Feed aggregator

Oregon State University research has identified the oldest known specimen of a fungus parasitizing an ant, and the fossil also represents a new fungal genus and species.

A new study shows inherited risk of early-onset cancer is significantly higher among Latino and African American families for solid tumors, and Asian/Pacific Islander families for blood-based cancers, compared to non-Latino white families in California. Researchers used California population-based health registries to evaluate the relative cancer risk among first-degree relatives of patients diagnosed with cancer by the age of 26. This study demonstrates the need for increased scrutiny on familial cancer clustering in minority populations.

To understand what role an individual gene plays, biologists have, for 100 years, been using a trick of nature: While in principle, the genome in all cells of an organism is the same, mutations arise in individual cells. These mutations differentiate a cell from its neighbors, forming a 'genetic mosaic.' Now, Simon Hippenmeyer, Professor at IST Austria, advanced genetic mosaic analysis, making almost all genes in the mouse genome accessible to single-cell genetic mosaic analysis.

A study on the role of microscopic particles in virus transmission suggests pollen is nothing to sneeze at. In Physics of Fluids, researchers investigate how pollen facilitates the spread of an RNA virus like the COVID-19 virus. The study draws on cutting-edge computational approaches for analyzing fluid dynamics to mimic the pollen movement from a willow tree, a prototypical pollen emitter. Airborne pollen grains contribute to the spread of airborne viruses, especially in crowded environments.

Emerging open-source programming language Julia is designed to be fast and easy to use. Since it is particularly suited for numerical applications, scientists are using it to explore the challenges in transitioning to all-renewable power generation. Decarbonization implies a radical restructuring of power grids, which will become even more complex, so new computational tools are needed. In Chaos, researchers describe a software package they built to enable the simulation of general dynamical systems on complex networks.

In Physics of Fluids, researchers report using environmental fluid dynamics -- advanced computational multiscale multiphysics modeling and simulations -- to develop a constitutive relationship between weather seasonality conditions, such as temperature, relative humidity, and wind speed, and having two pandemic curves per year.

What The Study Did: Researchers report their study found no association in SARS-CoV-2 positivity rates among health care workers wearing respirator masks compared with medical masks when performing nonaerosolizing routine patient care.

An analysis of survey data from more than 280,000 young adults ages 18-35 showed that cannabis (marijuana) use was associated with increased risks of thoughts of suicide (suicidal ideation), suicide plan, and suicide attempt. These associations remained regardless of whether someone was also experiencing depression, and the risks were greater for women than for men.

Without an audience, men run slower and women faster: The lack of spectators during the coronavirus pandemic appears to have had a noticeable effect on the performance of athletes at the 2020 Biathlon World Cup, a new study by Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU) in Psychology of Sport and Exercise shows. According to the new analysis, women also performed better in complex tasks, such as shooting, when an audience was present while men did not.

In a world-first, a Kobe University research group led by Associate Professor FUKAYAMA Hiroshi of the Graduate School of Agricultural Science has used rice to successfully illuminate the mechanism by which plants regulate the amount of starch produced via photosynthesis. This knowledge could contribute towards improving the quality and yield of agricultural crops.

Sufficiently early identification of lack of oxygen in the fetus enables timely measures to ensure a safe delivery.

Researchers from Osaka University and Kirin HD developed a physics-based model that explains and predicts the unusual collective bubble flow of certain draught beers. The biotech industry, municipal sanitation, and beverage companies will all benefit from understanding how to maintain such flow in cell cultures and other fluids.

The rapid development of safe and efficacious vaccines against SARS-CoV-2 has offered hope that the global COVID-19 pandemic may soon be under control.

As many as 16.8 million Americans had undiagnosed SARS-CoV-2 infections - 5 times the rate of diagnosed infections - by the end of July of 2020, according to an analysis of antibodies from more than 8,000 previously undiagnosed adults collected during the pandemic's first wave.

The SARS-CoV-2 is not the first coronavirus to jump from animals to humans - and it won't be the last. To prevent future coronavirus pandemics, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill developed a universal vaccine that's effective in mice and could provide protection from multiple coronaviruses and a dangerous variant.

A new class of drugs that inhibits a 'master switch' involved in the vast majority of cases of mantle cell lymphoma (MCL), a fatal subtype of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, has been discovered by researchers at Mount Sinai.

Researchers have found that clickbait -- headlines that often rely on linguistic gimmicks to tempt readers to read further -- often did not perform any better and, in some cases, performed worse than traditional headlines.

Applied Biological Laboratories (Applied Bio), a biopharmaceutical company focused on the respiratory disease market, announced that its study published online in Immunology, Inflammation and Disease was able to determine the mechanism behind respiratory inflammation and treat it effectively with Biovanta™, a 100% naturally derived, over-the-counter (OTC) drug for cold, cough and sore throat.

Millions of litres of primary municipal wastewater can be treated sustainably using fast-growing willow trees while also producing renewable bioenergy and 'green' chemicals, researchers find.

Cancer immunotherapy involving drugs that inhibit CTLA-4 also activates an unwanted response that may self-limit its efficacy in fighting tumors, according to a new study led by Francesco Marangoni, Ph.D., assistant professor of physiology & biophysics and member of the Institute for Immunology at the University of California, Irvine. Study results are published online in the journal Cell.