Culture
ITHACA, N.Y. - A new study examines the symbiotic relationship between two types of bacteria and spittlebugs that helps the insect live on very low-nutrient food. The bacteria use a metabolic "trick" also employed by cancer cells to create the right conditions for converting the poor food into the necessary building blocks for survival.
The study, "Syntrophic Splitting of Central Carbon Metabolism in Host Cells Bearing Functionally Different Symbiotic Bacteria," published April 29 in the journal of the International Society for Microbial Ecology.
Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is a condition characterized by excessive fat accumulation in the liver. It can cause serious complications, including nonalcoholic steatohepatitis, cirrhosis, and cancer. Although prevalent, there is a dearth of drugs to treat NAFLD, with current therapies revolving around lifestyle interventions.
The people who lived in the area known as the Southern Levant--which is now recognized as Israel, the Palestinian Authority, Jordan, Lebanon, and parts of Syria--during the Bronze Age (circa 3500-1150 BCE) are referred to in ancient biblical texts as the Canaanites. Now, researchers reporting in the journal Cell on May 28 have new insight into the Canaanites' history based on a new genome-wide analysis of ancient DNA collected from 73 individuals.
Using the very latest wide-bore magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanning equipment at the University of Nottingham experts found differences in blood flow to the placenta in healthy and pre-eclampsia pregnancies, a finding which could help understand why in pre-eclampsia the baby can be born small and pre-term.
The research published today in PLOS Biology also identified a completely new phenomenon which the researchers have termed the 'uteroplacental pump'. This involves contractions of placenta and the part of the uterine wall to which it is attached.
The exchange of ideas and material culture in Western Asia is well established within archaeological research. Although distinct traditions and systems of social organization emerged across Western Asia, the region from the Southern Caucasus to Anatolia and Mesopotamia had been a hub for the exchange of ideas and material culture for millennia. The extent of these exchanges, however, and the processes that lead farming communities to organize into complex societies, is still poorly understood.
DURHAM, N.C. -- Duke University researchers have developed a synthetic molecule that selectively dampen the physiological rewards of cocaine in mice. It also may represent a new class of drugs that could be more specific with fewer side effects than current medications.
In mice that were treated with the stimulant cocaine or methamphetamine, the new molecule was found to calm their drug-induced hyperactivity and interfere with the dopamine system's ability to change metabolism in the brain's rewards center.
Detailed seafloor mapping of submerged glacial landforms finds that Antarctic ice sheets in the past retreated far faster than the most rapid pace of retreat observed today, exceeding even the most extreme modern rates by at least an order of magnitude, according to a new study. Using an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) to carefully measure the delicate sets of ridges left behind in seafloor sediments by retreating ice following the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) roughly 14,000 years ago, the authors estimate deglaciation at a rate of more than 10 kilometers per year.
As the intensity and frequency of the strongest cyclones east of Taiwan have increased, so has the strength of the Kuroshio current, a Pacific current responsible for redistributing heat throughout the western North Pacific Ocean. According to a new study, intensifying tropical cyclones have increased the amount of energy in the ocean eddies that feed into the Kuroshio, accelerating the current. The results reveal a positive feedback between tropical cyclones (TCs) and potentially significant increased warming at higher latitudes.
What The Study Did: Symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder, depression, anxiety and insomnia among health care workers in Italy during the COVID-19 pandemic are reported in this observational study.
Authors: Rodolfo Rossi, M.D., of the University of Rome Tor Vergata in Italy, is the corresponding author.
To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/
(doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2020.10185)
Many insects process visual information to make decisions about controlling their flying skills and movements- flies must decide whether to pursue prey, avoid a predator, maintain their flight trajectory or land based on their perceptions.
Why is understanding this process important? We move every day and perceive the world differently as a result.
For example, if you're driving on the freeway your visual system adapts to high speed, and after a while 50km/h feels very slow. In contrast, when running or walking you are able to maintain a more steady velocity.
Users of high-potency cannabis are four times more likely to report associated problems, and twice as likely to report anxiety disorder, than users of lower-potency strains, according to new research from the University of Bristol.
Published today on JAMA Psychiatry the research uses data from Children of the 90s, a long-term health study that recruited more than 14,000 pregnant women and their babies born in and around Bristol in the early 1990s and has been following their health and development ever since.
The Near East was a crossroad for the ancient world's greatest civilizations, and invasions over centuries caused enormous changes in cultures, religions and languages. However, a new study of the DNA of ancient skeletons spanning 4,000 years has revealed that most of these changes had no lasting effect on the genetics of the local population of Beirut.
CAMBRIDGE, MA -- Many proteins are useful as drugs for disorders such as diabetes, cancer, and arthritis. Synthesizing artificial versions of these proteins is a time-consuming process that requires genetically engineering microbes or other cells to produce the desired protein.
New research on one history's most important trading hubs provides some of the earliest genetic glimpses at the movement and interactions of populations that lived in parts of Western Asia between two major events in human history: the origins of agriculture and the rise of some of the world's first cities.
The work reveals how a high level of human movement in the region not only led to the spread of ideas and material culture but to a more genetically connected society well before the rise of cities, not the other way around, as previously thought.
The existence of a planet the size of Earth around the closest star in the solar system, Proxima Centauri, has been confirmed by an international team of scientists including researchers from the University of Geneva (UNIGE). The results, which you can read all about in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics, reveal that the planet in question, Proxima b, has a mass of 1.17 earth masses and is located in the habitable zone of its star, which it orbits in 11.2 days.