Culture
June 5, 2020-- A new paper published online in the Annals of the American Thoracic Society examines ventilation and medication strategies that can help avoid psychological trauma for severe COVID-19 survivors treated for acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) with mechanical ventilation.
At a glance:
Fruit fly study finds death by sleep deprivation is preceded by the accumulation of molecules known as reactive oxidative species (ROS) in the gut
Neutralizing ROS in the gut allows severely sleep-deprived fruit flies to have normal lifespans
Buildup of ROS in the gut due to insufficient sleep occurs across species
Findings potentially inform future efforts to counteract the harmful effects of sleep deprivation in humans
Cancer cells can turn on error-prone DNA copy pathways to adapt to cancer treatment, a breakthrough study published in the journal Science has revealed. Bacteria use the same process, termed stress-induced mutagenesis, to develop antibiotic resistance.
The cells of the human body are constantly dividing, and each time need to copy a three billion-letter DNA code with high precision to ensure cell survival. The same is not true for cancers, researchers have discovered.
In less than three decades, most of Southeast Asia's peatlands have been wholly or partially deforested, drained, and dried out. This has released carbon that accumulated over thousands of years from dead plant matter, and has led to rampant wildfires that spew air pollution and greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
Osaka, Japan and Houston, Texas, USA - For a sperm produced in the testis of a man to fertilize a woman's egg, the sperm must first mature in a man's epididymis. Now, an international team of researchers has identified a chain of events in which a protein secreted by the testis travels in the luminal fluid, binds to a receptor on the epididymis to induce its differentiation and secretion of a second protein that matures the sperm and enables each sperm to be motile in females.
Do you have what is known as problematic alcohol use? Then statistically you will also be particularly genetically predisposed to develop e.g. depression and insomnia. And to become dependent on drugs and tobacco. This is shown by a new international study in which researchers from iPSYCH are involved.
The researchers have looked at the role played by genes when a person year after year drinks such large amounts of alcohol, that he or she ends up experiencing serious psychological, social and health damage.
The international study "Resistance to targeted therapies as a multifactorial, gradual adaptation to inhibitor specific selective pressures", recently published in the scientific journal Nature Communications, has taken a further step in the development of new therapeutic strategies to treat lung cancer.
This study, the result of more than three years of research, was conducted at the Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa (Florida, USA) and makes progress toward the evolution of resistance to different tumor inhibitors. Scientist Robert Vander Velde is the main author of it.
New modern physical school spaces require open communication between stakeholders in order to be transformed into meaningful learning environments, a new study from the University of Eastern Finland shows. Pre-existing pedagogies or good practices as such cannot be transferred from one space to another.
A paper published in Science in 2017 described hundreds of massive, kilometer -wide, craters on the ocean floor in the Barents Sea. Today more than 600 gas flares are identified in and around these craters, releasing the greenhouse gas steadily into the water column. Another study, published the same year in PNAS, mapped several methane mounds, some 500m wide, in the Barents Sea. The mounds were considered to be signs of soon-to-happen methane expulsions that have created the said craters.
In the last two decades, the life sciences have seen a growing partnership with information technology. The main drive behind this is the need to process and integrate enormous volumes of data from different fields including genetics, biochemistry, cell and molecular biology, and physiology in order to gain a deeper understanding of biological systems, processes, and even entire organisms.
At a glance:
Two studies from Harvard Medical School provide new insights into normal and abnormal DNA recombination during sperm and egg cell formation
Using new technology for analyzing human sperm genomes, researchers report variable rates of chromosome abnormalities and find evidence that a single biological process regulates the number, location and spacing of crossovers where parents' DNA recombines
Separate study in developing worm eggs suggests crossovers are suppressed in certain regions of the chromosome to reduce errors
HOUSTON - (June 4, 2020) - Eggs that would otherwise be wasted can be used as the base of an inexpensive coating to protect fruits and vegetables, according to Rice University researchers.
The Brown School of Engineering lab of materials scientist Pulickel Ajayan and colleagues have developed a micron-thick coating that solves problems both for the produce and its consumers, as well as for the environment.
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. -- Highly energetic, "hot" electrons have the potential to help solar panels more efficiently harvest light energy.
But scientists haven't been able to measure the energies of those electrons, limiting their use. Researchers at Purdue University and the University of Michigan built a way to analyze those energies.
Ludwig-Maximilian-Universitaet (LMU) in Munich researchers have discovered a hitherto unknown molecular function of a specific microRNA that preserves integrity of the endothelium and reduces the risk of atherosclerosis.
Researchers from the Department of Chemistry, Materials and Chemical Engineering "Giulio Natta" of the Politecnico di Milano and the Pediatric Research Center, Department of Biomedical and Clinical Sciences "L. Sacco ", University of Milan have recently published an article in the scientific journal Theranostics, which will help the international scientific community to understand the mechanisms of SARS-CoV-2 infection and to develop vaccines and therapeutic agents against COVID-19.