
In many species that form pair bonds, males display to their mate after pair formation. These displays elevate the female's investment into the brood. This is a form of cooperation because without the display, female investment is reduced to levels that are suboptimal for both sexes. The presence of such…
PM20D1 is a candidate thermogenic enzyme in mouse fat, with its expression cold-induced and enriched in brown versus white adipocytes. Thiazolidinedione (TZD) antidiabetic drugs, which activate the peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-γ (PPARγ) nuclear receptor, are potent stimuli for adipocyte browning yet fail to induce Pm20d1 expression in mouse adipocytes. In contrast,…
Short tandem repeats (STRs) and variable number tandem repeats (VNTRs) are important sources of natural and disease-causing variation, yet they have been problematic to resolve in reference genomes and genotype with short-read technology. We created a framework to model the evolution and instability of STRs and VNTRs in apes. We…
Bradykinin is a proinflammatory factor that mediates angioedema and inflammation in many diseases. It is a key player in some types of hereditary angioedema and is involved in septic shock, traumatic injury, Alzheimer's disease (AD), and stroke, among others. Activation of the plasma contact system leads to elevated levels of…
In 2017, 1.6 million people worldwide died from tuberculosis (TB). A new TB diagnostic test—Xpert MTB/RIF from Cepheid—was endorsed by the World Health Organization in 2010. Trials demonstrated that Xpert is faster and has greater sensitivity and specificity than smear microscopy—the most common sputum-based diagnostic test. However, subsequent trials found…
Glycolytic enzyme phosphoglycerate mutase 1 (PGAM1) plays a critical role in cancer metabolism by coordinating glycolysis and biosynthesis. A well-validated PGAM1 inhibitor, however, has not been reported for treating pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC), which is one of the deadliest malignancies worldwide. By uncovering the elevated PGAM1 expressions were statistically related…
As microbiologists and public health officials scramble for weapons to combat antibiotic resistance, they may end up including an unlikely ally in their arsenal: other bacteria. The prime candidate right now is a predatory bacterium known as Bdellovibrio bacteriovorus. Researchers have started to evaluate predatory bacteria such as Bdellovibrio—shown here…
In 2-dimensional systems at finite temperature, long-wavelength Mermin–Wagner fluctuations prevent the existence of translational long-range order. Their dynamical signature, which is the divergence of the vibrational amplitude with the system size, also affects disordered solids, and it washes out the transient solid-like response generally exhibited by liquids cooled below their…
Disordered hyperuniform structures are locally random while uniform like crystals at large length scales. Recently, an exotic hyperuniform fluid state was found in several nonequilibrium systems, while the underlying physics remains unknown. In this work, we propose a nonequilibrium (driven-dissipative) hard-sphere model and formulate a hydrodynamic theory based on Navier–Stokes…
Conventional kinesin, responsible for directional transport of cellular vesicles, takes multiple nearly uniform 8.2-nm steps by consuming one ATP molecule per step as it walks toward the plus end of the microtubule (MT). Despite decades of intensive experimental and theoretical studies, there are gaps in the elucidation of key steps…
Economic inequality is at its highest point on record and is linked to poorer health and well-being across countries. The forces that perpetuate inequality continue to be studied, and here we examine how a person's position within the economic hierarchy, their social class, is accurately perceived and reproduced by mundane…
Evidence from more than 100 y of research indicates that conscientiousness (C) is the most potent noncognitive construct for occupational performance. However, questions remain about the magnitudes of its effect sizes across occupational variables, its defining characteristics and functions in occupational settings, and potential moderators of its performance relation. Drawing…
As countries pursue sustainable development across sectors as diverse as health, agriculture, and infrastructure, sectoral policies interact, generating synergies that alter their effectiveness. Identifying those synergies ex ante facilitates the harmonization of policies and provides an important lever to achieve the sustainable development goals (SDGs) of the United Nations 2030…
Consumption of globally traded agricultural commodities like soy and palm oil is one of the primary causes of deforestation and biodiversity loss in some of the world's most species-rich ecosystems. However, the complexity of global supply chains has confounded efforts to reduce impacts. Companies and governments with sustainability commitments struggle…
Since the Egyptian pyramids and the Roman Coliseum were built, mankind has been searching for an affordable, versatile building material, that can be easily manufactured and transported, and, above all, which is durable. Concrete, a mixture of water, cement and different kinds of minerals and rocks, has all these characteristics, which is why it is currently the most-used material in all sorts of
Knowing about the origins and creation of an unfamiliar food can make it taste better, research with tempeh finds, even if the taste isn't great to begin with. The researchers conducted the study in Indonesia with the participation of young Indonesians who rated modern and traditional versions of tempeh, which has a long tradition in Indonesian cuisine and consists of beans fermented with a type
The space rock that the New Horizons probe visited earlier this year had been nicknamed Ultima Thule, but it was pointed out this name has links to the Nazis
In a national first, one unfortunate man vaped so much that he needed a double lung transplant. The procedure is being publicized as a warning to other vapers at the patient's request, CNN reports , but he also requested privacy — meaning details about the case are few and far between. The U.S. is currently in the middle of a "vape lung" outbreak — a mysterious lung illness tied to vaping has str
Wearing a blue space suit with a UAE flag on one sleeve and a spaceship on the other, the first Emirati astronaut said Tuesday his mission highlighted a crucial issue—climate change.
The research was conducted in Indonesia with the participation of young Indonesians who rated modern and traditional versions of tempeh, which has a long tradition in Indonesian cuisine and consists of beans fermented with a type of fungus.
An international research collaboration from Poland, the UK and Russia has created a two-dimensional system—a thin optical cavity filled with liquid crystal—in which they trapped photons. As the properties of the cavity were modified by an external voltage, the photons behaved like massive quasiparticles endowed with a magnetic moment, called "spin," under the influence of an artificial magnetic f
The foundation that awards the World Food Prize to individuals who work to improve food security in hopes of ending world hunger announced Tuesday that its new president will be a woman who has led nonprofit organizations focused on global food security, food safety and the impact of climate change on agricultural productivity.
The EU needs to boost space funding and improve its strategy to compete with military superpowers and smaller upstarts, a panel of experts told MEPs on Tuesday.
To facilitate the scientific community's ability to use L. crescens in citrus greening research, University of Florida Department of Plant Pathology scientists have published an article in Phytopathology that outlines, step-by-step, highly reproducible and detailed protocols that they have standardized for culturing L. crescens.
Emperor penguins establish their colonies on sea ice under extremely specific conditions. Yet, this ice will gradually melt as the climate warms, depriving these birds of their habitat, food sources, and the capacity to raise their young. To predict what will happen to emperor penguin colonies, a team of scientists led by the Chizé Centre for Biological Studies (CNRS / University of La Rochelle) a
A new study has shown that a commonly used vector for large gene transfer can success-fully deliver genes to retinal cells in the laboratory, but when injected subretinally into rats it provokes a robust and acute inflammatory response.
November's SLAS Technology Auto-Commentary, "On the Way to Efficient Analytical Measurements: The Future of Robot-Based Measurements," highlights potentially suitable replacement measurement systems and processes as outlined in the book, Automation Solutions for Analytical Measurements: Concepts and Applications.
Clinicians noted the importance of social needs interventions being timely, accessible and tailored to each individual patient, while being responsive to patient feedback. Yet, they were skeptical that referral-based interventions based solely on referrals would adequately address patients' social needs.
The number of primary care visits may be declining nationally, but analysis reveals that in-person visits have become more comprehensive and follow-up care has moved online.
Conclusions about the effectiveness of blue light therapy for acne are limited. A new systematic review and meta-analysis of 14 randomized controlled trials of blue light therapy for acne shows methodological and reporting limitations — including small sample sizes, short intervention periods, and variation in reporting quality for acne outcomes.
Panel of experts says there is not enough evidence to give solid recommendations on many youth sports safety issues. FootballKids.jpg Image credits: Jon Osumi/ Shutterstock Sports Tuesday, November 12, 2019 – 12:00 Chris Gorski, Editor (Inside Science) — A panel of experts studying past research on the risk of concussion in youth contact sports concluded that for most sports, including football
Big floods likely to become more frequent because of climate breakdown Poor management of the rural landscape along with global heating and building on floodplains are the main factors that led to the floods that have engulfed towns in northern England, according to experts. Sheffield, Rotherham and Doncaster are among the places flooded, 12 years after they were badly hit when the River Don burs
A superconducting rotor has been successfully tested on an active wind turbine for the first time. The researchers designed, developed, manufactured a full-size superconducting generator for a 3.6 megawatt wind turbine, and field-tested it.
For the first time in the history of space exploration, scientists have measured the seasonal changes in the gases that fill the air directly above the surface of Gale Crater on Mars.
Researchers are pioneering an innovative brain study that sheds light on how the amygdala portion of the brain functions and could contribute to a better understanding of post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, depression and Alzheimer's disease.
Where to drill? This is the basic question in the exploration of underground energy resources, such as geothermal energy. A research team presents a new method for locating potential drilling sites that are covered by water. The new approach combines bathymetry measurements with geochemical profiles.
Food we are familiar with tastes the best, but if we know where the food comes from and how it is made, it actually gets better, even if we don't think the taste is spot on.
Researchers discovered that a protein called CoRest, a neural repressor that is also found in humans, plays a central role in determining the social behavior of ants. The study also revealed that worker ants called Majors, known as 'brawny' soldiers that protect colonies, can be reprogrammed to perform the foraging role — generally reserved for their sisters, the Minor ants — up to five days aft
The more scientists learn about the slumbering brain, the more they realize how vital sleep actually is. Now some researchers hope to develop it into a form of medicine.
