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Our planet's strongest ocean current, which circulates around Antarctica, plays a major role in determining the transport of heat, salt and nutrients in the ocean. An international research team led by the Alfred Wegener Institute has now evaluated sediment samples from the Drake Passage.

A team from Japan and the United States has identified the design principles for creating large 'ideal' proteins from scratch, paving the way for the design of proteins with new biochemical functions.

A new tool to help conserve one of the UK's most threatened mammals has been released today, with the publication of the first high-quality reference genome for the European water vole. The genome was generated by scientists at the Wellcome Sanger Institute, in collaboration with animal conservation charity the Wildwood Trust, as part of the Darwin Tree of Life Project.

Monoclonal antibodies work well in reducing COVID-19 related emergency department visits and hospitalizations when administered early to high-risk patients, a study by the University of South Florida Health (USF Health) and Tampa General Hospital demonstrates. If used under FDA guidelines, the researchers suggest, this treatment can ease the pandemic's continuing burden on patients and on limited health care resources.

Working in the highly charged environment of COVID-19 has had a huge impact on the mental health of nurses, according to a new survey by researchers at the University of British Columbia and the Institute for Work & Health in Toronto.The findings, described recently in the Annals of Epidemiology, is the first to compare Canadian nurses' mental health prior to and during the pandemic.

With age, a diet lacking in the essential amino acid tryptophan -- which has a key role in our mood, energy level and immune response -- makes the gut microbiome less protective and increases inflammation body-wide, investigators report.

Women with depression and other mood disorders are generally advised to continue taking antidepressant medications during pregnancy. The drugs are widely considered safe, but the effect of these medications on the unborn fetus has remained a topic of some concern. Now, researchers have found that maternal psychiatric conditions -- but not the use of serotonin-selective reuptake inhibitors (SSRI) -- increased the risk for autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and developmental delay (DD) in offspring.

A new study of postmenopausal women has found that eating a concentrated amount of chocolate during a narrow window of time in the morning may help the body burn fat and decrease blood sugar levels.

"Red flag" gun laws--which allow law enforcement to temporarily remove firearms from a person at risk of harming themselves or others--are gaining attention at the state and federal levels, but are under scrutiny by legislators who deem them unconstitutional. A new analysis by legal scholars at NYU School of Global Public Health describes the state-by-state landscape for red flag legislation and how it may be an effective tool to reduce gun violence, while simultaneously protecting individuals' constitutional rights.

A recent study finds states that exhibit higher levels of systemic racism also have pronounced racial disparities regarding access to health care. In short, the more racist a state was, the better access white people had -- and the worse access black people had.

The open access Journal of Astronomical Telescopes, Instruments, and Systems (JATIS) has published a special section on the latest science, engineering, research, and programmatic advances of starshades, the starlight-suppression technology integral to extra-solar and exoplanet detection.

Female elephant seal weigh on average 350 kg, and dive continuously to the ocean's mesopelagic zone to consume their only prey: small fish that weigh less than 10 grams. How do seals maintain their large size on such small prey? An international team of researchers found that, on average, a single seal dove 80 to 100% of the day to eat anywhere from 1,000 to 2,000 fish and gain more calories than they burned.

Across the world, type 2 diabetes is on the rise. A research group has discovered a new gene that may hold the key to preventing and treating lifestyle related diseases such as type 2 diabetes.

South Korean team to develop nanofilm-based "cell cage" technology

A novel, two-step cryptography technique is the first to combine genetic technology with mathematical techniques to generate a complex cryptographic environment with high security and flexibility. In experiments, the proposed algorithm outperformed existing algorithms based on a variety of parameters.

Recently, a collaboration of researchers from the Hefei Institutes of Physical Science (HFIPS), Universities of Oldenburg (Germany) and Oxford (UK) have been gathering evidence suggesting that a specific light-sensitive protein in the eye named cryptochrome 4 is sensitive to magnetic fields and plays essential roles in magnetic sensing in migratory birds such as European robins. The results have been published in Nature on June 23 and selected as the cover paper.

Using only a pen and paper, Kavli IPMU PI Hitoshi Murayama has found theoretical proof of a decades-old claim that Quantum Chromo Dynamics leads to light-weight pions.

Researchers at UCSF have found that extreme caloric restriction diets alter the microbiome in ways that could help with weight loss but might also result in an increased population of Clostridiodes difficile, a pathogenic bacterium that can lead to severe diarrhea and colitis.

Researchers at Harvard University and the Broad Institute have created a first detailed atlas of a critical region of the developing mouse brain, applying multiple advanced genomic technologies to the part of the cerebral cortex that is responsible for processing sensation. By measuring how gene activity and regulation change over time, researchers have a better understanding of how the cortex is built and a new tool to explore how it is affected in neurodevelopmental disease.

Wastewater treatment facilities clean the water that goes down our sinks and flushes our toilets, but they do not remove everything. A recent study by Portland State researchers detected low levels of pharmaceuticals and personal care product chemicals in oysters the team deployed at various distances from wastewater effluent pipes along the Oregon and Washington coast.