Feed aggregator
Blocking viruses' exit strategy
The Marburg virus, a relative of Ebola, likewise causes a dangerous and often fatal disease. In a study co-led by the University of Pennsylvania's Ronald Harty, an experimental antiviral drug, which prevents the virus from exiting host cells and spreading to new cells, showed promising results. The researchers are also encouraged by similarities in the drug's response against SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.
Categories: Content
New boost in quantum technologies
In an international collaboration, researchers at the University of Stuttgart were able to detect quantum bits in two-dimensional materials for the first time. Nature Materials covers this in its May 6, 2021 issue.
Categories: Content
The COVID-19 pandemic: Even mild disease impacts mental health
A significant level of symptoms of depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress may follow COVID-19 independent of any previous psychiatric diagnoses. Exposure to increased symptomatic levels of COVID-19 may be associated with psychiatric symptoms after the acute phase of the disease. This is the largest study to evaluate depressive, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress symptoms in tandem among patients who had mild COVID-19 disease. The findings shed light on a significant subpopulation at risk for mental symptoms.
Categories: Content
Research breakthrough in the fight against cancer
A team of researchers at the Center for Bioactive Delivery at the University of Massachusetts Amherst's Institute for Applied Life Sciences has engineered a nanoparticle that has the potential to revolutionize disease treatment, including for cancer.
Categories: Content
India's polio vaccination provides valuable insights for mass vaccination campaigns
As India urgently scales up its vaccination campaign for the COVID-19 virus, a new study which examined the country's successful program to eliminate polio provides guidance on how this and future mass immunization campaigns can be successful, especially in vaccinating hard to reach groups.
Categories: Content
Archaeal enzyme that produces membrane lipids is spectacularly promiscuous
Cells of all life forms are surrounded by a membrane that is made of phospholipids. One of these are the cardiolipins. When studying the enzyme that is responsible for producing cardiolipins in archaea (single-cell organisms that constitute a separate domain of life), biochemists at the University of Groningen made a surprising discovery. A single archaeal enzyme can produce a spectacular range of natural and non-natural cardiolipins, as well as other phospholipids.
Categories: Content
In the Alps, climate change affects biodiversity
A team of ecologists has published a review that quantifies seasonal changes and elevational movements of more than 2,000 species of plants, animals and fungi that live in the Alps. This review shows that species have shifted their life cycles earlier during the season and their distribution higher along the elevational gradient, but that the average velocity of range shift, which varies from species to species, is often lagging behind the velocity of climate change.
Categories: Content
Not so wicked after all?
Although the fairy tale of the wicked stepmother is a tale as old as time, the effects of blending children with their new stepfamilies may not be as grim as once thought.In fact, new research shows that stepparents are not at a disadvantage compared to their peers from single-parent households and actually experience better outcomes than their halfsiblings -- good news for the more than 113 million Americans that are part of a steprelationship.
Categories: Content
The origin of reproductive organs
Early in fetal development, a mass of cells known as the bipotential gonad has the possibility of giving rise either to ovaries or testes, reproductive organs that contribute to many of the characteristics that define a person's sex. In a new study, the University of Pennsylvania's Kotaro Sasaki and colleagues pinpoint the origins of that precursor gland.
Categories: Content
UChicago Medicine's ED maintains HIV screening despite pandemic interruptions
A new report in JAMA Internal Medicine demonstrates how incorporating blood tests for HIV into standard COVID-19 screening in the emergency department allowed UChicago Medicine to maintain HIV screening volume during the pandemic.
Categories: Content
FAST detects 3D spin-velocity alignment in a pulsar
Based on sensitive FAST observations toward the supernova remnant S147, a research team led by LI Di from NAOC has found the first evidence for 3D spin-velocity alignment in a pulsar. This finding helps reveal the mystery regarding the origin of pulsar spins. It also demonstrates the potential of FAST to make major contribution to further our understanding of neutron stars.
Categories: Content
Discovery of genetic drivers linked to progression in Parkinson's disease
A new study from the Brigham uncovers the genetic architecture of progression and prognosis, identifying five genetic locations (loci) associated with progression. The team also developed the first risk score for predicting progression of PD over time to dementia, a major determinant of quality of life.
Categories: Content
Temperature explains why aquatic life more diverse near equator
New research from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Yale University and Stanford University suggests that temperature can largely explain why the greatest variety of aquatic life resides in the tropics -- but also why it has not always and, amid record-fast global warming, soon may not again.
Categories: Content
SARS-CoV-2 infections after Pfizer-BioNTech BNT162b2 vaccination in routinely screened workforce
What The Study Did: This study describes an association between the Pfizer-BioNTech BNT162b2 vaccine and decreased risk of symptomatic and asymptomatic infections with SARS-CoV-2 in hospital employees.
Categories: Content
Association between vaccination with Pfizer-BioNTech BNT162b2, incidence of SARS-CoV-2 infections among health care workers
What The Study Did: This study estimates the association between Pfizer-BioNTech BNT162b2 vaccination and symptomatic and asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infections among health care workers more than seven days after getting a second vaccine dose.
Categories: Content
Independent evolutionary origins of vertebrate dentitions, according to latest study
The origins of a pretty smile have long been sought in the fearsome jaws of living sharks which have been considered living fossils reflecting the ancestral condition for vertebrate tooth development and inference of its evolution. However, this view ignores real fossils which more accurately reflect the nature of ancient ancestors.
Categories: Content
Bacterial DNA can be read either forwards or backwards - new study
Bacteria contain symmetry in their DNA signals that enable them to be read either forwards or backwards, according to new findings at the University of Birmingham which challenge existing knowledge about gene transcription.
Categories: Content
Obesity may be a more significant risk factor for death from COVID-19 for men than women
Obesity may be a stronger risk factor for death, severe pneumonia and the need for intubation in men than in women with COVID-19, according to a study published in the European Journal of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases.
Categories: Content
Molecular analysis identifies key differences in lungs of cystic fibrosis patients
A team of researchers from UCLA, Cedars-Sinai and the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation has developed a first-of-its-kind molecular catalog of cells in healthy lungs and the lungs of people with cystic fibrosis. The findings could help scientists in their search for specific cell types that represent prime targets for genetic and cell therapies for cystic fibrosis.
Categories: Content
Researchers identify cause and drug targets for bewildering rare children's disease
Researchers have finally cracked the code of a bewildering pediatric disease that sets off a characteristic cytokine storm--a harmful immune system overaction resembling one that arises in COVID-19 cases--and can lead to catastrophic multisystem organ failure or neurodegeneration. Their study, which identifies the cause of the cytokine storm and possible treatments, was published in Nature Medicine in May.
Categories: Content