Nature, Published online: 12 November 2019; doi:10.1038/d41586-019-03496-2 Once thought lost to science, the silver-backed chevrotain has been spotted again. Plus, explore the gender gap in chemistry publishing and hear from the astronauts who crewed the first all-female spacewalk.
We've seen the remains of a collision between two planets in a distant star system – and these planetary smash-ups are thought to be surprisingly common
People exposed to a lifetime of psychosocial adversity may have an impaired ability to produce the dopamine levels needed for coping with acutely stressful situations.
Changes in groundwater millions of years ago created alternating layers of vivid yellow and brown in the mineral sphalerite, and those variations align with movements in Earth's orbit that impacted climate in the deep past, Penn State scientists found.
High-need high-cost patients, many of whom are experiencing poverty, use a large portion of health care resources. Despite receiving more care, such patients often experience poor health outcomes.
The age-friendly movement is an ideal means of embracing demographic shifts in higher education and society at large, according to the latest issue in the What's Hot newsletter series from The Gerontological Society of America (GSA), titled 'Higher Education and Aging: The Age-Friendly Movement — Building a Case for Age Inclusivity.' Support for the publication was provided by AARP.
Scientists have revealed how common respiratory bugs that cause serious infections in people with cystic fibrosis interact together, according to a new study in eLife.
Noise is not the same as noise — and even a quiet environment does not have the same effect as white noise. With a background of continuous white noise, hearing pure sounds becomes even more precise, as researchers from the University of Basel have shown in a study in Cell Reports. Their findings could be applied to the further development of cochlear implants.
A telegenic thumb on the scales of perception Kristin Timm reports on presentation habits of television weather forecasters, in AMS journal Weather, Climate and Society. "Conformal comportment" might be the label on the bucket of behaviors described in Timm's paper, but styles change with time— hopefully. Abstract: The journalistic norm of balance bas been described as the practice of giving equa
In order to optimally treat motor symptoms in patients with Parkinson's disease (PD), it is necessary to have a good understanding of their severity and daily fluctuations. A report describes how a new app, SleepFit, could be a useful tool in routine clinical practice to monitor motor symptoms and facilitate specific symptom-oriented follow-up.
One million species are threatened with extinction, many of them already in the coming decades. This unprecedented loss of biodiversity threatens valuable ecosystems and human well-being. But what is holding us back from putting conservation research into practice?
A superconducting rotor has been successfully tested on an active wind turbine for the first time. The researchers designed, developed, manufactured a full-size superconducting generator for a 3.6 megawatt wind turbine, and field-tested it.
Physicists are working to produce engineered magnetic nanostructures and to tailor material properties at the nanoscale. The scientists use a special microscope to achieve this goal. This microscope's ultrathin ion beam is capable of producing stable, periodically arranged nanomagnets in a sample material. The device can also be used to optimize the magnetic properties of carbon nanotubes.
Videogamers competing in major esports tournaments are under as much pressure and stress as professional athletes. In the first study of its kind, scientists examined the psychological challengers encountered by elite esports competitors and found players exhibited 51 different stress factors.
Using orbital instruments to peer into Jezero crater, the landing site for NASA's Mars 2020 rover, researchers found deposits of hydrated silica, a mineral that's great at preserving microfossils and other signs of life.
Astronomers have spotted an ultrafast star, traveling at a blistering 6 million km/h, that was ejected by the supermassive black hole at the heart at the Milky Way five million years ago. The discovery of the star, known as S5-HVS1, was made as part of the Southern Stellar Stream Spectroscopic Survey (S5). Located in the constellation of Grus – the Crane – S5-HVS1 was found to be moving ten times
A cache of 118 million-year-old fossilized dinosaur and bird feathers has been recovered from an ancient lake deposit that once lay beyond the southern polar circle.
In the last interglacial period on Earth about 125,000 years ago, the Indian monsoon was longer, more extreme and less reliable than it is today. This is the conclusion drawn after analyses of a dripstone from a cave in north-eastern India, combining various methods that provide information about supra-regional and local weather phenomena and the climate dynamics of the past.
For the first time in the history of space exploration, scientists have measured the seasonal changes in the gases that fill the air directly above the surface of Gale Crater on Mars.
At the same time the Affordable Care Act increased the number of insured Americans, analysis of health care industry data shows a continued decline in contact with primary care physician services.
The University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) researchers are pioneering an innovative brain study that sheds light on how the amygdala portion of the brain functions and could contribute to a better understanding of post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, depression and Alzheimer's disease.
Deaths from severe bleeding after major trauma have been reduced by 40% over the last decade through a programme of research and innovation led by Queen Mary University of London, Barts Health NHS Trust and NHS Blood and Transplant.
Researchers have provided new insight into the neural processes behind movement and learning behaviours, according to a study published today in eLife.
Neuroengineers have found the first evidence that individual neurons in the human brain target specific memories during recall. They studied recordings in neurosurgical patients who had electrodes implanted in their brains and examined how the patients' brain signals corresponded to their behavior while performing a virtual-reality object-location memory task. The researchers identified 'memory-tr
Scientists have finally solved the geologic mystery of the Nile River's unchanging path. And they made another discovery: the river is about 30 million years old—six times as old as previously believed. Ancient Egyptians considered the Nile River to be the source of all life. The steady northward path of the river has nourished the fertile valleys of northeast Africa for millions of years and in
New biosensor technology monitors the fate of stem cells by detecting genetic material involved in turning such cells into brain cells, according to a study. The technology, which features a unique graphene and gold-based platform and high-tech imaging, may lead to safe stem cell therapies for treating Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases and other neurological disorders, researchers report. Stem
Meteor showers originated from comet 55P/Tempel–Tuttle will be preceded by Taurids six days before One of the year's most dependable meteor showers is set to take place at the end of the week. The Leonids will peak in the hours between midnight and dawn on 18 November. They are so-called because they herald from a point in the constellation Leo – the lion. Known as the radiant, this point is loca
A company with a gender-diverse board of directors is interpreted as revealing a preference for diversity and a weaker commitment to shareholder value, according to new research in the INFORMS journal Organization Science.
Next year, NASA plans to launch a new Mars rover to search for signs of ancient life on the Red Planet. A new study shows that the rover's Jezero crater landing site is home to deposits of hydrated silica, a mineral that just happens to be particularly good at preserving biosignatures.
Where to drill? This is the basic question in the exploration of underground energy resources, such as geothermal energy. A research team with participation of GFZ Potsdam presents a new method for locating potential drilling sites that are covered by water. The new approach combines bathymetry measurements with geochemical profiles.
A review of the evidence on the use of complementary and alternative (CAM) therapies to treat babies with colic has shown some that some treatments — including probiotics, fennel extract and spinal manipulation — do appear to help, but that overall the evidence on the use of these therapies is limited so should be treated with caution.
La Trobe University researchers have revealed for the first time how white blood cells control the final moments of their death, helping their own removal from the human body.
Recent technological breakthroughs in artificial intelligence have made it possible for machines, or bots, to pass as humans. A team of researchers at NYU Abu Dhabi, studied study how people interact with bots they believe to be human, and how such interactions are affected once bots reveal their identity. The researchers found that bots are more efficient than humans at certain human-machine inte
Researchers discovered that a protein called CoRest, a neural repressor that is also found in humans, plays a central role in determining the social behavior of ants. The study also revealed that worker ants called Majors, known as 'brawny' soldiers that protect colonies, can be reprogrammed to perform the foraging role — generally reserved for their sisters, the Minor ants — up to five days aft
Analysis of more than 29,000 adults listed on the national heart transplant registry from 2006 to 2015 shows how rules that give hospitals discretion in determining who gets a transplant result in large discrepancies in how sick patients are when they receive heart transplants at hospitals across the United States.
In 2016, researchers observed that they could reprogram the behavior of the Florida carpenter ant Camponotus floridanus. This species has two distinct castes with nearly identical genetic makeup: smaller Minor workers who forage and nurse the ant brood and larger Major worker soldiers that defend the colony. On Nov. 12 in the journal Molecular Cell, the same group reports that ant castes are deter
A discovery by a Washington State University-led research team has the potential to inhibit the spread of West Nile virus as well as Zika and dengue viruses. The researchers demonstrated that mammalian insulin activated an antiviral immunity pathway in mosquitoes, increasing the insects' ability to suppress the viruses. Since mosquito bites are the most common way humans are infected with West Nil
The lack of a clinically viable method to track and direct cancer drugs to tumors is a big problem for targeted therapeutics. But a new ultrasonic method proposed by biomedical engineers from Qifa Zhou's team at the University of Southern California could enable acoustic control and real-time tracking of drug release within the body. The researchers report on their manipulation of ultrasonic waves
Researchers at Montana Technological University have developed a portable electrospinning device with a confined electric field that can safely deposit bandages and drugs directly onto biological surfaces, using air to spray the fibers out onto the surface, like a can of spray paint. The device can be used to cover wounds and provide controlled drug release over time, and is described in the Journ
New research has explored the growing uncertainty faced by children aged 0-8 years in disaster zones, such as bushfires, finding that early childhood teachers hold a vital role in supporting children dealing with trauma.
A child's temperament appears to be affected by the early stages of their life. Researchers have found children who were born very preterm (under 32 weeks gestation) or very low birthweight (under 1500g) had similar temperamental difficulties in controlling their impulses, to children who experienced institutional deprivation.
A collaborative study shows sex-specific biases in disease-specific changes in brain cells, as well as in cellular control mechanisms based on endogenous short ribonucleic acid (RNA) chains.
