Culture
Peptides are short chains of amino acids that occur in our body, in plants or bacteria to control diverse functions. Several peptides are used as drugs such as insulin, which controls the metabolism of sugar, and cyclosporine, which suppresses organ rejection after transplants. More than 40 peptides are already approved as drugs, generating revenues in the billions. There are several hundreds of peptide-based medications currently in clinical trials.
SEATTLE -- May 11, 2020 -- Unprecedented collaboration and resources will be required to research and develop safe and effective vaccines for COVID-19 that can be manufactured and delivered in the scale of billions of doses to people globally.
Sometimes the most complex problems actually have very simple solutions. A group of South Korean researchers reported an efficient and effective redox-based strategy for incorporating multiple functions into simple molecular reagents against neurodegenerative disorders. The team developed redox-active aromatic molecular reagents with a simple structural composition that can simultaneously target and modulate various pathogenic factors in complex neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer's disease.
Supply chains collapse, companies are facing bankruptcy, and mass unemployment ensues. Covid-19 has triggered a global financial crisis and is forcing states to develop rescue packages on a scale not seen before. In addition, the crisis has called into question the US dollar's hegemony and could redefine the global monetary system. A team of researchers from the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS) has developed four scenarios that show how political decisions will shape the post-Corona world.
In an article written in 1931, the American economist and mathematician Harold Hotelling published a model to describe the evolution of the prices of non-renewable resources. Following the 1973 oil crisis, the model aroused fresh interest: the growth theorist Robert Solow named the initial equation in this article 'the Hotelling rule', establishing it as a fundamental principle of the economics of non-renewable resources. However, the prices observed over the past century have never been in line with this equation*, something which has constantly puzzled economists.
Researchers at King's College London, Massachusetts General Hospital and health science company ZOE have developed an artificial intelligence diagnostic that can predict whether someone is likely to have COVID-19 based on their symptoms. Their findings are published today in Nature Medicine.
War, torture, human trafficking and extreme poverty are just some of the appalling experiences to which refugees are exposed, both before and during their flight. Experiences such as these put those affected at risk of mental illness, even years afterwards. If that were not enough, after arriving in Germany refugees are often forced to live in conditions which cause further mental stress.
How people vote in the Eurovision Song Contest may tell us more than just the musical tastes of a nation - according to new research.
Although this year's Eurovision Song Contest has been postponed due to the COVID-19 outbreak, academics from the University of Stirling and University of Glasgow have revealed interesting patterns from previous years' public votes.
Telemedicine tools developed at UVA Health to battle Ebola have huge potential in the fight against COVID-19, UVA experts report in a new scientific paper. The tools, they say, allow doctors to provide personal, high-quality care while conserving vital personal protective equipment and reducing infection risks.
BATON ROUGE, LOUISIANA, May 11, 2020--A microscopic algae ("microalgae") could provide a complete and sustainably sourced supplemental diet to boost the robustness of managed honey bees, according to research just published by Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists in the journal Apidologie .
(Philadelphia, PA) - The vast majority of cells in the human body contain tiny power plants known as mitochondria that generate much of the energy cells use for day-to-day activities. Like a dynamic renewable resource, these little power plants are constantly dividing and uniting in processes called fission and fusion. The balance between fission and fusion is critical for health - especially cardiovascular health.
MAY 11, 2020 -- Microorganisms living inside and on our body play a crucial role in both the maintenance of our health and the development of disease. Now researchers at UTSA have uncovered evidence about the importance of maintaining physical distance to minimize the spread of microbes among individuals.
The scientists observed monkeys in the wild to understand what role genetics, diet, social groupings and distance in a social network play when it comes to the microbes found inside an animal's gut.
Even before the coronavirus pandemic wreaked havoc with the nation's food supply and economy, one in seven adults between the ages of 50 and 80 already had trouble getting enough food because of cost or other issues, a new poll finds.
The percentage who said they'd experienced food insecurity in the past year was even higher among those in their pre-Medicare years, and those who are African-American or Latino. Older adults with lower household incomes and lower levels of education were also more likely to say they had had trouble getting food.
Evidence from a large study of several thousand patients shows that men have higher concentrations of angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) in their blood than women. Since ACE2 enables the coronavirus to infect healthy cells, this may help to explain why men are more vulnerable to COVID-19 than women.
Most everyone knows that humid heat is harder to handle than the "dry" kind. And recently, some scientists have projected that later in the century, in parts of the tropics and subtropics, warming climate could cause combined heat and humidity to reach levels rarely if ever experienced before by humans. Such conditions would ravage economies, and possibly even surpass the physiological limits of human survival.