Culture
Irvine, Calif., June 2, 2020 -- Octopuses, squids and other sea creatures can perform a disappearing act by using specialized tissues in their bodies to manipulate the transmission and reflection of light, and now researchers at the University of California, Irvine have engineered human cells to have similar transparent abilities.
In a paper published today in Nature Communications, the scientists described how they drew inspiration from cephalopod skin to endow mammalian cells with tunable transparency and light-scattering characteristics.
A University of Wyoming researcher led a study that showed Wyoming pronghorn exhibit little-to-no population genetic differentiation even though their range spans hundreds of kilometers, multiple mountain ranges and three major interstate highways.
While there are previously documented studies that show landscape features such as major highways restrict the daily and seasonal movements of pronghorn and increase mortality risk, Melanie LaCava says her research group found little, if any, evidence that these barriers affect genetic connectivity among Wyoming pronghorn.
A new study from researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago shows that high estrogen levels may make alcohol more rewarding to female mice.
The study, published in the Journal of Neuroscience, suggests that treatment for alcohol use disorder or binge drinking behavior may be more effective if sex differences are considered.
Amy Lasek, associate professor of psychiatry and anatomy and cell biology, led the research, which looked specifically at estrogen receptors in the brain to determine the mechanisms by which estrogen regulates alcohol sensitivity.
Researchers in Italy have melded the emerging science of convolutional neural networks (CNNs) with deep learning - a discipline within artificial intelligence - to achieve a system of market forecasting with the potential for greater gains and fewer losses than previous attempts to use AI methods to manage stock portfolios. The team, led by Prof. Silvio Barra at the University of Cagliari, published their findings on IEEE/CAA Journal of Automatica Sinica.
Researchers from the RIKEN Center for Advanced Photonics, Tohoku University, National Institutes for Quantum and Radiological Science and Technology, Kyoto University, and Osaka University have discovered that terahertz radiation, contradicting conventional belief, can disrupt proteins in living cells without killing the cells. This finding implies that terahertz radiation, which was long considered impractical to use, may have applications in manipulating cell functions for the treatment of cancer, for example, but also that there may be safety issues to consider.
Honeybees that specialise in grooming their nestmates (allogroomers) to ward off pests play a central role in the colony, finds a new UCL and University of Florence study.
Allogroomer bees also appear to have stronger immune systems, possibly enabling them to withstand their higher risk of infection, according to the findings published in Scientific Reports.
Unlike machines, the behaviour of animals and humans almost always has an element of unpredictability. Countless experiments have shown that our responses to the exact same challenge are sometimes faster, sometimes slower, sometimes correct and sometimes wrong.
In the field of neuroscience, this variability is often attributed to what is called "noise". An ever-present "neural babble" that influences the way brains process and respond to incoming information.
PITTSBURGH-- Some people look at an equation and see a bunch of numbers and symbols; others see beauty. Thanks to a new tool created at Carnegie Mellon University, anyone can now translate the abstractions of mathematics into beautiful and instructive illustrations.
The tool enables users to create diagrams simply by typing an ordinary mathematical expression and letting the software do the drawing. Unlike a graphing calculator, these expressions aren't limited to basic functions, but can be complex relationships from any area of mathematics.
First review of all available evidence including 172 observational studies looking at how physical distancing, face masks, and eye protection affect the spread of COVID-19, SARS, and MERS in both community and healthcare settings across 16 countries.
Physical distancing of at least 1 metre lowers risk of COVID-19 transmission, but distances of 2 metres could be more effective.
Hamilton, ON (June 1, 2020) - A comprehensive review of existing evidence supports physical distancing of two metres or more to prevent person-to-person transmission of COVID-19, says an international team led by McMaster University and St. Joseph's Healthcare Hamilton.
Face masks and eye protection decrease the risk of infection, too.
The systematic review and meta-analysis was commissioned by the World Health Organization. The findings were published today in The Lancet.
CHAPEL HILL, NC - June 1, 2020 - In a major scientific study published in the journal Cell, scientists at the UNC School of Medicine and the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health have characterized the specific ways in which SARS-CoV-2 - the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 - infects the nasal cavity to a great degree - replicating specific cell types - and infects and replicates progressively less well in cells lower down the respiratory tract, including the lungs.
Reperfusion therapy, the gold standard for stroke treatment, helps restore blood flow after a stroke caused by a clot, preventing loss of brain tissue. However, only about 10% of stroke patients qualify, in part because of reperfusion therapy's narrow treatment window.
Fluctuating estrogen levels may make alcohol more rewarding to female mice, according to new research in JNeurosci. Untangling the involved signaling pathways could unveil sex-based treatments for alcohol use disorders.
Recreational use of alcohol can escalate into something more dire such as excessive binge drinking or even an alcohol use disorder. Women are more susceptible than men to these negative effects of alcohol, potentially because of the sex hormone estrogen.
What happens in the hippocampus even before people attempt to form memories may impact whether they remember.
A new study analyzed neuronal recordings from the brains of epilepsy patients while they committed a series of words to memory. When the firing rates of hippocampal neurons were already high before the patients saw a word, they were more successful in encoding that word and remembering it later.
Climate engineering provides solutions that directly affect the incoming radiation from the sun and are able to rapidly offset the temperature increase. These technologies open new scenarios on the management of the risks related to climate change, on the need to contain the warming of the planet within two degrees Celsius as defined by international agreements, on the strategies that individual states, or coalitions of states, can put in place to avoid negative impacts related to climate.