Culture
Somnambulism - otherwise known as sleepwalking - is a phenomenon which has fascinated the public and neurologists for decades, but a lot of what causes it remains a mystery.
Affecting up to 4% of adults, sleepwalking is a non-rapid-eye movement (NREM) sleep parasomnia that not only gives someone a poor night's sleep, but also puts them at serious risk of injury and, in some cases, lead to unintended violence against others.
The following day can also prove challenging as the sleepwalker will feel unrested and a strong desire to fall asleep (somnolence).
The cultivated planet is withstanding record-breaking pressure to ensure food security. To meet the rising demand of food, energy, and fiber, a 70%-100% increase in crop commodities will be needed globally by 2050. However, rapid urbanization and industrialization have caused dramatic loss of high-quality cropland and hence threatened food security. To stabilize cropland area, cropland expansion to marginal lands has become a widespread phenomenon worldwide.
The rarity of these syndromes, caused by damage to a gene named HUWE1, means very few children are affected. Of course, the low absolute numbers are little consolation for children who are born with a severe intellectual disability as a result of gene mutation.
Many affected children have distinctive facial features, some struggle to learn to walk, and many never learn to speak. Some have an abnormally small head and have stunted growth.
There is no cure. Parents mainly focus on learning enough about how to cope to make everyday life workable.
A study from the Centre for Nutraceuticals at the University of Westminster found that plant-based protein shakes may be potential viable alternatives to milk-based whey protein shakes, particularly in people with need of careful monitoring of glucose levels.
The study, published in the journal Nutrients, is the first to show potato and rice proteins can be just as effective at managing your appetite and can help better manage blood glucose levels and reduce spikes in insulin compared to whey protein.
New research has uncovered a novel trick employed by the bacterium Staphylococcus aureus to thwart the immune response, raising hopes that a vaccine that prevents deadly MRSA infections is a little closer on the horizon.
Immunologists from Trinity College Dublin, working with scientists at GSK - one of the world's largest vaccine manufacturers - discovered the new trick of the troublesome Staphylococcus aureus, which is the causative agent of the infamous "superbug" MRSA.
Scientists using computer modelling to study SARS-CoV-2, the virus that caused the COVID-19 pandemic, have discovered the virus is most ideally adapted to infect human cells - rather than bat or pangolin cells, again raising questions of its origin.
In a paper published in the Nature journal Scientific Reports, Australian scientists describe how they used high-performance computer modelling of the form of the SARS-CoV-2 virus at the beginning of the pandemic to predict its ability to infect humans and a range of 12 domestic and exotic animals.
In the animal kingdom, specific growth factors control body axis development. These signalling molecules are produced by a small group of cells at one end of the embryo to be distributed in a graded fashion toward the opposite pole. Through this process, discrete spatial patterns arise that determine the correct formation of the head-foot axis. A research team at the Centre for Organismal Studies (COS) at Heidelberg University recently discovered an enzyme in the freshwater polyp Hydra that critically shapes this process by limiting the activity of certain growth factors.
MINNEAPOLIS/ST. PAUL (06/24/2021) -- A study led by researchers at the University of Minnesota Medical School sheds new light on boys' weapon-carrying behaviors at U.S. high schools. The results indicate that weapon-carrying is not tied to students' race or ethnicity but rather their schools' social climates.
The study was published in the journal Pediatrics and led by Patricia Jewett, PhD, a researcher in the Department of Medicine at the U of M Medical School.
Dmitry Blinov is a co-author of the article and Senior Research Associate in the Department of Astrophysics, St Petersburg University. He notes that researchers have been studying the optical polarisation from active galactic nuclei for more than 50 years.
An international team of researchers co-led by the University of Adelaide and the University of Arizona has analysed the genomes of more than 2,500 modern humans from 26 worldwide populations, to better understand how humans have adapted to historical coronavirus outbreaks.
In a paper published in Current Biology, the researchers used cutting-edge computational methods to uncover genetic traces of adaptation to coronaviruses, the family of viruses responsible for three major outbreaks in the last 20 years, including the ongoing pandemic.
Rheumatologists are familiar with the everyday use of immunomodulatory drugs. These are designed to treat the inflammation caused by autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis. A EULAR taskforce was set up to develop a set of new points to consider to give guidance and advice on the best way to use these medicines to treat COVID-19. The taskforce included rheumatologists, immunologists, haematologists, paediatricians, patients and other health professionals. They looked at the published evidence on the use of immunomodulatory therapies to treat severe COVID-19.
The cells of simple organisms, such as bacteria, as well as human cells are surrounded by a membrane, which fulfills various tasks including protecting the cell from stress. In a joint project, teams from Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) and Forschungszentrum Jülich, with participation of Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf (HHU), have now discovered that a membrane protein found in bacteria has a similar structure and function as a group of proteins that are responsible for remodeling and rebuilding the cell membrane in humans.
Researchers at the Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, together with epidemiologist Lone Simonsen from Roskilde University form part of the panel advising the Danish government on how to tackle the different infection-spreading situations we have all seen unfold over the past year. Researchers have modelled the spread of infections under a variety of scenarios, and the Coronavirus has proven to not follow the older models of disease spreading. An increasingly varied picture of its behaviour and thus its impact on society has emerged.
While invasive zebra mussels consume small plant-like organisms called phytoplankton, Michigan State University researchers discovered during a long-term study that zebra mussels can actually increase Microcystis, a type of phytoplankton known as "blue-green algae" or cyanobacteria, that forms harmful floating blooms.
A new study could lead to improved decision making in assigning treatments for children with the aggressive cancer rhabdomyosarcoma after revealing key genetic changes underlying development of the disease.
In the largest and most comprehensive study of rhabdomyosarcoma to date, scientists found that specific genetic changes in tumours are linked to aggressiveness, early age of onset and location in the body.