Culture
The ear's tiny outer hair cells adjust the sensitivity of neighbouring inner hair cells to sound levels rather than acting like an amplifier, suggests a new study published today in eLife.
The discovery in gerbils contributes to our understanding of the role that outer hair cells play in hearing. The findings could also be useful for developing better ways to protect these delicate cells from harm to prevent hearing loss.
On 30 August 2019 the amateur astronomer Gennady Borisov, from MARGO observatory, Crimea, discovered an object with a comet-like appearance. The object has a condensed coma, and more recently a short tail has been observed. Mr. Borisov made this discovery with a 0.65-metre telescope he built himself.
New Rochelle, NY, September 24, 2019--A provocative new study looks at the resource utilization and technological strategies that would be needed to make a Mars population of one million people food self-sufficient. A detailed model of population growth, caloric needs, land use, and potential food sources showed that food self-sufficiency could be achieved within 100 years. The study is published in New Space: The Journal of Space Entrepreneurship and Innovation, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers.
PHILADELPHIA -- (September 24, 2019) -- The Wistar Institute was awarded two major grants totaling more than $12 million from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), part of the National Institutes of Health, to fund an international multidisciplinary clinical research consortium spearheaded by Wistar's HIV Research Program. The consortium, including several partner institutions in the U.S.
Dog welfare campaigns that tell people to be 'responsible owners' don't help to promote behaviour change, a new University of Liverpool report suggests.
Dog owners interviewed for a study published in Anthrozoös all considered themselves to be responsible owners, despite there being great variation in key aspects of their dog-owning behaviour.
WASHINGTON, D.C., September 24, 2019 -- A group of researchers in Japan has developed a new type of processor known as PAXEL, a device that can potentially bypass Moore's Law and increase the speed and efficiency of computing. PAXEL, which stands for photonic accelerator, is placed at the front end of a digital computer and optimized to perform specific functions but with less power consumption than is needed for fully electronic devices.
CHICAGO (September 24, 2019): A large-scale implementation of a protocol to improve recovery of patients after weight-loss operations was found to reduce rates of extended hospitalization by almost half at 36 participating accredited bariatric surgery centers nationwide, according to a study published online ahead of print in the current issue of the journal Surgery for Obesity and Related Diseases.
Dr Michael Pittman of the Vertebrate Palaeontology Laboratory, Department of Earth Sciences, The University of Hong Kong led an international study with his PhD student Mr Arindam Roy that evaluates fossil colour reconstruction methods to propose a new study framework that improves and expands current practice. The paper was recently published in the journal Biological Reviews.
Bottom Line: U.S. adults made modest improvements to their diets in recent years but still eat too much low-quality carbohydrates and saturated fat based on an analysis of nationally representative survey data. The study included data from nearly 44,000 adults who reported their dietary intake in a 24-hour period. Researchers report a decline in the consumption of low-quality carbohydrates (primarily added sugar) and increases in high-quality carbohydrates (primarily whole grains), plant protein (primarily whole grains and nuts) and polyunsaturated fatty acids from 1999 to 2016.
Bottom Line: The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) recommends screening people who are pregnant for asymptomatic bacteriuria (bacteria in the urine without signs or symptoms of a urinary tract infection) using urine culture and not screening other adults. The condition is present in an estimated 2% to 10% of pregnant women and is associated with pyelonephritis, a kidney infection that is a common reason for hospitalization in pregnant women.
The novel small molecules, based on new target, new chemical structure and new antimicrobial mechanism, are different from those of existing antibiotics. The new drug candidates demonstrate much effective abilities of inhibiting bacterial growth than commonly used antibiotics, yet with no toxicity to human cells.
The pathogen Acinetobacter baumannii is one of three highest priority pathogens identified by WHO (World Health Organisation) for which new antibiotics are urgently needed
Understanding the enzymes that assemble antibiotics which can kill the pathogen is key to altering their structures to target the pathogen more effectively
When the immune system fends off pathogens, this can happen in a very wide variety of ways. For example, the immune system's memory is able to distinguish a foreign protein with which the organism has already come into contact from another and to react with a corresponding antibody. Researchers have now investigated experimentally whether this ability of the immune system to specifically fend off pathogens can adapt in the course of evolution.
Cooperation in mutual competition is a basic mechanism for the prosperity of human society. However, the simplest model of cooperation in game theory predicts that cooperation will not emerge among rational people because cooperative behaviors incur costs to cooperators, and free riding is a better option.
Cancer researchers from the University of Bath have identified some promising drug candidates by using high-throughput screening methods to test tens of thousands of molecules.