A study suggests a new approach that might help treat Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb), the causative agent of tuberculosis: making people's cells better at killing Mtb by harnessing RNA sensors in our cells, which detect the RNA of invading pathogens. For the first time, researchers have shown that RNA sensing is important in inhibiting Mtb's growth once it gets inside cells.
Experiments are casting a new light on Egyptian soil and ancient mummified bone samples that could provide a richer understanding of daily life and environmental conditions thousands of years ago.
Neuroengineers have found the first evidence that individual neurons in the human brain target specific memories during recall. They studied recordings in neurosurgical patients who had electrodes implanted in their brains and examined how the patients' brain signals corresponded to their behavior while performing a virtual-reality object-location memory task. The researchers identified 'memory-tr
In hospitals, doctors often advise patients to take calcium supplements. But does the calcium get into the cells that need it? Until recently, it's been hard to tell.
More than 200 elephants have died amid a severe drought, Zimbabwe's parks agency said on Tuesday, and a mass relocation of animals is planned to ease congestion.
A thick gray haze blanketed India's capital on Tuesday, with authorities attempting to reduce the pollution by sprinkling water to settle dust and banning some construction.
A Berlin zoo says a giant panda whose twin cubs have captured international attention has undergone a CT scan after veterinarians discovered one of his kidneys was smaller than the other.
More than 200 elephants have died amid a severe drought, Zimbabwe's parks agency said on Tuesday, and a mass relocation of animals is planned to ease congestion.
A Berlin zoo says a giant panda whose twin cubs have captured international attention has undergone a CT scan after veterinarians discovered one of his kidneys was smaller than the other.
We're in the dawn of a new space revolution, says engineer Peter Beck: the revolution of the small. In a talk packed with insights into the state of the space industry, Beck shares his work building rockets capable of delivering small payloads to space rapidly and reliably — helping us search for extraterrestrial life, learn more about the solar system and create a global internet network.
Photodetectors are the devices that convert information carried by light into an electric signal that can be processed by electronic circuits and computers. They are found in everyday devices, such as television remotes and motion sensors, and they are a key component in many artificial intelligence and Internet of Things (IoT) technologies. But the largest, and fastest growing market for them is
In collaboration with colleagues from the Leibniz Institute for Solid State and Materials Research Dresden (IFW) and the University of Glasgow, physicists from the German research center Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) are working to produce engineered magnetic nanostructures and to tailor material properties at the nanoscale. The scientists use a special microscope at the HZDR Ion Bea
Nature, Published online: 12 November 2019; doi:10.1038/d41586-019-03490-8 The drug, which has already been given to hundreds of thousands of people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, can now be distributed more widely.
Cross-equatorial flows (CEFs) north of the Australia in the lower atmosphere play a pivotal role in mass, moisture and energy transport between the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, and serve as one of the crucial components of the Asian monsoon system.
Despite years of effort to bring more women to the top boards of business, the proportion of women on the committees of listed companies remains in the single digits. In 2019, women held just 8.7 percent of the positions on the boards of the 160 largest German companies. Despite this, quotas, such as the statutory gender quota for supervisory board members introduced in Germany in 2016, are still
A discovery by a Washington State University-led research team has the potential to inhibit the spread of West Nile virus as well as Zika and dengue viruses.
Elon Musk-led spacetech company SpaceX wants to bring broadband internet to everybody on the planet by launching tens of thousands of small "Starlink" satellites to low Earth orbit. The Federal Communications Commission already gave SpaceX permission to operate a maximum of 30,000 of them — eight times as many satellites as are currently in orbit, according to the European Space Agency . The comp
Food we are familiar with tastes the best, but if we know where the food comes from and how it is made, it actually gets better, even if we don't think the taste is spot on. New research from the Future Consumer Lab at the Department of Food Science at the University of Copenhagen demonstrates this.
A study in iScience suggests a new approach that might help treat Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb), the causative agent of tuberculosis: making people's cells better at killing Mtb by harnessing RNA sensors in our cells, which detect the RNA of invading pathogens. For the first time, researchers led by Anne Goldfeld, MD, of Boston Children's Hospital's Program in Cellular and Molecular Medicine, s
An autoimmune attack on uninfected red blood cells likely contributes to anaemia — a shortage of red blood cells — in people with malaria, according to a new study published in eLife.
A collaborative study published in Nature Medicine sounds a note of caution in using probiotics in the ICU. In a small percentage of cases, the live bacteria in the probiotic formulations can cause bloodstream infections. An investigation began when the Infection Prevention and Control group at Boston Children's Hospital began noticing cases of bacteremia in the ICU caused by Lactobacillus, a genu
A new review article provides valuable insights into how traditional and emerging cardiac-specific biomarkers and their associated cardiovascular disease risk factors may help point to effective preventive interventions in high-risk obese populations starting at an early stage of disease development.
A company with a gender-diverse board of directors is interpreted as revealing a preference for diversity and a weaker commitment to shareholder value, according to new research in the INFORMS journal Organization Science.
Using orbital instruments to peer into Jezero crater, the landing site for NASA's Mars 2020 rover, researchers found deposits of hydrated silica, a mineral that's great at preserving microfossils and other signs of life.
Physicists from the German research center Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) are working to produce engineered magnetic nanostructures and to tailor material properties at the nanoscale. The scientists use a special microscope at the HZDR Ion Beam Center to achieve this goal. This microscope's ultrathin ion beam is capable of producing stable, periodically arranged nanomagnets in a sampl
A discovery by a Washington State University-led research team has the potential to inhibit the spread of West Nile virus as well as Zika and dengue viruses.
La Trobe University researchers have revealed for the first time how white blood cells control the final moments of their death, helping their own removal from the human body.
Through early adulthood, exposure to new experiences—like learning to drive a car or memorizing information for an exam—triggers change in the human brain, re-wiring neural pathways to imprint memories and modify behavior. Similar to humans, the behavior of Florida carpenter ants is not set in stone—their roles, whether it is protecting the colony or foraging for food, are determined by signals fr
La Trobe University researchers have revealed for the first time how white blood cells control the final moments of their death, helping their own removal from the human body.
Through early adulthood, exposure to new experiences—like learning to drive a car or memorizing information for an exam—triggers change in the human brain, re-wiring neural pathways to imprint memories and modify behavior. Similar to humans, the behavior of Florida carpenter ants is not set in stone—their roles, whether it is protecting the colony or foraging for food, are determined by signals fr
Jakarta, Indonesia, is at high risk of being underwater this century When you hear how many people are living on land that might be underwater by 2100 , you might wonder how we know exactly how high the sea level will be so far into the future. That kind of modeling is incredibly complex, and involves countless calculations and assumptions that influence the outcome. But you probably don't wonder
The Tibetan Plateau (TP), known as the "Asian water tower" because of its huge storage capacity in glaciers, has a profound impact on local and downstream ecosystems. However, it is a challenge to establish and maintain in situ observations there due to the complex terrain. Scientists have found substitutes, thanks to satellite technology.
Just 13 out of the largest 132 coal, electricity, and oil and gas companies have made commitments to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions to net zero, research published today has revealed.
On 12 November 2014 Philae became the first spacecraft to land on a comet as part of the successful Rosetta mission to study Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Five years later, and after the mission's official end in 2016, Rosetta is continuing to provide insights into the origins of our solar system.
A study performed in Catalonia by IRTA-CReSA, UAB and Torreferrussa Wildlife Center demonstrates that the enteric bacteria of wildlife origin in Catalonia exhibits a high prevalence and diversity of antibiotic resistance genes. The study, published in the PLoS ONE journal, emphasizes that these antibiotics are classified by the World Health Organization as critically important for human health.
In order to optimally treat motor symptoms in patients with Parkinson's disease (PD), it is necessary to have a good understanding of their severity and daily fluctuations. A report in the Journal of Parkinson's Disease describes how a new app, SleepFit, could be a useful tool in routine clinical practice to monitor motor symptoms and facilitate specific symptom-oriented follow-up.
Astronomers have spotted an ultrafast star, traveling at a blistering 6 million km/h, that was ejected by the supermassive black hole at the heart at the Milky Way five million years ago. The discovery of the star, known as S5-HVS1, was made by Carnegie Mellon's Sergey Koposov as part of the Southern Stellar Stream Spectroscopic Survey (S5). Located in the constellation of Grus – the Crane – S5-HV
A superconducting rotor has been successfully tested on an active wind turbine for the first time.The EcoSwing consortium designed, developed, manufactured a full-size superconducting generator for a 3.6 megawatt wind turbine, and field-tested it in Thyborøn, Denmark.
'One World — One Guideline': Researchers at the University of Cologne and Cologne University Hospital have launched an initiative to significantly reduce the mortality rate of the rare fungal disease mucormycosis, which afflicts 7,000 people worldwide every year.
An international research effort has broken fresh ground in the race to find more effective treatments for the childhood cancer neuroblastoma, by uncovering a new and as-yet unexploited target in cancer cells that therapeutic drugs can be aimed at.
The first appearance of bright green leaves heralds the start of spring. But a new study shows that urbanization shifts this seasonal cue in nuanced ways, with cities in cold climates triggering earlier spring plant growth and cities in warm climates delaying it.
