Culture
Allowing cover crops to grow two weeks longer in the spring and planting corn and soybean crops into them before termination is a strategy that may help no-till farmers deal with wet springs, according to Penn State researchers.
The origin of the virus responsible for the ongoing yellow fever epidemic in Brazil, the worst for 40 years, has just been identified by scientists affiliated with two Brazilian institutions: Adolfo Lutz Institute (IAL) and the University of São Paulo (USP).
By means of a molecular study of yellow fever viruses found in dead monkeys and in mosquitoes, the group discovered that the strain behind the current epidemic originated in Pará State in North Brazil in 1980.
Researchers have identified a network of brain regions that work together to determine if a robot is a worthy social partner, according to a new study published in JNeurosci.
Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, Astrid Rosenthal-von der Pütten, Fabien Grabenhorst and colleagues evaluated brain activity from the prefrontal cortex and amygdala as human participants scored images of robots on their likability, familiarly, and human-likeness. The participants also chose the robot from which they would prefer to receive a gift, indicating their social value.
Stem cell stimulation shows promise as a potential noninvasive stroke treatment, according to research in mice published in JNeurosci. If extended to humans, this technique could greatly improve patients' quality of life.
Synapses in the hippocampus are larger and stronger after sleep deprivation, according to new research in mice published in JNeurosci. Overall, this study supports the idea that sleep may universally weaken synapses that are strengthened from learning, allowing for new learning to occur after waking.
Scientists have identified mechanisms in the human brain that could help explain the phenomenon of the 'Uncanny Valley' - the unsettling feeling we get from robots and virtual agents that are too human-like. They have also shown that some people respond more adversely to human-like agents than others.
As technology improves, so too does our ability to create life-like artificial agents, such as robots and computer graphics - but this can be a double-edged sword.
A promising strategy for helping stroke patients recover, transplanting neural progenitor cells to restore lost functions, asks a lot of those cells. They're supposed to know how to integrate into a mature (but damaged) brain. The cells need help.
Imagine slow-motion fireworks that started exploding 170 years ago and are still continuing. This type of firework is not launched into Earth's atmosphere, but rather into space by a doomed super-massive star, called Eta Carinae, the largest member of a double-star system. A new view from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, which includes ultraviolet light, shows the star's hot, expanding gases glowing in red, white and blue. Eta Carinae resides 7,500 light-years away.
A new study from the University of Göttingen and international partners has analysed the effects of Fairtrade certification on poor rural workers in Africa. The results show that Fairtrade improves the situation of employees in agricultural cooperatives, but not of workers in the smallholder farm sector, who are often particularly disadvantaged. The study was published in "Nature Sustainability".
CORVALLIS, Ore. - A collaboration led by scientists at Oregon State University, the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom and Erasmus University in The Netherlands has identified a new genetic mutation behind the premature fusing of the bony plates that make up the skull.
The findings are a key step toward preventing a serious cranial condition that affects roughly one child in 2,250, and also toward understanding how the protein the gene encodes works in the development and function of other organ systems such as skin, teeth and the immune system.
In biotech these days, CRISPR/Cas9 is a hot topic, because of its utility as a precise gene editing tool. Before humans repurposed it, CRISPR/Cas9 was a sort of internal immune system bacteria use to defend themselves against phages, or viruses that infect bacteria, by slicing up the phages' DNA.
Scientists at Emory University School of Medicine and the Max Planck Unit for the Science of Pathogens have found that the "scissors" component of CRISPR/Cas9 sometimes gets stuck.
Seeing a health professional for a full health screening - even when you feel healthy - from around age 40 enables people to make changes when problems first set in, experts say.
Flinders University research on a group of 561 seemingly healthy adults found that there was an average of five unidentified health problems per person, including undiagnosed blood pressure or early hearing loss.
The 21 health domains tested hearing, memory, lung function, foot sensation, balance, diet and physical activity.
Findings from a study of patients who received radioactive iodine (RAI) treatment for hyperthyroidism show an association between the dose of treatment and long-term risk of death from solid cancers, including breast cancer. The study, led by researchers at the National Cancer Institute (NCI), part of the National Institutes of Health, was published July 1, 2019 in JAMA Internal Medicine.
PHILADELPHIA - For years, researchers have been trying to target a gene called MYC that is known to drive tumor growth in multiple cancer types when it is mutated or over-expressed, but hitting that target successfully has proven difficult. Now researchers in the Perelman School of Medicine of the University of Pennsylvania have identified a new pathway that works as a partner to MYC and may be its Achilles' Heel. The pathway involves a protein called ATF4, and when it's blocked, it can cause cancer cells to produce too much protein and die.
A major 2009 revision to a federal nutrition program for low-income pregnant women and children improved recipients' health on several key measures, researchers at UC San Francisco have found.