Culture
With the continuing rise of China as a global economic and trading power, there is no barrier to prevent Chinese from becoming a global language like English, according to Flinders University academic Dr Jeffrey Gil.
Dr Gil's paper challenges arguments that suggest Chinese faces insurmountable hurdles to become a commonly used international language due to the complexity of Chinese written characters.
The molecular machinery responsible for replicating human DNA has come into sharper focus and deepened understanding of this fundamental biological process and how it can malfunction. An international team led by researchers at KAUST has used cryo-electron micrography to study the structure of the human Pol δ-DNA-PCNA complex.
In an upcoming study to be published in Gastroenterology, researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and the University of North Carolina School of Medicine report on the clinical course of COVID-19 and risk factors for adverse outcomes in a large cohort of patients with IBD collected through an international registry.
What The Study Did: National health care survey data were used to assess the amount of money spent on primary care relative to other areas of health care spending in the U.S. from 2002 to 2016.
Authors: Andrew W. Bazemore, M.D., M.P.H., of the American Board of Family Medicine in Washington, is the corresponding author.
To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/
(doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2020.1360)
What The Study Did: Researchers compared the risk of suicide by firearm based on sociodemographic characteristics of U.S. adults.
Authors: Mark Olfson, M.D., M.P.H., of Columbia University in New York, is the corresponding author.
To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/
(doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2020.1334)
Crown-of-thorns starfish are on the menu for many more fish species than previously suspected, an investigation using fish poo and gut goo reveals.
The finding suggests that some fish, including popular eating and aquarium species, might have a role to play in keeping the destructive pest population under control.
When there's a vexing problem to be solved, people sometimes offer metaphorical advice such as "stretching the mind" or engaging in "flexible" thinking, but in confronting a problem facing many biomedical research labs, a team of MIT researchers has engineered a solution that is much more literal. To make imaging cells and molecules in brain and other large tissues easier while also making samples tough enough for years of handling in the lab, they have come up with a chemical process that makes tissue stretchable, compressible and pretty much indestructible.
The mystery of some lava-like flows on Mars has been solved by scientists who say they are caused not by lava but by mud.
There are tens of thousands of these landforms on the Martian surface, often situated where there are massive channels scoured into the surface by ancient liquids flowing downstream.
CAMBIDGE, MA -- MIT neuroscientists have discovered that an enzyme called HDAC1 is critical for repairing age-related DNA damage to genes involved in memory and other cognitive functions. This enzyme is often diminished in both Alzheimer's patients and normally aging adults.
In a study of mice, the researchers showed that when HDAC1 is lost, a specific type of DNA damage builds up as the mice age. They also showed that they could reverse this damage and improve cognitive function with a drug that activates HDAC1.
A squad of climate-related factors is responsible for the massive Australian coral bleaching event of 2016. If we're counting culprits: it's two by sea, one by land.
Neural networks in the visual cortex of the brain do a remarkable job of transforming the patterns of light that fall onto the retina into the vivid sensory experience that we call sight. A critical element of this encoding process depends on neurons that respond selectively to different features in the visual scene.
White blood cells are known to circulate through the entire body inside blood vessels, acting as a surveillance system. However, a specialized group of these cells are permanently present in tissues like the skin, intestine and lungs, protecting against external invaders, such as microbes. But it is largely unknown how these cells are generated.
LA JOLLA, CALIF. – May 18, 2020 – Scientists at Sanford Burnham Prebys have discovered that combining immunotherapy with a drug called tumor necrosis factor (TNF) eradicated a deadly type of pediatric brain tumor in mice. The discovery, published in Nature Neuroscience, is expected to lead to a clinical trial to test the benefits of the treatment in patients.
Rockville, MD, May 18, 2020 - Increasing reports of severe COVID-19 illness in children - coupled with the fact that little is known about how and why the disease may behave differently in this younger population - demand that a set of critical steps be taken now to ensure children get the attention they need, according to an article just published in Pediatric Research.
A hidden Murray River rockshelter speaks volumes about local Aboriginal and European settlement in the Riverland, with symbols of conflict - including a swastika symbol - discovered in Aboriginal rock art.
The engravings studied in 188 engravings in a remote South Australian rockshelter are a stark reminder of colonial invasion and the strife brewing in Europe ahead of World War Two, Flinders University archaeologists have revealed.