Antibiotic resistance has become a global health problem due to decades of misuse of these drugs in both human and veterinary medicine. Nowadays, the prevalence of multi-drug resistant bacteria in humans, domestic animals and livestock has increased, hindering the finding of the correct treatment for infectious diseases that before were not a problem. This is especially true in hospital settings,
In the last interglacial period on Earth about 125,000 years ago, the Indian monsoon was longer, more extreme and less reliable than it is today. This is the conclusion drawn by geoscientists from Ruhr-Universität Bochum (RUB) and the University of Oxford, together with other colleagues from the UK, New Zealand, China and the U.S.. The team analysed a dripstone from a cave in north-eastern India,
Antibiotic resistance has become a global health problem due to decades of misuse of these drugs in both human and veterinary medicine. Nowadays, the prevalence of multi-drug resistant bacteria in humans, domestic animals and livestock has increased, hindering the finding of the correct treatment for infectious diseases that before were not a problem. This is especially true in hospital settings,
The mammoth lumbers through our imaginations when we think about the world during the most recent Ice Age. They're just one of many giant creatures that our ancestors lived alongside and which became extinct when the climate changed. The giant ground sloth – a large herbivore which was endemic to the Americas—is another.
A major wildfire spread through Colorado, and I spent long hours locating shelters, identifying evacuation routes and piecing together satellite imagery.
· Novel multiplex technology developed to help consumers make healthier choices based on their genetic profile· TTP involved with all aspects of product development, from initial concept to prototype testing and manufacture· Culmination of technology and product development partnership spanning just over 3 years
You've probably played a 15 puzzle. It's that frustrating yet addictive game with 15 tiles and a single empty space in a 4-by-4 grid. The goal is to slide the tiles around and put them in numerical order or, in some versions, arrange them to form an image. The game has become a staple of party-favor bags since it was introduced in the 1870s. It has also caught the attention of mathematicians, who
Nature, Published online: 12 November 2019; doi:10.1038/d41586-019-03486-4 Ipshita Mandal-Johnson teamed up with other graduate students to set up an annual forum to develop tomorrow's biotechnology leaders. This is what she learnt.
New research finds similar impulse control issues among children who were born preterm or at very low birth weight and those who were institutionally deprived early in life. The researchers considered children who were born before 32 weeks gestation or weighing under 1,500g (3.3 pounds) at birth. They found they had similar difficulties in controlling their impulses as children who experienced in
The landing spot for NASA's Mars 2020 rover, Jezero crater, is home to deposits of hydrated silica, a mineral that just happens to be particularly good at preserving microfossils and other signs of life, researchers say. "Using a technique we developed that helps us find rare, hard-to-detect mineral phases in data taken from orbiting spacecraft, we found two outcrops of hydrated silica within Jez
Forskare från Högskolan i Gävle, i samarbete med Academic medical center (kopplat till Universitetet i Amsterdam) har i en studie tittat på stillasittande bland kontorsarbetare. Vanligtvis är självskattning den traditionella metoden för att samla in uppgifter. Men forskarna har nu kunnat konstatera att självskattningssvaren inte stämmer med verkligheten.
The first national elections that were held in Europe after the economic crisis of 2008 revealed rather a clear political map. In almost all countries (especially in southern and eastern Europe), challenger parties obtained significant electoral results at the expense of the traditional parties.
The discovery of the star, known as S5-HVS1, was made by Sergey Koposov from Carnegie Mellon University as part of the Southern Stellar Stream Spectroscopic Survey (S5). Located in the constellation of Grus—the Crane—S5-HVS1 was found to be moving ten times faster than most stars in the Milky Way.
In Ireland, there has recently been some controversy over a proposal to transition a number of the country's dirtiest power stations away from burning peat bogs, which emits even more carbon than coal. Instead, the plan is to burn "biomass" – that is, wood. However, because Ireland has relatively little forestry, there is not enough wood available to meet demand. That's why Bord na Mona, a semi-st
An international research collaboration from Poland, the UK and Russia has created a two-dimensional system — a thin optical cavity filled with liquid crystal — in which they trapped photons. As the properties of the cavity were modified by an external voltage, the photons behaved like massive quasiparticles endowed with a magnetic moment, called 'spin', under the influence of an artificial magn
A cache of 118 million-year-old fossilized dinosaur and bird feathers has been recovered from an ancient lake deposit that once lay beyond the southern polar circle.
The acidification of the Pacific Ocean in northern Japan is increasing the natural production rate of N2O, an ozone-depleting greenhouse gas. That's the finding of a study carried out jointly by scientists at EPFL, Tokyo Institute of Technology and Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology and appearing recently in Nature Climate Change.
One million species are threatened with extinction, many of them already in the coming decades. This unprecedented loss of biodiversity threatens valuable ecosystems and human well-being. But what is holding us back from putting conservation research into practice? The journal Biological Conservation has published a collection of 14 articles on this topic. In their editorial, Bea Maas from the Uni
In the last interglacial period on Earth about 125,000 years ago, the Indian monsoon was longer, more extreme and less reliable than it is today. This is the conclusion drawn after analyses of a dripstone from a cave in north-eastern India, combining various methods that provide information about supra-regional and local weather phenomena and the climate dynamics of the past.
An international study led from Lund University in Sweden shows that 30% of the energy in a certain type of light-absorbing iron molecule disappears in a previously unknown manner. By closing this loophole, the researchers hope to contribute to the development of more efficient solar cells using this iron-based solar cell.
The devastating impact caused by earthquakes on the local communities and environment could differ in severity depending on the season a pioneering new study on two historic earthquakes in Kazakhstan has suggested.
New research from the University of South Australia, has explored the growing uncertainty faced by children aged 0-8 years in disaster zones, such as bushfires, finding that early childhood teachers hold a vital role in supporting children dealing with trauma.
Despite years trying to bring more women to the top boards of business, the proportion of women on the committees of companies is tiny. Yet quotas, such as the 2016 statutory gender quota for supervisory board members in Germany, remain controversial. Now, researchers at the Universities of Göttingen and Mannheim have examined the attitudes of the European population to the gender quota in boards.
A child's temperament is affected by the early stages of their life. Researchers from the University of Warwick, the University of Tennessee, University of Southampton and Kings College London have found children who were born very preterm (under 32 weeks gestation) or very low birthweight (under 1500g) had similar temperamental difficulties in controlling their impulses, to children who experienc
Your diet can put you at risk of depression, according to a new study. The study also found that the likelihood of depression is higher among middle-aged and older women who were immigrants to Canada when compared to Canadian-born women.
Investigators from Brigham and Women's Hospital have completed a new study using 7 Tesla (7T) MRI — a far more powerful imaging technology — to further examine LME in MS patients
Targos Molecular Pathology GmbH, a market leader in clinical biomarker services announced today a technology partnership with Ultivue, the innovation leader in multiplex tissue biomarker assays, to offer the biopharmaceutical industry new capabilities to improve the characterization of cancer patients' samples selected for clinical research programs.
Onlinesupermarkedet nemlig.com og Stena Recycling har indgået et samarbejde om behandling og genanvendelse af 50 ton LDPE-plastfolie fra 2020. Processen starter allerede ved designet af plastposerne, der fremover skal være nemmere at genanvende.
One million species are threatened with extinction, many of them already in the coming decades. This unprecedented loss of biodiversity threatens valuable ecosystems and human well-being. But what is holding us back from putting conservation research into practice? The journal Biological Conservation has published a collection of 14 articles on this topic. In their editorial, Bea Maas from the Uni
Aquaculture in Sweden could be more sustainable if by-products from industrial feed production were used instead of wild-caught aquafeed, according to studies at the University of Gothenburg.
An international study led from Lund University in Sweden shows that 30 percent of the energy in a certain type of light-absorbing iron molecule disappears in a previously unknown manner. By closing this loophole, the researchers hope to contribute to the development of more efficient solar cells using this iron-based solar cell.
Scientists have been working on developing adhesives for the marine environment that are inspired by organisms that fix themselves to underwater surfaces, like mussels. These catechol-based glues are easily oxidized and so eventually lose their adhesiveness, making them less than satisfactory for their intended purpose.
Experiments at the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) are casting a new light on Egyptian soil and ancient mummified bone samples that could provide a richer understanding of daily life and environmental conditions thousands of years ago.
One million species are threatened with extinction, many of them already in the coming decades. This unprecedented loss of biodiversity threatens valuable ecosystems and human well-being. But what is holding us back from putting conservation research into practice? The journal Biological Conservation has published a collection of 14 articles on this topic. In their editorial, Bea Maas from the Uni
Aquaculture in Sweden could be more sustainable if by-products from industrial feed production were used instead of wild-caught aquafeed, according to studies at the University of Gothenburg.
An Australian study revealing new spin textures in pyrite could unlock these materials' potential in future spintronics devices. The study of pyrite-type materials provides new insights and opportunities for selective spin control in topological spintronics devices.
T he 12th-floor apartment of one of Long Island City's waterfront towers features both spectacular views of Manhattan and a small yet state-of-the-art bioengineering lab, tucked into the spare bedroom. Sebastian Cocioba, a 29-year-old college dropout and self-styled "plant hacker," has lived there with his parents for the past decade. And, for the past three years, the condo has also been home to
Nature, Published online: 12 November 2019; doi:10.1038/d41586-019-03488-2 Indigenous communities must be compensated for their knowledge and treated as equals in research.
A collaborative study carried out by the Institute of Pharmacology and Clinical Pharmacy at Goethe University (Professor Jochen Klein) and the Institute of Neurosciences at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (Professor Hermona Soreq) shows sex-specific biases in disease-specific changes in brain cells, as well as in cellular control mechanisms based on endogenous short ribonucleic acid (RNA) chain
Videogamers competing in major esports tournaments are under as much pressure and stress as professional athletes. In the first study of its kind, scientists examined the psychological challengers encountered by elite esports competitors and found players exhibited 51 different stress factors.
