Posts

In animals, patterns form before birth in response to genetically controlled signals that often vary in concentration along a gradient. In contrast, traditional manufacturing approaches for creating patterns and structures involve multiple steps, such as layer-by-layer assembly, lithography, molding, or casting. Jeffrey Moore, Nancy Sottos, Philippe Geubelle and colleagues wanted to develop a spontaneous patterning method more akin to the biological process. The team placed a solution of dicyclopentadiene monomer in a channel and then heated one end of the channel....

Diagnosing disorders of thought are easier when a reliable and objective marker can be found. In the case of schizophrenia, we have known for more than 30 years that it is associated with an abnormal startle response. Normally, we are not startled as much by a burst of noise if a smaller burst—called a prepulse—comes a little bit earlier. This phenomenon is called prepulse inhibition (PPI) because the early pulse inhibits the startle response....

The Two Brothers are the Museum’s oldest mummies and amongst the best-known human remains in its Egyptology collection. They are the mummies of two elite men – Khnum-nakht and Nakht-ankh – dating to around 1800 BC. However, ever since their discovery in 1907, there has been some debate amongst Egyptologists whether the two were actually related at all. So, in 2015, ‘ancient DNA’ was extracted from their teeth to solve the mystery....

The study, published in Nature Communications today (April 3, 2020), is the first to quantify the impact of accelerated dryland expansion under future climate change on their gross primary production. Drylands, which primarily include savannas, grasslands, and shrublands, are important for supporting grazing and non-irrigated croplands around the world. They are also an important player in the global carbon cycle and make up 41% of Earth’s land surface and support 38% of its population....

Detecting SARS-CoV-2 virus and related antibodies is essential to control the COVID-19 pandemic. A multidisciplinary team of scientists from the University of Malaga, led by Robert Halir, researcher of the Department of Communications Engineering of the Higher Technical School of Telecommunications Engineering, aware of the limitations of current techniques, are developing a point-of-care detection system based on photonic sensors. “PCR techniques currently applied to detect the virus are reliable, but also slow and expensive, while serological assays, though simpler, lack precision and cannot provide quantitative results,” says Robert Halir, who explains that their system will precisely add functionality and, in the future, could offer real-time results at a lower cost....

The advance tackles two major environmental problems at once by making use of coal production waste and by significantly reducing the environmental impact of concrete production. Xianming Shi, associate professor in WSU’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and graduate student Gang Xu, have developed a strong, durable concrete that uses fly ash as a binder and eliminates the use of environmentally intensive cement. They report on their work in the August issue of the journal, Fuel....

Norepinephrine, also called noradrenaline, is a dual hormone and neurotransmitter that prepares the body for action. Previous research has shown that norepinephrine release is important for modifying synapses, the connections between neurons that form and consolidate memories. Astrocytes are the crucial mediators of these changes, and the researchers were interested in observing, in real time, what happens in these cells when mice are learning. Their study was published in Nature Communications on January 24, 2020....

The scientists published their findings in the journal Current Biology. In the last 140 years, the only signs of the existence of these whales were in two partial skulls. M. traversii is considered to be the least known and rarest species of whale. A mother and her male calf beached and died on a New Zealand beach in December 2010. It was only after the researchers ran their DNA that they realized that these were M....

In a study published on June 15, 2021, in the Annals of Internal Medicine, Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers say they believe that, for the first time, there is evidence to show that three doses of vaccine increase antibody levels against SARS-CoV-2 — the virus that causes COVID 19 — more than the standard two-dose regimen for people who have received solid organ transplants. “Our findings suggest clinical trials are warranted to determine if transplant recipients should receive COVID-19 vaccine booster doses as standard clinical practice, similar to what is currently done with hepatitis B and influenza vaccinations for this population,” says study lead author William Werbel, M....

The study winds back time on massive black holes by analyzing their visible precursors—supernovae with collapsing cores. The slow decay of these massive stars creates bright signatures in the electromagnetic spectrum before stellar evolution ends in black holes. Using data from the Lick Observatory Supernova Search, a survey of nearby galaxies, the team compared the supernovae rate in outer spiral galaxies with that of known hosts—dwarf/satellite galaxies—and found comparable numbers for typical spiral outskirts and typical dwarf galaxies, roughly two core-collapse supernovae per millennium....

