Culture
Fitness tracker bracelets and watches provide useful information, such as step count and heart rate, but they usually can't provide more detailed data about the wearer's health. Now, researchers reporting in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces have developed smart electronic glasses (e-glasses) that not only monitor a person's brain waves and body movements, but also can function as sunglasses and allow users to control a video game with eye motions.
Resembling giant mealworms, superworms (Zophobas atratus) are beetle larvae that are often sold in pet stores as feed for reptiles, fish and birds. In addition to their relatively large size (about 2 inches long), these worms have another superpower: They can degrade polystyrene plastic. Now, researchers reporting in ACS' Environmental Science & Technology have linked this ability to a strain of bacteria that lives in the larvae's gut.
PHILADELPHIA - Checkpoint inhibitors, a type of immunotherapy, that target myeloid immune cells and slow tumor growth were discovered by a team from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and other institutions. Reporting in Nature Cancer, the researchers showed for the first time in human cells and a mouse model that inhibiting the c-Rel molecule in myeloid cells -- as opposed to lymphoid cells that today's immunotherapies target -- blocked the production of immune suppressor cells and significantly shrank tumors.
During sleep and under anesthesia, we rarely respond to such external stimuli as sounds even though our brains remain highly active.
Now, a series of new studies by researchers at Tel Aviv University's Sackler Faculty of Medicine and Sagol School of Neuroscience find, among other important discoveries, that noradrenaline, a neurotransmitter secreted in response to stress, lies at the heart of our ability to "shut off" our sensory responses and sleep soundly.
More like mom or dad? Human babies always get this curious look in their face combined with the question whom the child resembles most. The answers vary depending on the degree of kinship, gender and the time of assessment. Mandrills, monkeys living in Equatorial Africa, may recognize facial features coding relatedness better than humans.
Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic and its rapid spread, the scientific community has been working on developing an effective treatment for the virus responsible for the disease. Finding drugs that can inhibit the infection caused by SARS-CoV-2 is an essential step to finding the vaccine that can definitively bring the spread of the virus to an end.
In many social species, including humans, even if large group sizes provide competitive advantages over smaller neighboring groups, the preponderant role of adult males in territoriality has often been put forward, most likely biased by an anthropocentric perspective.
A recent study of hip fracture rates in nursing homes in the U.S. reports a slight rise in the rate of hip fractures among long-stay residents in recent years. Researchers looked at data collected between 2007 and 2015 and found, despite a dip in 2013, rates have begun to rise again even though long- stay nursing home admissions have declined. Sarah T. Berry, M.D., M.P.H., Associate Director of the Musculoskeletal Research Center in the Hinda and Arthur Marcus Institute for Aging Research, is lead author on the paper recently published in the Journal of Bone and Mineral Research.
Simple and readily available saline solution can reliably transport COVID-19 samples to testing labs
Philadelphia, May 27, 2020 - In a new peer-reviewed study appearing in The Journal of Molecular Diagnostics, published by Elsevier, investigators report that a simple salt solution commonly found in hospitals and clinical laboratories, phosphate buffered saline (PBS), can be used as a medium to reliably transport coronavirus-contaminated specimens to the testing laboratory for periods of up to 18 hours, which is often needed
New Haven, Conn. -- A new, Yale-led study shows that some supermassive black holes actually thrive under pressure.
It has been known for some time that when distant galaxies --and the supermassive black holes within their cores -- aggregate into clusters, these clusters create a volatile, highly pressurized environment. Individual galaxies falling into clusters are often deformed during the process and begin to resemble cosmic jellyfish.
A mouse model of infection with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) reproduces features observed in human patients, researchers report May 26 in the journal Cell Host & Microbe. Using CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing technology, the researchers generated mice that produce human angiotensin-converting enzyme II (hACE2)--the receptor that SARS-CoV-2 binds to and uses to enter human cells.
AMES, Iowa - A recently published study led by Iowa State University scientists applied a fresh perspective to vast amounts of data on rice plants to find better ways to predict plant performance and new insights about how plants adapt to different environments.
Charlottesville, Va. - Electrical and computer engineers at the University of Virginia and University of Texas-Austin have developed an avalanche photodiode that achieved record performance and has the potential to transform next generation night-vision imaging and Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) receivers. For LiDAR, the team's low-noise, two-micrometer avalanche photodiode enables higher-power operation that is eye-safe.
A new study by researchers at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) found that New England's historic lobster fishery may turn a higher profit by operating with less gear in the water and a shorter season. The findings could provide a path forward for the lobster fishing industry, which is under pressure to move away from traditional pot fishing that uses long vertical lines of rope known to entangle and kill endangered North Atlantic right whales and other protected species. The study was published this week in the journal Marine Policy.
A promising molecular pair has offered hope that could lead to the development of a new treatment to slow down Parkinson's disease, a study by Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) and Harvard University has found.