Industrial and automotive machinery, such as automotive engine parts, contain materials that are, heat-, wear-, and corrosion-resistant. They are known as 'super engineering plastics,' and they continue to revolutionize manufacturing processes. While they are actually plastic, they are much stronger than the typical plastics we encounter in everyday life. These materials, however, create a corrosi
An article by Danilo Serani, a researcher with the Department of Political and Social Sciences at UPF, analyses the impact of the economic crisis on the electoral preferences of European citizens. The study reveals that the electoral success of challenger parties is largely due to a lack of trust in the actors of political representation.
Experiments at Berkeley Lab are casting a new light on Egyptian soil and ancient mummified bone samples that could provide a richer understanding of daily life and environmental conditions thousands of years ago. In a 2-monthslong research effort that concluded in late August, 2 researchers from Cairo University in Egypt brought 32 bone samples and 2 soil samples to study using X-ray and infrared
A new study by researchers from the Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden (XTBG) and their collaborators brings this knowledge together. In a survey of the relevant scientific literature, the scientists highlight significant advances in the understanding of phloem interactions with insects and prokaryotic pathogens as well as make recommendations for future research.
Aging is reversible. It's still a somewhat controversial idea in humans. Yet recent attempts at delaying—or even reversing—diseases that pop up with age in animals clearly show that health doesn't necessarily decline with age. The slip-and-slide into poor health as we age may seem like a natural trajectory, but it's not inevitable. In the lab, just a single treatment can often reverse aging's nag
Family Connects, a program in which nurses visit the homes of newborns, is linked to substantial reductions in child abuse investigations in the earliest years, a new study shows. Participants in the program had 44% lower rates of child maltreatment investigations during the child's first 24 months of life, compared with parents who did not take part in the program, researchers found. "We now hav
If you're a chemist, then you like crystallization. I think that's pretty much a given; I've never met anyone who doesn't appreciate a good crystal, and watching them form out of a solution never stops feeling a bit like magic. When I was doing a project involving metal-organic frameworks, I had some of the best fun I've ever had in the lab making new crystals all the time (and some of the more f
Redan 2500 år före vikingatiden rådde nordisk högkultur. Bronsåldern präglades av båtfärder, handel, krigarideal och ett hövdingavälde med lyxkonsumtion och makt från gudarna. Parallellerna är slående, visar dagens forskning. Plötsligt uppstår en lucka i väster. Ett sug efter statusföremål av brons gör att handelslederna över kontinenten måste dras om. Den så kallade uneticekulturen – med tyngdpu
The tagline for Superman: The Movie was "You'll believe a man can fly." That was how low the bar was for visual effects in 1978. Now, of course, it's more like you'll believe the guy from Goonies can play an 8-foot purple alien warlord, Will Smith can play opposite his younger self, and you'll believe an actor hasn't actually been dead for 64 years. Earlier this month, filmmakers Anton Ernst and
Det skaber unødig frygt blandt læger, når der tales om, at vi straffer læger. Vi beskæftiger os med at imødegå fare for patientsikkerheden, skriver direktør for Styrelsen for Patientsikkerhed.
A British engineer has found a way to filter unwanted cells from blood using magnets — and his tool could be used in clinical trials as soon as next year. Thanks to existing research, biochemical scientist George Frodsham knew it was possible to force magnetic nanoparticles to bind to specific cells in the body. But while other researchers did so primarily to make those cells show up in images, h
Heather Stephens, assistant professor of resource economics and management at West Virginia University, found that shale development negatively impacts house prices, particularly for houses with private water and close proximity to the mountains.
An Australian-led international research effort has broken fresh ground in the race to find more effective treatments for the childhood cancer neuroblastoma, by uncovering a new and as-yet unexploited target in cancer cells that therapeutic drugs can be aimed at.
New bio-inspired hydrogels can act like superglue in highly ionic environments such as seawater, overcoming issues in currently available marine adhesives.
New bio-inspired hydrogels can act like superglue in highly ionic environments such as seawater, overcoming issues in currently available marine adhesives.
New study finds that the amount of climate and health benefits achieved from renewable energy depends on the country where it is installed. Countries with higher carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and more air pollution, such as India, China, and areas in Southeast Asia and Eastern Europe, achieve greater climate and health benefits per megawatt (MW) of renewable energy installed than those operating
Using a special type of two-dimensional material, researchers have developed a new way to make light sensors that improves their sensitivity and could allow manufacturers to keep up with the growing demand for their use in devices ranging from television remotes to fiber optic receivers in data centers, and light detecting and ranging systems (LiDAR) in autonomous vehicles.
A study shows a correlation between mothers' self-reported pregnancy-related anxiety, and babies' blood flow to brain areas responsible for emotional responses when listening to sad speech
A newly developed experimental vaccine was more than eighty percent effective in protecting mice from succumbing to Staphylococcus aureus infection. S. aureus causes more than 30,000 deaths from hospital-acquired infections annually in the US, costing the healthcare system $10 billion.
Plants make sugars to form leaves to grow and produce grains and fruits through the process of photosynthesis, but sugar accumulation can also slow down photosynthesis. Researching how sugars in plants control photosynthesis is therefore an important part of finding new ways of improving crop production. Recent research into highly productive turbocharged crops such as maize and sorghum, show the
PLUS. Detaljerede undersøgelser har kortlagt territorier, Kongeriget Danmark kunne gøre krav på ud fra et naturvidenskabeligt synspunkt. Alligevel er ny politisk aftale endt langt fra de naturvidenskabelige krav.
In order to search for life in outer space, astronomers first need to know where to look. A new Northwestern University study will help astronomers narrow down the search.
As catastrophic bushfires continue to rage across New South Wales and Queensland, thousands of people are reeling from the devastation. It's a shocking start to Australia's fire season, but beyond the physical damage, the emotional scars persist, especially for Australia's youngest citizens.
Scientists prove that ergothioneine, an important compound that may be used to delay the onset of diseases such as Alzheimer's and dementia, can be produced in baker's yeast.
Scientists from the University of Helsinki have figured out how to mine people's online reactions to endangered animals and plants so that they can reduce the chance of pushing species toward extinction.
Over the past two decades, as Canada's demographics have shifted, news organizations have failed to reflect the country's increasing diversity in both content and staffing.
A bamboo toothbrush deconstructed: bamboo handle, paper packaging box, plant-based nylon bristles and plant-based wrapper. It also comes with disposal instructions.
Scientists prove that ergothioneine, an important compound that may be used to delay the onset of diseases such as Alzheimer's and dementia, can be produced in baker's yeast.
Scientists from the University of Helsinki have figured out how to mine people's online reactions to endangered animals and plants so that they can reduce the chance of pushing species toward extinction.
A new book traces the origins of the claim that "boys will be boys"—and refutes it. Thirty years ago, in downtown Mexico City, Matthew Gutmann took a picture of a man holding a baby. Little did he know then that photo would launch a decades-long career studying men and masculinity around the world. "I showed that photo to a bunch of people in the United States, and I kept getting vehement reactio
The spring season is lengthening in some regions of the U.S. and compressing in others, potentially disrupting species' migration patterns and development, a new study finds.
The existing notion that soft tissue architectures and native proteins can be preserved across geological time is controversial since methods of such preservation remain to be investigated and well-defined. In a new study, Elizabeth M. Boatman and colleagues at the departments of Engineering, Paleontology, Biological Science, Materials and Engineering and the Advanced Light Source in the U.S., tes
The existing notion that soft tissue architectures and native proteins can be preserved across geological time is controversial since methods of such preservation remain to be investigated and well-defined. In a new study, Elizabeth M. Boatman and colleagues at the departments of Engineering, Paleontology, Biological Science, Materials and Engineering and the Advanced Light Source in the U.S., tes
A tumbling flower beetle with pollen on its legs, trapped in amber, pushes the first known physical evidence of insect flower pollination to 99 million years ago. The fossil comes from deep inside a mine in northern Myanmar and from the same amber deposit as the first ammonite discovered in amber , which the same research group reported earlier this year. The newly reported fossil appears in the
A team of researchers affiliated with several institutions in the U.S. has developed a way to use the CRISPR gene editing technique for dose-dependent activation of gene expressions. In their paper published in the journal Nature Biotechnology, the group describes their technique for altering gene expression in an alternative way and how well it worked.
Consulting a YouTube tutorial or an online dictionary, improving English skills using a dedicated application while taking public transportation, etc. To develop their skills, professionals are increasingly turning to these informal digital learning methods. This is illustrated by two studies conducted by the HRM Digital Lab at Institut Mines-Télécom Business School, on a representative sample of
A team of researchers affiliated with several institutions in the U.S. has developed a way to use the CRISPR gene editing technique for dose-dependent activation of gene expressions. In their paper published in the journal Nature Biotechnology, the group describes their technique for altering gene expression in an alternative way and how well it worked.
A.I. researchers at Stevens Institute of Technology have developed a system that can detect when a person is eating and calculate how many carbohydrates they are consuming with unprecedented accuracy and speed. The work provides a significant advance for people who wear continuous glucose monitors as part of their diabetes treatment, allowing insulin to be administered closer to the time when it's
An Australian study revealing new spin textures in pyrite could unlock these materials' potential in future spintronics devices. The study of pyrite-type materials provides new insights and opportunities for selective spin control in topological spintronics devices.
Prof. DONG Wenfei's research group from the Suzhou Institute of Biomedical Engineering and Technology (SIBET) has developed a new type of fluorescent carbon dot that can effectively detect calcium levels in cells.
