Tech
Leading cancer experts at the University of Birmingham have solved a long-standing question of how various types of mutations in just one gene cause different types of diseases.
A team of scientists at the University's Institute of Cancer and Genomic Sciences, led by Professor Constanze Bonifer, studied a gene known as RUNX1, which is responsible for providing instructions for the development of all blood cells and is frequently mutated in blood cancers.
Adaptability explains why insects spread so widely and why they are the most abundant animal group on earth. Insects exhibit resilient and flexible locomotion, even with drastic changes in their body structure such as losing a limb.
A research group now understands more about adaptive locomotion in insects and the mechanisms underpinning it. This knowledge not only reveals intriguing information about the biology of the insects, but it can also help to design more robust and resilient multi-legged robots that are able to adapt to similar physical damage.
Both past and present-day scientists have suspected the intestines of playing a role in various diseases. Present-day studies focus on the intestinal flora's role in physical diseases such as diabetes and overweight, while others seek to establish a connection between the intestinal flora and e.g. autism, schizophrenia and depression. But even modern-day scientists have difficulties studying the around 500-1000 different species among the approx. 100 billion active bacteria in our intestines.
TAMPA, Fla. -- The hallmarks of cancer include rapid cell reproduction and metabolic activity. But these processes also lead to increased cellular stress and oxidation, and the risk of cell death. To circumvent these negative consequences of supercharged growth, cancer cells stimulate pathways to reduce oxidative stress and avoid cell death. In an article published in Cell Metabolism, Moffitt Cancer Center researchers report on a newly discovered biochemical pathway that protects cells from a type of cell death called ferroptosis.
Many animal and insect species use Batesian mimicry - mimicking a poisonous species - as a defense against predators. The common palmfly, Elymnias hypermnestra (a species of satyrine butterfly), which is found throughout wide areas of tropical and subtropical Asia, adds a twist to this evolutionary strategy: the females evolved two distinct forms, either orange or dark brown, imitating two separate poisonous model species, Danaus or Euploea. The males are uniformly brown. A population group is either entirely brown (both males and females) or mixed (brown males and orange females).
Decades after the industrialized world largely eliminated lead poisoning in children, the potent neurotoxin still lurks in one in three children globally. A new study in Bangladesh by researchers at Stanford University and other institutions finds that a relatively affordable remediation process can almost entirely remove lead left behind by unregulated battery recycling - an industry responsible for much of the lead soil contamination in poor and middle-income countries - and raises troubling questions about how to effectively eliminate the poison from children's bodies.
Superconductivity already has a variety of practical applications, such as medical imaging and levitating transportation like the ever-popular maglev systems. However, to ensure that the benefits of applied superconductors keep spreading further into other technological fields, we need to find ways of not only improving their performance, but also making them more accessible and simpler to fabricate.
MEDFORD/SOMERVILLE, Mass. (Jan. 14, 2021)-- Exposure to discrimination plays a significant role in the risk of developing anxiety and related disorders, even - in a first - after accounting for potential genetic risks, according to a multidisciplinary team of health researchers led by Tufts University and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
The human body is like a construction site where hundreds of thousands of different molecular nanomachines, called proteins, are simultaneously at work. Each one of these biomolecules, which are chains of amino acids essential to living organisms, perform a different biological function, often in synergy with other proteins. During their formation (the folding process) or in the performance of their biological functions, proteins change their shape in a very specific way.
Researchers at the UC Davis Violence Prevention Research Program (VPRP) assessed the prevalence of exposure to violence, such as robbery or assault, and its impacts on the mental health and social functioning of California adults. Their study, published in the Journal of Interpersonal Violence, shows the far-reaching psychological effects an incident of gun violence can have on victims and those close to them.
New York, NY (January 14, 2020) -- Girls who are emotionally neglected or severely sexually abused early in their lives report riskier sexual behaviors during adolescence, Mount Sinai researchers report. The findings highlight the need--and suggest the potential for tailored approaches--to promote healthy sexual development in vulnerable populations.
DURHAM, N.H.-- Waldenström macroglobulinemia (WM), a rare form of lymphoma, does not have any known cure and only one FDA-approved treatment making it challenging to treat patients. Researchers at the University of New Hampshire took the novel approach of targeting specific cell proteins that control DNA information using inhibitors, or drugs, that were effective in reducing the growth of the cancer cells and when combined with a third drug were even more successful in killing the WM cancer cells which could lead to more treatment options.
A refractive index of zero induces a wave vector with zero amplitude and undefined direction. Therefore, light propagating inside a zero-index medium does not accumulate any spatial phase advance, resulting in perfect spatial coherence. Such coherence brings several potential applications, including arbitrarily shaped waveguides, phase-mismatch-free nonlinear propagation, large-area single-mode lasers, and extended super radiance. A promising platform to achieve these applications is an integrated Dirac-cone material that features an impedance-matched zero index.
The development of ultrafast all-optical switches has long been a popular topic in photonics, while the speed of magnetization reversal triggered by means other than magnetic fields has recently attracted intense interest in spintronics. The discovery of all-optical helicity-dependent switching in metallic GdFeCo has promised a merger of the fields of photonics and spintronics, paving the way for faster and more energy-efficient information processing technologies.
Champaign, IL, January 15, 2021 - American dairy consumers are often influenced by a variety of factors that can affect their buying habits. These factors include taste, preference, government information, cultural background, social media, and the news.