Earth

All too often, kids are given less information than they deserve when it comes to complex phenomena, like how a virus such as COVID-19 spreads, or how to confront deeply painful societal issues like racism. If you are a parent or adult who has struggled to talk about race with kids, you are certainly not alone.

Researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM) and School of Pharmacy (UMSOP) have discovered new drug compounds to potentially treat the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19. The compounds disrupt the functioning of a protein complex inside human cells that the researchers discovered is critical for the replication and survival of coronaviruses.

Empagliflozin, a recently developed diabetes drug, can effectively treat and reverse heart failure in both diabetic and non-diabetic patients, according to researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.

A group of researchers led by Sir Andre Geim and Dr Alexey Berdyugin at The University of Manchester have discovered and characterised a new family of quasiparticles named 'Brown-Zak fermions' in graphene-based superlattices.

The team achieved this breakthrough by aligning the atomic lattice of a graphene layer to that of an insulating boron nitride sheet, dramatically changing the properties of the graphene sheet.

ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill (November 13, 2020) - Studies have shown that food allergies negatively affect the quality of life of those who suffer with them. A new study being presented at this year's virtual American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (ACAAI) Annual Scientific Meeting reveals the impact on food allergy quality of life (FAQOL) for Asian patients and their parents is significantly higher than for other races.

Stroke is a leading cause of death and severe long-term disability with limited treatment available. A research team led by Prof. Gong Chen at Jinan University, Guangzhou, China recently reported the first non-human primate study demonstrating successful in vivo neural regeneration from brain internal glial cells for stroke repair. This work was published on Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology on November 5th, 2020.

Against the background of global warming, more intense and frequent heat waves have brought huge impacts on humanity. As such, the characteristics of extreme temperature changes in the future have become a key concern of the climate change community.

A team of researchers has discovered more about the grain-scale fluid connectivity beneath the earth's surface, shedding new light on fluid circulation and seismic velocity anomalies in subduction zones.

To date, numerous studies had looked at think tanks and networks involved in the climate change counter movement in the US. Now, for the first time, the most important contrarian climate change think tanks in Europe have been studied systematically. The study whose first author, Núria Almiron, is a researcher with the UPF Department of Communication, covers a 24-year period (1994-2018) and takes account of the messages issued in six European countries, in four languages.

Exposure to an urban environment characterised by high levels of air pollution and noise in areas with a high building density during the foetal period and in early childhood may contribute to higher blood pressure. This was the conclusion of a study led by the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal) published in Environment International. ISGlobal is an institution supported by the "la Caixa" Foundation.

A study using extensive nationwide registry data showed that girls born extremely preterm, earlier than 28 weeks gestational age, were three times more likely to be diagnosed with depression than peers born close to the expected date of delivery. Increased risk of depression also applied to girls and boys with poor fetal growth born full-term and post-term. The effects of poor fetal growth were more evident with increasing gestational age.

An associate professor from RUDN University developed a computer model that describes all types of vehicle body damage caused by fatigue failure. According to his computer simulation, low speed on bumpy roads can be more dangerous for a vehicle body than moderate. The results of the study can help measure fatigue resistance in vehicles more accurately. An article about this study was published in the Simulation Modelling Practice and Theory journal.

Biotechnologists have been attempting to "reprogram" natural cell organelles for other processes for some time - with mixed results, since the "laboratory equipment" is specialised on the function of organelles. Dr Joanna Tripp, early career researcher at the Institute for Molecular Biosciences has now developed a new method to produce artificial organelles in living yeast cells (ACS Synthetic Biology: https://doi.org/10.1021/acssynbio.0c00241).

For galaxies, as for people, living in a crowd is different from living alone. Recently, astronomers used the National Science Foundation's Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) to learn how a crowded environment affects galaxies in the Perseus Cluster, a collection of thousands of galaxies some 240 million light-years from Earth.

Left: The giant galaxy NGC 1275, at the core of the cluster, is seen in new detail, including a newly-revealed wealth of complex, filamentary structure in its radio lobes.

As the COVID-19 pandemic began in the United States, universities were forced to make difficult operational decisions to help slow the spread of the disease and protect their students, faculty, staff, and community members. Guidance from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Prevention, the World Health Organization (WHO), and other agencies informed these decisions about non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPI)--the only interventions available at the early stages of the pandemic.