Both transcription factors regulate the expression of genes involved in embryo development, among other functions, although they exert very different roles.The study also refutes the theory accepted to date that SMAD2 does not bind to DNA.Published in Genes & Development, the research is the result of collaboration between Maria J. Macias' lab at IRB Barcelona and Joan Massagué's group at the Sloa
Study shows correlation between mothers' self-reported pregnancy-related anxiety, and babies' blood flow to brain areas responsible for emotional responses when listening to sad speech
Using a special type of two-dimensional material, researchers at Drexel University have developed a new way to make light sensors that improves their sensitivity and could allow manufacturers to keep up with the growing demand for their use in devices ranging from television remotes to fiber optic receivers in data centers, and light detecting and ranging systems (LiDAR) in autonomous vehicles.
New study finds that the amount of climate and health benefits achieved from renewable energy depends on the country where it is installed. Countries with higher carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and more air pollution, such as India, China, and areas in Southeast Asia and Eastern Europe, achieve greater climate and health benefits per megawatt (MW) of renewable energy installed than those operating
Earlier this year, the official trailer for the Sonic the Hedgehog movie was released and it featured a very weird looking Sonic. This was met with massive backlash from the internet, which …
Nature, Published online: 12 November 2019; doi:10.1038/d41586-019-03430-6 How Nature reported historic changes in medical practice in 1919, and call for doctors and nurses to receive computer training in 1969.
Someone's Jelly It seems even billionaire CEOs like to throw the occasional shade via Twitter — and then deny it when confronted. The tea: On October 31, Roland Busch, deputy CEO of German engineering powerhouse Siemens, called SpaceX CEO Elon Musk a "true visionary of our time" in a tweet . Eight days later, Busch's boss, Siemens CEO Joe Kaeser, published a tweet of his own. "Amusing opinions in
Last year, the Atlanta-based singer-songwriter Jacquees posted a lofty declaration on Instagram just six months after releasing his debut studio album, 4275 . "I just wanna let everybody know that I'm the king of R&B right now—for this generation," he said in the December video . "I understand who done came and who done did that and that and that, but now it's my turn." The claim drew swift criti
A Boone County, Mo., judge has ruled that University of Missouri violated the state's open records law by placing an exorbitantly high price tag on records sought by a California animal rescue group.
A team of researchers with members from several institutions in the U.S., one from Peru and one from India, has found evidence of gene markers in native Andean people that may help them survive at high altitudes, where oxygen levels can sometimes be half as much as lowland areas. In their paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the group describes their study, which inv
Researchers at the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU) have developed a promising new class of active ingredients against resistant bacteria. In initial tests in cell cultures and insects, the substances were at least as effective as common antibiotics. The new compounds target a special enzyme that only appears in bacteria in this specific form and that was not previously the target o
The rainfall that has inundated the North of England is the latest in a long line of flood events that are becoming the country's new normal. Indeed, across the world, flooding is expected to become more frequent and more extreme as the planet heats up.
A Boone County, Mo., judge has ruled that University of Missouri violated the state's open records law by placing an exorbitantly high price tag on records sought by a California animal rescue group.
A team of researchers with members from several institutions in the U.S., one from Peru and one from India, has found evidence of gene markers in native Andean people that may help them survive at high altitudes, where oxygen levels can sometimes be half as much as lowland areas. In their paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the group describes their study, which inv
A team of researchers from Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, the University of Washington and the University of Wisconsin-Madison has found evidence that shows the rapid rise of temperatures in the Arctic is caused by the loss of snow and ice cover, and not soot. In their paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the group describes studying satellite data for the re
Researchers at the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU) have developed a promising new class of active ingredients against resistant bacteria. In initial tests in cell cultures and insects, the substances were at least as effective as common antibiotics. The new compounds target a special enzyme that only appears in bacteria in this specific form and that was not previously the target o
Six percent of global CO2 emissions—4.4. billion tonnes per year—are currently produced by the steel and aluminum industry. In an overview article for the journal Nature, Dierk Raabe, Director at the Max-Planck-Institut für Eisenforschung in Düsseldorf, and scientists from MIT in Cambridge Massachusetts outline how the immense CO2 footprint in metal production and use can be reduced. On the one ha
New bio-inspired hydrogels can act like superglue in highly ionic environments such as seawater, overcoming issues in currently available marine adhesives.
118 miljoner år gamla fossila fjädrar från dinosaurier och tidiga fåglar har hittats i sedimenten efter en sjö som en gång i tiden låg innanför den södra polcirkeln. I Koonwarra Fish Beds Geological Reserve,145 kilometer sydöst om Melbourne i Australien. Fossila fynd från dinosaurier med fjädrar har hittats på en handfull olika platser runt om i världen. Det har dock funnits väldigt få exempel fr
Det är vanligt att hjärtpatienter drabbas av depression. Det kan leda till en ond cirkel där också hjärtsjukdomen kan påverkas negativt och det är därför viktigt att depressionen blir behandlad. En studie från Linköpings universitet visar att terapi via nätet är effektiv. – Vår studie visar att terapi via nätet kan minska depression och förbättra livskvaliteten för hjärtsjuka. Brist på resurser g
Nature, Published online: 12 November 2019; doi:10.1038/d41586-019-03457-9 Andy Greenberg's book Sandworm is trenchant on the mounting capacity of malware to wreak havoc. Brian Nussbaum reviews.
Nature, Published online: 12 November 2019; doi:10.1038/d41586-019-03455-x Engineers are miniaturizing pharmaceutical production in the hope of making it portable and inexpensive.
Nature, Published online: 12 November 2019; doi:10.1038/d41586-019-03371-0 The practice was probably used to improve the children's chances of securing a university place.
Nature, Published online: 12 November 2019; doi:10.1038/d41586-019-03456-w A trawl through the global tide of cast-offs shows how we might avoid drowning in them. Edward Humes reviews.
Nature, Published online: 12 November 2019; doi:10.1038/d41586-019-03452-0 Ebola uncovered policy flaws. A bioweapons treaty might show a fix, says Rebecca Katz.
Metallic materials are the backbone of modern economies. However, large quantities of CO2 are produced during their production and processing. The metal industry must therefore use more climate-friendly processes in the future. The CO2 balance of alloys and their components must also be improved over their entire service life. Dierk Raabe, Director at the Max-Planck-Institut für Eisenforschung in
Scientists at the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona), in collaboration with the Sloan Kettering Institute (New York, U.S.), have published the structural and functional keys that distinguish two very similar transcription factors, namely SMAD2 and SMAD3.
The idea of a four-day working week is gaining momentum. The Labour Party has included it in its 2019 electoral manifesto, and Microsoft Japan announced positive results from a trial run earlier in 2019. Some fear it will "wreck" the economy.
Trees die. You don't have to like it, but they do. And this comes as a surprise to some. A senior public servant once told one of us (Brack): "Trees don't die; people kill them."
A cache of 118 million-year-old fossilized dinosaur and bird feathers has been recovered from an ancient lake deposit that once lay beyond the southern polar circle.
Industrial and automotive machinery, such as automotive engine parts, contain materials that are, heat-, wear-, and corrosion-resistant. They are known as "super engineering plastics," and they continue to revolutionize manufacturing processes. While they are actually plastic, they are much stronger than the typical plastics we encounter in everyday life. These materials, however, create a corrosi
Scientists at the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona), in collaboration with the Sloan Kettering Institute (New York, U.S.), have published the structural and functional keys that distinguish two very similar transcription factors, namely SMAD2 and SMAD3.
As the east coast bushfire crisis unfolds, New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian and Rural Fire Service operational officer Brett Taylor have each warned residents bushfires can create their own weather systems.
What a SpaceX Starlink satellite looks like in orbit. It has been a quiet fall for SpaceX, which launched a Falcon 9 rocket early August before taking a break to prepare for future missions. Now, SpaceX has successfully deployed a new batch of Starlink internet satellites, and the Falcon 9 that delivered them made history in the process. At this rate, SpaceX could begin offering internet access b
As universities shut down, researchers are demonstrating—and meeting with lawmakers to figure out if science can help solve socioeconomic inequality — Read more on ScientificAmerican.com
A mathematician from RUDN University has proven that there are no solutions to functional differential inequalities associated with the Kardar-Parisi-Zhang (KPZ)-type equations, nonlinear stochastic partial differential equations that arise when describing surface growth. The obtained conditions for the absence of solutions will help in studies of polymer growth, the theory of neural networks, and
Skoltech researchers in collaboration with scientists from the Institute for Problems of Chemical Physics of RAS and the Ural Federal University have shown that high-capacity, high-power batteries can be made from organic materials without lithium or other rare elements. In addition, they demonstrated the impressive stability of cathode materials and recorded high energy density in fast charge/dis
Male allies can play a powerful role in combating chauvinistic behavior toward women but they can also unintentionally contribute to sexism, according to a new study from a social psychologist at Rice University.
The acidification of the Pacific Ocean in northern Japan is increasing the natural production rate of N2O, an ozone-depleting greenhouse gas. That's the finding of a study carried out jointly by scientists at EPFL, Tokyo Institute of Technology and Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology and appearing recently in Nature Climate Change.
Researchers who set out to test the widespread theory that the UK is experiencing an alarming plunge in insect numbers have found no evidence For "insect Armageddon."
A team from Cape Town have recently published the first high-resolution cryo-electron microscopy (EM) paper to originate from Africa. As described in Nature Communications Biology, the team solved the structure of a nitrilases enzyme to a close-to-atomic resolution and used the structural insights to design a mutant enzyme that could be fine-tuned for applications in biotechnology. This work was m
Frogs have been struggling a bit in recent years. Their populations around the world have been declining for decades, and the reasons for their loss come from many fronts. Like many other animals, frogs are losing their homes and learning to live in a changing world.
