Culture
The flow of traffic through our nation's highways and byways is meticulously mapped and studied, but less is known about how materials in cells travel. Now, a team of researchers at the University of Missouri is challenging prior theories about how material leaves the inside of an E.coli cell. This discovery could have important implications for how we treat diseases.
A study of nearly 800,000 schoolchildren in New York City shows that Black, Hispanic, and Asian students live and go to school closer to both healthy and unhealthy food outlets than do White students. Brian Elbel of the New York University School of Medicine and colleagues present these findings in the open-access journal PLOS ONE.
Cannabis has been cultivated as an oil-seed and fibre crop for millennia in East Asia. Little is known, however, about the early use and eventual cultivation of the plant for its psychoactive and medicinal properties. Despite being one of the most widely used psychoactive drugs in the world today, there is little archaeological or historical evidence for the use of marijuana in the ancient world.
Scientists at The University of Queensland have upended biologists' century-old understanding of the evolutionary history of animals.
Using new technology to investigate how multi-celled animals developed, their findings revealed a surprising truth.
Professor Bernie Degnan said the results contradicted years of tradition.
"We've found that the first multicellular animals probably weren't like the modern-day sponge cells, but were more like a collection of convertible cells," Professor Degnan said.
Chemical analysis of several wooden braziers recently excavated from tombs in western China provides some of earliest evidence for ritual cannabis smoking, researchers report. The study suggests that smoking cannabis for ritual and religious activities was practiced in western China by at least 2500 years ago, and that the cannabis plants involved were producing high levels of psychoactive compounds, indicating that people were aware of and interacting with specific populations of the plant.
Intensifying climate change will increase the future risk of violent armed conflict within countries, according to a study published today in the journal Nature. Synthesizing views across experts, the study estimates climate has influenced between 3% and 20% of armed conflict risk over the last century and that the influence will likely increase dramatically.
NEW YORK, NY --A new discovery by researchers at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons could fix one of the major shortcomings of current gene-editing tools, including CRISPR, and offer a powerful new approach for genetic engineering and gene therapy.
Their new technology, called INTEGRATE, harnesses bacterial jumping genes to reliably insert any DNA sequence into the genome without cutting DNA. Current gene-editing tools rely on cutting DNA, but those cuts can lead to errors.
A chemical residue study of incense burners from ancient burials at high elevations in the Pamir Mountains of western China has revealed psychoactive cannabinoids.
This study, conducted by researchers from the University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, provides some of the earliest clear evidence for the use of cannabis for its psychoactive compounds, and the awareness of higher tetrahydrocannabinol (THC)-producing varieties of the plant.
Archaeological remains of coastal occupation in the form of shell middens are commonly found on today's shorelines, and evidence for shellfish as a food source goes back 164,000 years. Within this time frame, sea-levels changed dramatically and shorelines moved on the scale of kilometers. The current study, published in PLOS ONE, reveals that this movement of coastlines impacted the majority of shell middens by causing shells to wash away or to currently be underwater, and thus has skewed our understanding of past coastal subsistence around the world.
Researchers from Carnegie Mellon University's Mellon College of Science and College of Engineering have developed a semiliquid lithium metal-based anode that represents a new paradigm in battery design. Lithium batteries made using this new electrode type could have a higher capacity and be much safer than typical lithium metal-based batteries that use lithium foil as anode.
The interdisciplinary research team published their findings in the current issue of Joule.
In 2018, researchers at MIT and the auto manufacturer BMW were testing ways in which humans and robots might work in close proximity to assemble car parts. In a replica of a factory floor setting, the team rigged up a robot on rails, designed to deliver parts between work stations. Meanwhile, human workers crossed its path every so often to work at nearby stations.
UMBC's Hua Lu, professor of biological sciences, and colleagues have found new genetic links between a plant's circadian rhythm (essentially, an internal clock) and its ability to fend off diseases and pests. The findings were 10 years in the making and published in Nature Communications this week. The results could eventually lead to plants that are more resistant to disease-causing pathogens and better treatment for human diseases.
June 12, 2019 -- Alcohol use among Tanzanian youth is rising and the high density of alcohol selling outlets and alcohol advertisements coupled with low enforcement of minimum drinking age laws are likely facilitating this uptick, according to a study by the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health and Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences. The volume of alcohol advertising that youth encounter in Tanzania is increasing as competition among global and local alcohol producers intensifies.
Over the past four years, an instrument attached to a telescope in the Chilean Andes - known as the Gemini Planet Imager - has set its gaze on 531 stars in search of new planets. The team, led by Stanford University, is now releasing initial findings from the first half of the survey, published June 12 in The Astronomical Journal.
The survey imaged six planets and three brown dwarfs orbiting these 300 stars and offered new details about Jupiter-like planets, which could influence theories about how Earth formed and became habitable.
If you're looking for a top-notch hospital with a wide range of services, narrowing your list to hospitals with a five-star patient experience rating might lead you astray. Many five-star hospitals offer fewer services than those without five stars, according to a new study by Johns Hopkins researchers published June 10 in JAMA Internal Medicine.