Using genome-wide association studies (GWAS) methodology to analyze whole-genome sequencing data of SARS-CoV-2 mutations and COVID-19 mortality data can identify highly pathogenic variants of the virus that should be flagged for containment, according to Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and MIT researchers. Using this biostatistical methodology, the researchers pinpointed a mutation in the variant known as P.1, or Gamma, as being linked to increased mortality and, potentially, greater transmissibility, higher infection rates, and increased pathogenicity before the P....

Golf, a sport played by approximately 25 million Americans, can provide benefits such as stress reduction and regular exercise. Due to its social nature and controlled pace, people often maintain motivation and the ability to continue playing the sport even in older age and after suffering heart attack or stroke. “Our study is perhaps the first of its kind to evaluate the long-term health benefits of golf, particularly one of the most popular sports among older people in many countries,” said Adnan Qureshi, M....

The map reveals the likely magnetic field structure of the Local Bubble — a giant, 1,000-light-year-wide hollow in space surrounding our Sun. Like a hunk of Swiss cheese, our galaxy is full of these so-called superbubbles. The explosive supernova deaths of massive stars blow up these bubbles, and in the process, concentrate gas and dust — the fuel for making new stars — on the bubbles’ outer surfaces. These thick surfaces accordingly serve as rich sites for subsequent star and planet formation....

In the early 2000s, the fossil skeletons of two comparatively small T. rex were collected from Carter County, Montana, by Burpee Museum of Natural History in Rockford, Illinois. Nicknamed “Jane” and “Petey,” the tyrannosaurs would have been slightly taller than a draft horse and twice as long. The team led by Holly Woodward, Ph.D., from Oklahoma State University Center for Health Sciences studied Jane and Petey to better understand T....

Jihye Kim, the corresponding author said: “Colorectal cancer is the third most common cancer worldwide and the risk of developing colorectal cancer over a lifetime is one in 23 for men and one in 25 for women1. Although previous research has suggested that plant-based diets may play a role in preventing colorectal cancer, the impact of plant foods’ nutritional quality on this association has been unclear. Our findings suggest that eating a healthy plant-based diet is associated with a reduced risk of colorectal cancer....

The new scientific statement details what has been learned about how to treat, manage and even likely prevent cardiovascular complications from the SARS-CoV-2 virus in children and young adults, and calls for more research, including studies following the short- and long-term cardiovascular effects from COVID-19, the disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus.While heart complications after SARS-CoV-2 infection are uncommon in children, some experience abnormal heart rhythm, inflammation in and around the heart muscle or multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C), a new condition identified during the pandemic....

Heart recovery began within the first week of diagnosis among children who developed COVID-19-related multisystem inflammatory syndrome (MIS-C).Children treated for MIS-C had normal heart function within three months after their first symptoms.The findings suggest children diagnosed with MIS-C may safely and gradually return to competitive sports after three months. Heart function recovery returned within three months in children who developed COVID-19-related multisystem inflammatory syndrome (MIS-C), according to new research published today (January 19, 2022) in the Journal of the American Heart Association, an open access, peer-reviewed journal of the American Heart Association....

A new study examines factors that underlie COVID-19 outbreaks in schools and suggests that large outbreaks can only be prevented with regular monitoring of everyone in the school setting. Paul Tupper and Caroline Colijn of Simon Fraser University, Canada, present these findings in the open-access journal PLOS Computational Biology. Data from around the world show highly varied outcomes for COVID-19 clusters in schools, with some settings having many large outbreaks and others having few serious problems....

The scientists published their findings in the journal PLoS ONE. A close study of the biting behavior has revealed that they secrete a chemical in their bite that stuns pests so that they can be ejected more readily from a hive. Chemical tests show that this venom could be used as a local anesthetic in humans. Bees were thought to use their mandibles to groom rather than bite. Honeybees bite varroa mites as well as wax moth larvae....

The study reveals how atmospheric ions, produced by the energetic cosmic rays raining down through the atmosphere, help the growth and formation of cloud condensation nuclei – the seeds necessary for forming clouds in the atmosphere. When the ionization in the atmosphere changes, the number of cloud condensation nuclei changes affecting the properties of clouds. More cloud condensation nuclei mean more clouds and a colder climate, and vice versa. Since clouds are essential for the amount of Solar energy reaching the surface of Earth the implications can be significant for our understanding of why climate has varied in the past and also for future climate changes....