When I was younger I decided to learn Greek. I learned the letter-sound correspondences and could say the words—the sounds, that is. But although I could and still can decode these words, I can't actually read Greek because I don't know what the words mean.
Researchers who set out to test the widespread theory that the UK is experiencing an alarming plunge in insect numbers have found no evidence For "insect Armageddon."
A team from Cape Town have recently published the first high-resolution cryo-electron microscopy (EM) paper to originate from Africa. As described in Nature Communications Biology, the team solved the structure of a nitrilases enzyme to a close-to-atomic resolution and used the structural insights to design a mutant enzyme that could be fine-tuned for applications in biotechnology. This work was m
An international team of researchers, led by marine scientists at King Abdullah University for Science and Technology (KAUST) in Saudi Arabia and including researchers from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) in the USA, has performed an extensive study of whale shark movement and residency in the Red Sea, offering insights for conservation.
In the last 20 years, the study of the form and function of insects has been revitalized by modern technologies and genetic research methods. A new special collection of studies published the journal Insect Systematics and Diversity illustrates the power of these new tools and illuminates future directions in systematic entomology.
Tiny threads of plastics are showing up in Pacific oysters and razor clams along the Oregon coast — and the yoga pants, fleece jackets, and sweat-wicking clothing that Pacific Northwesterners love to wear are a source of that pollution, according to a new Portland State University study.
Frogs have been struggling a bit in recent years. Their populations around the world have been declining for decades, and the reasons for their loss come from many fronts. Like many other animals, frogs are losing their homes and learning to live in a changing world.
Soil scientists and chemists from RUDN University, together with colleagues from the Kola Science Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences, have developed and tested a method of ecosystem restoration in the sub-Arctic technogenic wasteland contaminated by the waste of non-ferrous metallurgy enterprises. The technology is based on the use of mining waste capable of neutralizing toxic metal compoun
Rapid progress for Australia on the U.N."s Sustainable Development Goals is possible and could deliver a fairer, greener, more prosperous nation in 2030—if managed properly—new UNSW research has found.
Water can remain liquid at temperatures far below 0 degrees Celsius. This supercooled phase is a current focus for scientific research. A theoretical model developed at São Paulo State University (UNESP) in Brazil shows that in supercooled water, there is a critical point at which properties such as thermal expansion and compressibility exhibit anomalous behavior.
RUDN University mathematicians have proven the Hardy-Littlewood-Sobolev (HLS) inequalities for the class of generalized Riesz potentials. These results extend the scope of these potentials in mathematics and physics because the main tools for working with such potentials are based on HLS inequalities. New mathematical tools can greatly simplify calculations in quantum mechanics and other fields of
Researchers at the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI have improved a method for small angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) to such an extent that it can now be used in the development or quality control of novel fiber-reinforced composites. This means that in the future, such materials can be investigated not only with X-rays from especially powerful sources such as the Swiss Light Source SLS, but also with th
In a recent study published in Scientific Reports, a team of researchers from Germany and the United Kingdom assessed how experience with dogs affects humans' ability to recognize dog emotions. Participants who grew up in a cultural context with a dog-friendly attitude were more proficient at recognizing dog emotions. This suggests that the ability to recognize dogs' expressions is learned through
Pentagon officials view climate breakdown as an existential threat to human society – and are already taking action We have heard from the scientists on climate change, with their meticulous data on ecosystem degradation and species loss. We have heard from the climate deniers, with their desperate attempts to deploy countervailing arguments. Both groups have mobilized substantial blocs of voters
Speech patterns strongly affect a person's wages, particularly for African Americans, according to new research. The new paper by Jeffrey Grogger, a professor in urban policy at the Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago, shows that workers with racially and regionally distinctive speech patterns earn lower wages compared to those who speak in the mainstream. For Southern whi
In a recent study published in Scientific Reports, a team of researchers from Germany and the United Kingdom assessed how experience with dogs affects humans' ability to recognize dog emotions. Participants who grew up in a cultural context with a dog-friendly attitude were more proficient at recognizing dog emotions. This suggests that the ability to recognize dogs' expressions is learned through
Researchers have improved a method for small angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) to such an extent that it can now be used in the development or quality control of novel fiber-reinforced composites. This means that in the future, such materials can be investigated not only with X-rays from especially powerful sources such as the Swiss Light Source SLS, but also with those from conventional X-ray tubes.
Researchers carrying out regular monitoring of a Marine Protected Area off the UK coastline noticed species of wrasse demonstrating almost cat-like behavior as they chased lasers shone onto the seabed.
For decades, scientists have debated the structure of the Main Himalayan Thrust — the fault responsible for a 2015 earthquake that killed nearly 9,000 people, injured 22,000, and destroyed 600,000 homes in Gorkha, Nepal. A new understanding of the fault can help scientists better predict where and when the next big one will hit.
Tiny threads of plastics are showing up in Pacific oysters and razor clams along the Oregon coast—and the yoga pants, fleece jackets, and sweat-wicking clothing that Pacific Northwesterners love to wear are a source of that pollution, according to a new Portland State University study.
Att dosera kemoterapi är en grannlaga uppgift. Dosen för en positiv anticancereffekt är mycket nära den som orsakar allvarliga, ibland dödliga, biverkningar. Doktoranden Sereilakhena Phal vid Umeå har utvecklat biosensorytor för detektion av läkemedel som används för cancerbehandling. Hon utvecklar i sitt avhandlingsarbete elektrokemiska biosensorer och sensorplattformar för detektion av läkemede
Apps tend to trend every now and then, and for a while back, Snapchat was one of the more popular apps around. While it is still very popular, there is a new-ish app that has kind of taken …
There has been a trend toward dehumanization the past four or five decades. This dehumanization has made it easier for us to see others more as commodities than as co-citizens. This dehumanization manifests in four different pillars: political polarization, income inequality, automation, and marketization. Whether through political splits, or income differences, there is more social distance betw
There has been a trend toward dehumanization the past four or five decades. This dehumanization has made it easier for us to see others more as commodities than as co-citizens. This dehumanization manifests in four different pillars: political polarization, income inequality, automation, and marketization. Whether through political splits, or income differences, there is more social distance betw
Det luktar ljuvligt från köket i lägenheten hemma hos Louise Brunkwall, som forskar på tarmbakterier och är näringsfysiolog. Idag blir det pasta och grönsakssås till lunch.
När du installerar en ny app brukar du få frågan om den får använda funktioner som kamera, mikrofon och platsinformation. Men enligt EU:s dataskyddsförordning GDPR, som infördes i maj 2018, får appar bara samla in information som behövs för appens funktion. Har GDPR då haft någon effekt på apparnas informationshunger? – Apparna har blivit lite snällare, säger Lothar Fritsch, docent i datavetenskap
Starting in the early 2030s, the project could become our first purposeful step out of the solar system—if it launches at all — Read more on ScientificAmerican.com
Starting in the early 2030s, the project could become our first purposeful step out of the solar system—if it launches at all — Read more on ScientificAmerican.com
PLUS. 20 pct. lavere hastighed medfører blandt andet 24 pct. lavere CO2-emissioner, viser rapport før vigtigt møde blandt FN's maritime organisation, IMO's, 173 medlemmer.
Conservation scientists have long considered a species' influence on the ecosystems it inhabits to be a fundamental aspect of its essence and its intrinsic value. To properly track the recovery of endangered species, researchers should therefore measure the species' ability to perform its ecological function.
Hackers attacked Britain's opposition Labour Party, bombarding its web services with malicious traffic in an attempt to force them offline just weeks ahead of a national election, party and …
Rocky planets larger than our own, so-called super-Earths, are surprisingly abundant in our Galaxy, and stand as the most likely planets to be habitable. Getting a better idea of their interior structures will help predict whether different planets are able to generate magnetic fields—thought to be conducive for life to survive.
A new understanding of a fault that caused a deadly 7.8 magnitude earthquake can help scientists better understand where and when the next big one will hit.
350 danskere nåede i sidste uge at betale restskat tilbage, som de slet ikke skyldte. Det skete, efter der opstod en teknisk fejl, når data skulle indlæses i Skattestyrelsens systemer.
In May of this year, François-Xavier Coudert, a chemist at PSL University in Paris, had a question about a paper in Chemistry: A European Journal. Several days later, he had an answer — sort of — along with an apology for readers from Haymo Ross, the journal's editor in chief. It turns out that there … Continue reading
Give Mac Thornberry this much: Unlike some of his Republican colleagues, he was at least trying. On Sunday the Texas Republican appeared on ABC's This Week , where he tentatively offered a message on the impeachment inquiry, which enters its public phase with hearings this Wednesday and Friday. Thornberry sought a middle course. "I believe that it is inappropriate for a president to ask a foreign
Nature Communications, Published online: 12 November 2019; doi:10.1038/s41467-019-13152-y Transcription and translation are coupled in bacteria. Here, the authors show that the movement of a gene locus to the nucleoid periphery correlates with transcription, and the effect is potentiated by translation.
Nature Communications, Published online: 12 November 2019; doi:10.1038/s41467-019-13171-9 Specific sequences are essential for the development of cationic polymers that can adhere to negatively charged surfaces in saline environments. Here, the authors show that copolymers with adjacent cation–aromatic sequences can be synthesized through cation–π complex-aided free-radical polymerization, which
Nature Communications, Published online: 12 November 2019; doi:10.1038/s41467-019-13146-w N1-methyladenosine (m1A) was recently reported as a new mRNA modification but its prevalence has been controversial. Here the authors showed that m1A, if present in mRNA, is at very low stoichiometry, with the notable exception of MT-ND5. Further, they show that the previously reported enrichment of m1A near
Nature Communications, Published online: 12 November 2019; doi:10.1038/s41467-019-12860-9 Models of mate choice have mainly focused on the implications of female mate choice for reproductive isolation. Here, Aubier et al. develop a population genetic model of coevolution between female and male mate choice, which can lead the population to oscillate between assortative and random mating.
