Culture
The UC San Diego researchers who developed algae-based flip-flops and surfboards are at it again. This time they are advancing their brand of renewable and biodegradable materials for use in other products like coated fabrics, patent leather and adhesives, with some foodie flare, too--flavors and fragrances.
Kyoto, Japan -- 'Like a frog stared down by a snake', goes an old Japanese expression, descrbing an animal petrified with fear.
However, it now seems that this freeze in action may not be about fear at all, but rather a delicate waiting game of life and death.
A new report from researchers at Kyoto University's Graduate School of Science shows that this common interaction is all about patience, with each animal waiting for and anticipating its opponent's actions.
A simple saliva test developed by QUT biomedical scientists has detected early throat cancer in a person who had no symptom and no clinical signs of cancer.
In what is believed to be a world-first, the non-invasive test picked up HPV-DNA in a saliva sample from an infected healthy person. Persistent human papillomavirus (HPV) infection is now the leading cause of cancers in the oropharynx (tonsils and tongue base area of the throat).
Children suffering from sickness and diarrhea, coupled with a fever or history of exposure to coronavirus, should be suspected of being infected with COVID-19, recommends a new study published in Frontiers in Pediatrics.
LOS ANGELES -- Four of six critically ill COVID-19 (coronavirus) patients significantly improved after receiving an experimental therapeutic designed to reduce inflammation, a major cause of death from this disease, according to a case series published by Cedars-Sinai and Capricor Therapeutics. The four patients got well enough to be discharged from the hospital.
Scientists worldwide have long debated our ability to identify male and female dinosaurs. Now, research led by Queen Mary University of London has shown that despite previous claims of success, it's very difficult to spot differences between the sexes.
In the new study, researchers analysed skulls from modern-day gharials, an endangered and giant crocodilian species, to see how easy it is to distinguish between males and females using only fossil records.
ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, IL - (MAY 12, 2020) - A good night's sleep is crucial to good health. A new article in Annals of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology, the scientific journal of the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (ACAAI) reveals that too little sleep, and occasionally too much sleep, can negatively impact adults with asthma.
SAN ANTONIO -- May 11, 2020 -- A Southwest Research Institute scientist modeled the atmosphere of Mars to help determine that salty pockets of water present on the Red Planet are likely not habitable by life as we know it on Earth. A team that also included scientists from Universities Space Research Association (USRA) and the University of Arkansas helped allay planetary protection concerns about contaminating potential Martian ecosystems. These results were published this month in Nature Astronomy.
The COVID-19 pandemic dominates views of government, politics and virtually all aspects of daily life, according to a new poll of Massachusetts voters.
As civic leaders and urban planners work to make cities more sustainable and livable by investing in outdoor spaces and recreational activities such as biking and walking, Princeton researchers have identified the benefit of an activity largely overlooked by policymakers -- home gardening.
Current smokers and people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) have an increased risk of severe complications and higher mortality with COVID-19 infection, according to a new study published May 11, 2020 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Jaber Alqahtani of University College London, UK, and colleagues.
New Rochelle, NY, May 11, 2020--A new study has shown that for some patients with type 1 diabetes the close monitoring of their condition using telehealth protocols combined with appropriate technology may lead to better care during the COVID-19 pandemic, when patients are avoiding in-person visits.
"Imagine a dog playing in a garden and smelling all of these different flowery smells, and then somewhere in the distance a predator appears, like a fox. The raw input coming into the dog's nose is a smell that consists of something like 90% flowers and only five or 10% of this predator," CSHL Associate Professor Saket Navlakha explained.
"The question that we sought out to study here is, 'how does this dog suppress this uninformative signal of all these flowers... and amplify the significant part, which is the predator, so that it then reacts appropriately?'"
When the body faces stressful conditions such as high temperatures or lack of nutrients, cells produce the same large structures they make to combat virus infections.
Scientists at The University of Toledo discovered the connection that could be an attractive bulls-eye to aim for when identifying new antiviral targets and immune modulators to fight diverse viruses.
There is ongoing debate among policymakers and the general public about where SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, came from. While researchers consider bats the most likely natural hosts for SARS-CoV-2, the origins of the virus are still unclear. On May 10 in the journal Current Biology, researchers describe a recently identified bat coronavirus that is SARS-CoV-2's closest relative in some regions of the genome and which contains insertions of amino acids at the junction of the S1 and S2 subunits of the virus's spike protein in a manner similar to SAR-CoV-2.