Culture
For the first time, physicists at the University of Basel have succeeded in measuring the magnetic properties of atomically thin van der Waals materials on the nanoscale. They used diamond quantum sensors to determine the strength of the magnetization of individual atomic layers of the material chromium triiodide. In addition, they found a long-sought explanation for the unusual magnetic properties of the material. The journal Science has published the findings.
Abundant and healthy wildlife populations are a cultural and ecological treasure in the United States. Over time, however, the decisions about how agencies manage wildlife have become highly contested: How should managers handle human-wildlife conflict, endangered species restoration and predator control?
A new 50-state study on America's Wildlife Values -- the largest and first of its kind -- led by researchers at Colorado State University and The Ohio State University describes individuals' values toward wildlife across states.
A University of Arizona-led research team has shown that evolution is driven by species interaction within a community.
All living things exist within communities, where they depend on resources or services provided by other species. As community members change, so do the products the species depend on and share. The late George Gaylord Simpson, who was a professor of geosciences at the UA and one of the most influential evolutionary thinkers of the last century, proposed that these fluctuating dependencies should determine the speed of evolution.
AMES, Iowa - New research published this week identifies the genomic features that might have made domestication possible for corn and soybeans, two of the world's most critical crop species.
The George Institute for Global Health at the University of Oxford investigated whether there was an association between socioeconomic deprivation (measured using the English Index of Multiple Deprivation combining income, employment, health and disability, education, skills and training, barriers to housing and services, crime, and living environment, into a single score by geographical area) and onset of advanced CKD and related outcomes, specifically end-stage renal disease (ESRD).
WASHINGTON -- A new study suggests that Oncotype DX-guided treatment could reduce the cost for the first year of breast cancer care in the U.S. by about $50 million (about 2 percent of the overall costs in the first year). The study by Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center and National Cancer Institute researchers was published April 24, in JNCI.
PHILADELPHIA (April 24, 2019) - Scientists from the Monell Center report that functional olfactory receptors, the sensors that detect odors in the nose, are also present in human taste cells found on the tongue. The findings suggest that interactions between the senses of smell and taste, the primary components of food flavor, may begin on the tongue and not in the brain, as previously thought.
Popular electronic cigarette (e-cigarette) products sold in the U.S. were contaminated with bacterial and fungal toxins, according to new research from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
Leuven, Belgium - Societies and schools are facing new, culturally diverse populations and how they respond to these changes can have lasting impacts for everyone involved. Examining middle school diversity policies, a team of researchers from the University of Leuven, Belgium and the Queen's University Belfast, UK, found that in schools with multicultural-based policies, ethnic minority students achieved just as well and felt that they belonged just as much as their majority peers.
In a recent study in mice, researchers found a way to deliver specific drugs to parts of the body that are exceptionally difficult to access. Their Y-shaped block catiomer (YBC) binds with certain therapeutic materials forming a package 18 nanometers wide. The package is less than one-fifth the size of those produced in previous studies, so can pass through much smaller gaps. This allows YBCs to slip through tight barriers in cancers of the brain or pancreas.
The precious chemistry of a plant used for 2000 years in traditional Chinese medicine has been unlocked in a project that raises the prospect of rapid access to a wide array of therapeutic drugs.
Carried out by CEPAMS - a partnership between the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the John Innes Centre - the project has successfully delivered a high-quality reference genome of the mint-family member Scutellaria baicalensis Georgi.
(CINCINNATI) When a protein named "Merlin" fails to do its job, people can develop slow-growing, life-disrupting auditory nerve tumors that can disrupt their hearing and balance. This rare condition is called neurofibromatosis 2 (NF2).
MOSS LANDING, CA--MBARI researchers recently measured high concentrations of carbon dioxide in air blowing out to sea from cities and agricultural areas, including Silicon Valley. In a new paper in PLOS ONE, they calculate that this previously undocumented process could increase the amount of carbon dioxide dissolving into coastal ocean waters by about 20 percent.
A research team at Massachusetts Eye and Ear has shown that microglia, the primary immune cells of the central nervous system--including the retina of the eye--serve as "gatekeepers," or biosensors and facilitators, of neuroinflammation in a preclinical model of autoimmune uveitis. Uveitis is one of the leading causes of blindness, accounting for approximately 10% of significant visual impairment worldwide.
Physarum polycephalum is a complex single-cell organism that has no nervous system. It can learn and transfer its knowledge to its fellow slime moulds via fusion. How it did so was a mystery. Researchers at the Centre de Recherches sur la Cognition Animale (CNRS/UT3 Paul Sabatier)* have recently demonstrated that slime moulds learn to tolerate a substance by absorbing it.