Nature Communications, Published online: 12 November 2019; doi:10.1038/s41467-019-12832-z Non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is often associated with metastasis to the lungs. Here, the authors perform independent screens and identify NuRD as a co-repressor of ZEB1, and demonstrate TBC1D2b as a downstream target of ZEB1/NuRD complex regulating NSCLC metastasis.
Nature Communications, Published online: 12 November 2019; doi:10.1038/s41467-019-13109-1 Warmer temperatures could increase the growth and metabolic rates of microbes. Here, the authors assemble a dataset of thermal performance curves for over 400 bacteria and archaea, showing that metabolic rates are likely to increase under warming, with implications for global carbon cycling.
Nature Communications, Published online: 12 November 2019; doi:10.1038/s41467-019-12882-3 Assembly-Disassembly-Organization-Reassembly (ADOR) is a valuable method to prepare zeolites of predictable topologies, but has yet to be successfully applied on open framework zeolites. Here, the authors show that non-contact vapour-phase-transport rearrangement allows access to new zeolite topologies from
Nature Communications, Published online: 12 November 2019; doi:10.1038/s41467-019-12958-0 Sleep duration is associated with an adverse lipid profile. Here, the authors perform genome-wide gene-by-sleep interaction analysis and find 49 previously unreported lipid loci when considering short or long total sleep time.
For decades, scientists have debated the structure of the Main Himalayan Thrust — the fault responsible for a 2015 earthquake that killed nearly 9,000 people, injured 22,000, and destroyed 600,000 homes in Gorkha, Nepal. A new understanding of the fault can help scientists better predict where and when the next big one will hit.
Researchers at the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI have improved a method for small angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) to such an extent that it can now be used in the development or quality control of novel fiber-reinforced composites. This means that in the future, such materials can be investigated not only with X-rays from especially powerful sources such as the Swiss Light Source SLS, but also with th
In case you've forgotten, Snap makes video-recording sunglasses called Spectacles. The first two iterations didn't do very well, and you had to go to a special vending …
The Atlantic has an arresting new look, and a new way for readers to experience its journalism. Today, The Atlantic has launched a stunning design and product experience—most striking through a new logo and visual identity; a complete redesign of the print magazine, beginning with the December issue , out today; and an iOS app that now offers a more curated, visual, and personal way to navigate T
"We don't believe that the conditions in the United States today resemble those of 1850s America. But we worry that the ties that bind us are fraying at alarming speed—we are becoming contemptuous of each other in ways that are both dire and possibly irreversible," writes editor in chief Jeffrey Goldberg in an introduction to The Atlantic 's December issue, " How to Stop a Civil War ." The Americ
In Getting Wrecked: Women, Incarceration, and the American Opioid Crisis, a Rikers Island doctor says drug treatment in U.S. jails and prisons is often shaped by societal prejudice, not science. (Image credit: Catie Dull/NPR)
PLUS. Regeringen har pillet den udskældte bredbåndspulje ud af sit finanslovsforslag, men hvordan sikrer vi så bredbånd til alle? Ingeniøren har bedt teleanalytiker Torben Rune om et bud.
Adding energy to any material, such as by heating it, almost always makes its structure less orderly. Ice, for example, with its crystalline structure, melts to become liquid water, with no order at all.
Bushfires raging across eastern Australia on Tuesday singed the Sydney suburbs, where firefighters were forced to scramble planes and helicopters to splatter a built-up neighbourhood with water and red retardant.
Today, we launch our December issue , built around a single theme: "How to Stop a Civil War." This issue, an exploration of our dangerous political moment, also represents the debut of a new visual identity for The Atlantic . It is the most dramatic new look for our magazine in its 162-year history, and one that, we hope, reflects boldness, elegance, and urgency. The redesign of the print magazin
Research findings from the Center for Air Quality, Climate, and Energy Solutions (CACES) at Carnegie Mellon University show significant human health benefits when air quality is better than the current national ambient air quality standard. The estimate of lives that could be saved by further reduction of air pollution levels is more than 30,000, which is similar to the number of deaths from car a
Dozens of fires fanned by gale-force winds, scorching temperatures and tinder-dry bushland burned out of control in eastern Australia on Tuesday, as residents up and down the coast were warned it was now too late to leave.
There's a building boom on the Tibetan plateau, one of the world's last remote places. Mountains long crowned by garlands of fluttering prayer flags are newly topped with sprawling steel power lines. At night, the illuminated signs of Sinopec gas stations cast a red glow over newly built highways.
Japan's Hayabusa-2 probe will leave its orbit around a distant asteroid and head for Earth on Wednesday after an unprecedented mission, carrying samples that could shed light on the origins of the Solar System.
University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science researchers have completed a study on the impact of Conowingo Dam on water quality in Chesapeake Bay. Scientists synthesized field observations, model results, and long-term monitoring data to better understand the potential impacts of nutrient pollution associated with sediment transported from behind the Dam to the Bay.
Do we have any expert on face reading in this community? Do you think there is any science behind face reading? Any video/book recommendation as well as personal experience are very much appreciated. submitted by /u/what_is_next_now [link] [comments]
The entertaining spectacle of wild fishes chasing lasers shone onto the seabed could provide scientists with an innovative way of measuring their territory size and therefore helping to sustainably and spatially manage fisheries and associated habitats in the future, a new study suggests.
The entertaining spectacle of wild fishes chasing lasers shone onto the seabed could provide scientists with an innovative way of measuring their territory size and therefore helping to sustainably and spatially manage fisheries and associated habitats in the future, a new study suggests.
White researchers are nearly 59 per cent more likely to receive funding for their studies than ethnic minority researchers, according to data from seven UK research councils
Sommaren 1988 dog omkring hälften av Europas knubbsälar på ett par månader. De var drabbade av PDV, ett mässlingliknande virus, som troligen hade följt med när grönlandssälar rörde sig längre söderut än normalt. Nu visar en amerikansk studie att risken för sjuka sälar ökar när Arktis isar smälter. Arter som tidigare skiljts av stora ismassor stöter plötsligt på varandra och överför smittor.
Fem personer måtte tilses af en læge efter et ammoniakudslip i shoppingcentret Fisketorvet i København lørdag. Centret afviser, at det skulle have evakueret de handlende.
Image above: William Howard Taft and a succession of other Republican presidents privileged restoring relations with the South over protecting black Americans' rights. J oe Biden has fond memories of negotiating with James Eastland, the senator from Mississippi who once declared, "I am of the opinion that we should have segregation in all the States of the United States by law. What the people of
In 1838, Abraham Lincoln gave a speech to the Young Men's Lyceum in Springfield, Illinois. The subject was citizenship and the preservation of America's political institutions. The backdrop was the threat posed to those institutions by the evil of slavery. Lincoln warned that the greatest danger to the nation came from within. All the armies of the world could not crush us, he maintained, but we
Images above: A protestor holding a sign that reads "Abortion Is Freedom" and protestors holding anti-abortion signs In 1956, two American physicians, J. A. Presley and W. E. Brown, colleagues at the University of Arkansas School of Medicine, decided that four recent admissions to their hospital were significant enough to warrant a published report. "Lysol-Induced Criminal Abortion" appeared in t
Suppose that the biblical story of Creation were true: God created the universe in six days, including all the laws of physics and all the physical constants that apply throughout the universe. Now imagine that one day, in the early 21st century, God became bored and, just for fun, doubled the gravitational constant. What would it be like to live through such a change? We'd all be pulled toward t
Democracy depends on the consent of the losers. For most of the 20th century, parties and candidates in the United States have competed in elections with the understanding that electoral defeats are neither permanent nor intolerable. The losers could accept the result, adjust their ideas and coalitions, and move on to fight in the next election. Ideas and policies would be contested, sometimes vi
Updated at 1:30 p.m. ET on November 12, 2019. When the Culture War Comes for the Kids In October, George Packer wrote about his attempt to do right by his children while navigating New York City's schools, caught between a brutal meritocracy and a radical new progressivism. As public-school principals in Brooklyn, we feel obligated to correct George Packer's mischaracterization of the educational
The 45th president of the United States is uniquely unfit for office and poses a multifaceted threat to our country's democratic institutions. Yet he might not represent the most severe challenge facing our country. The structural failures in our democratic system that allowed a grifter into the White House in the first place—this might be our gravest challenge. Or perhaps it is the tribalization
David Sinclair says aging is a disease that can be prevented and treated, and there is no reason life must end. The evidence he presents from scientific studies is intriguing, but far from definitive.
"Det var på natten på akuten för ett par år sedan som jag träffade en 13-årig flicka med ont i magen som kom in i sällskap av sin mamma. Flickan hade haft ont i nedre delen av buken till och från i tre dagar, men det senaste dygnet hade smärtan tilltagit, hon hade 39 graders feber och hade kräkts. Något som är vanligt är blindtarmsinflammation, men oftast brukar patienten då beskriva att smärtan b
Many of us crave historical connections – but ultimately, everybody now is descended from everybody then After watching Ant & Dec's DNA Journey on ITV, I can confidently say that one thing it failed to do for me – and which genetics could definitively answer – is clarify which one is Ant and which one is Dec. Alas, this mystery remains unsolved. Aside from that, the documentary is entertaining eno