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From toxic ions to single-atom copper
UH researchers offer conclusive research for understanding how bacteria found in copper mines convert toxic copper ions to stable single-atom copper. Their research demonstrates how copper-resistant bacterium from a copper mine in Brazil convert copper sulfate ions into zero-valent metallic copper.
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How oxygen radicals protect against cancer
Oxygen radicals in the body are generally considered dangerous because they can trigger something called oxidative stress, which is associated with the development of many chronic diseases such as cancer and cardiovascular disease. In studies on mice, scientists at Goethe University Frankfurt have now discovered how oxygen radicals, conversely, can also reduce the risk of cancer and mitigate damage to the hereditary molecule DNA.
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Targeting drug-resistant breast cancer with estrogen
Researchers at Dartmouth's and Dartmouth-Hitchcock's Norris Cotton Cancer Center show better long-term control of drug-resistant breast cancer growth in mice by switching between estrogen and anti-estrogen therapies. An ongoing clinical trial will determine whether this cycling strategy is effective in human patients with advanced breast cancer. By studying molecular characteristics of cancer cells that respond to estrogen therapy, the team hopes to determine which patients may best respond to this treatment.
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Body's natural pain killers can be enhanced
A study in cells and mice finds a opioid-receptor modifying compound works to relieve pain using the body's own pain-killers, with fewer side effects than opioids.
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A breakthrough astrophysics code rapidly models stellar collisions
A new breakthrough astrophysics code, named Octo-Tiger, simulates the evolution of self-gravitating and rotating systems of arbitrary geometry using adaptive mesh refinement and a new method to parallelize the code to achieve superior speeds. This new code to model stellar collisions is more expeditious than the established code used for numerical simulations.
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Researchers develop a programme to find cipher vulnerabilities
Anastasia Malashina, a doctoral student at HSE University, has proposed a new method to assess vulnerabilities in encryption systems, which is based on a brute-force search of possible options of symbol deciphering. The algorithm was also implemented in a programme, which can be used to find vulnerabilities in ciphers. The results of the study were published in a paper 'Software development for the study of natural language characteristics'.
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Researchers show enhanced electrode-water interactions in metal-free aqueous batteries
Batteries are a part of everyday modern life, powering everything from laptops, phones and robot vacuums to hearing aids, pacemakers and even electric cars. But these batteries potentially pose safety and environmental risks.
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Is raising the sales age of tobacco reducing youth smoking?
A new study, conducted by three UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center researchers, studies young adult smoking trends three years after the start of California's law raising the sales age of tobacco to 21.
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US and Iranian researchers collaborate on Lake Urmia restoration
Lake Urmia -- a massive salt lake in Iran's northwest and a sister to Utah's Great Salt Lake -- has lost nearly 95 percent of its volume over the last two decades. Researchers from Utah and Iran are working together to better understand how the changes will impact the lake's ecosystems services.
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Violence-legitimizing verses in religious scriptures increase support for lethal violence
Extremist perpetrators of violence often quote verses from their religion's holy scriptures that authorize, or even prescribe, attacks on enemies of the faith. However, whether the religious motivation that extremist perpetrators of violence emphasize is causally related to their actions is often doubted. Now, WZB researchers Ruud Koopmans and Eylem Kanol can prove for the first time that verses in religious scriptures that legitimize violence can increase support for killing enemies of the faith.
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A PLOS Medicine Collection on Plasmodium vivax--a neglected cause of malaria
Strenuous efforts to prevent in recent decades have brought great benefits, particularly against disease caused by Plasmodium falciparum in countries in Africa and the Americas. But malaria caused by its "stealthier and more resilient cousin", P. vivax, now needs to be confronted with high priority, say Lorenz von Seidlein and Nicholas White of the Mahidol Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Unit in Bangkok, Thailand in a Perspective. The piece introduces a Collection on the prevention and treatment of P. vivax malaria in PLOS Medicine.
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Flexible diet may help leaf-eating lemurs resist deforestation
A new study sequencing the genome of four species of sifakas (Propithecus), a genus of lemurs found in Madagascar's forests, reveals that these animals' taste for leaves runs all the way to their genes, which are also more diverse than expected for an endangered species. But they can also thrive on fruit and flowers, which may be an advantage over being strictly leaves-only or fruit-only in the face of forest fragmentation.
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From corals to crops: How life protects the plans for its cellular power stations
An international team of researchers led by the University of Bergen has uncovered how organisms from crops to corals may avoid deadly DNA damage during evolution.
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Successful cancer therapy using artificial metalloenzymes to deliver drugs
Researchers led by Katsunori Tanaka and Kenward Vong at the RIKEN Cluster for Pioneering Research (CPR) in Japan have combined cancer therapy drugs with a cancer cell-selective delivery system made from an artificial enzyme. The system reduced tumor onset and growth in mice.
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Seismicity on Mars full of surprises, in first continuous year of data
The SEIS seismometer package from the Mars InSight lander has collected its first continuous Martian year of data, revealing some surprises among the more than 500 marsquakes detected so far.
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DeepShake uses machine learning to rapidly estimate earthquake shaking intensity
A deep spatiotemporal neural network trained on more than 36,000 earthquakes offers a new way of quickly predicting ground shaking intensity once an earthquake is underway, researchers report at the Seismological Society of America (SSA)'s 2021 Annual Meeting.
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Fiber optic cable monitors microseismicity in Antarctica
At the Seismological Society of America's 2021 Annual Meeting, researchers shared how they are using fiber optic cable to detect the small earthquakes that occur in ice in Antarctica.
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High school junior's consumer seismometer delivers low-cost earthquake early warning
A Southern California high school junior has built a low-cost seismometer device that delivers earthquake early warnings for homes and businesses. Costing less than $100 for her to make today, the seismometer could someday be a regular household safety device akin to a smart smoke detector.
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Response options should be at the center of climate risk assessment and management
A team of researchers from the Africa Climate and Development Initiative (ACDI) led a global team of 21 climate risk scholars to better understand and inform decision making around climate change risks in Africa and globally by examining how the drivers of risk interact. Their work extends on existing risk frameworks with the hope that this research could help decision makers, managers and researchers understand the inherent complexity of climate change.
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Gauging groundwater
"Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water." It's a silly rhyme, but one that highlights a simple fact: Humans have long relied on wells -- such as the one on the hill visited by Jack and Jill -- for their primary drinking water supply.
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