Tech
The human brain contains approximately 86 billion neurons, or nerve cells, woven together by an estimated 100 trillion connections, or synapses. Each cell has a role that helps us to move muscles, process our environment, form memories, and much more.
Given the huge number of neurons and connections, there is still much we don't know about how neurons work together to give rise to thought or behavior.
COLUMBUS, Ohio - Scientists have figured out a cheaper, more efficient way to conduct a chemical reaction at the heart of many biological processes, which may lead to better ways to create biofuels from plants.
Scientists around the world have been trying for years to create biofuels and other bioproducts more cheaply; this study, published today in the journal Scientific Reports, suggests that it is possible to do so.
The mitochondrial ATP synthase is energy-converting macromolecular machine that uses the electrochemical potential across the bioenergetic membrane called cristae. This potential is maintained via a membrane curvature that is induced by ATP synthase assembled in dimers. The dimers shaping the bioenergetic membrane were thought to be universal across the eukaryotic organisms. Two newly published cryo-EM studies by Kock-Flygaard et al and Mühleip et al from Alexey Amunts lab, identify different types of ATP synthase organization.
In a study published in Advanced Materials, the researchers from Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at the Microscale, the University of Science and Technology of China of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, using an electron-proton co-doping strategy, invented a new metal-like semiconductor material with excellent plasmonic resonance performance. This material achieves a metal-like ultrahigh free-carrier concentration that leads to strong and tunable plasmonic field.
Gastric bypass surgery is sometimes the last resort for those who struggle with obesity or have serious health-related issues due to their weight. Since this procedure involves making a small stomach pouch and rerouting the digestive tract, it is very invasive and prolongs the recovery period for patients. In a new study, researchers at Texas A&M University have described a medical device that might help with weight loss and requires a simpler operative procedure for implantation.
TAMPA, Fla. (Jan. 8, 2021)- New research led by the University of South Florida has uncovered one of the reasons jellyfish have come to be known as the "world's most efficient swimmer." Brad Gemmell, associate professor of integrative biology, found jellyfish produce two vortex rings, which are donut-shaped bodies of fluid underneath their translucent bodies, that spin in opposite directions. They appear as jellyfish squeeze and reopen throughout each swim cycle, providing a "ground effect" force as if they were to be pushing off the seafloor.
The BioScience Talks podcast features discussions of topical issues related to the biological sciences.
Before the pandemic, the lab of Stanford University biochemist Peter S. Kim focused on developing vaccines for HIV, Ebola and pandemic influenza. But, within days of closing their campus lab space as part of COVID-19 precautions, they turned their attention to a vaccine for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. Although the coronavirus was outside the lab's specific area of expertise, they and their collaborators have managed to construct and test a promising vaccine candidate.
A new study has found that spending time outdoors and switching off our devices is associated with higher levels of happiness during a period of COVID-19 restrictions.
Previous academic studies have indicated how being outdoors, particularly in green spaces, can improve mental health by promoting more positive body image, and lowering levels of depression and anxiety.
Noise exposure accounts for 22% of worldwide work-related health problems. Excessive noise not only causes hearing loss and tinnitus, but also increases the risk of cardiovascular diseases. To provide protection, workers normally wear earplugs. However, commonly available earplugs are often uncomfortable, since they don't fit everyone's ears equally well.
Christina Krienke and colleagues have designed an mRNA vaccine that delayed the onset of and reduced the severity of multiple sclerosis-like disease in mice. The vaccine restores the body's tolerance to its own proteins, suppressing the characteristic immune overreactivity of the disease. The vaccine developed by Krienke et al. works in a targeted fashion to promote tolerance to specific disease-related proteins, an improvement over other approaches to treating the disease that induce systemic immune suppression that can leave an individual vulnerable to other infections.
"Nature red in tooth and claw" - The battle to survive is fought down to the level of our genes. Toxin-antidote elements are gene pairs that spread in populations by killing non-carriers. Now, research by the Burga lab at IMBA and the Kruglyak lab at the University of California, Los Angeles shows that these elements are more common in nature than first thought and have evolved a wide range of mechanisms to force their inheritance and propagate in populations - a parasite within the genome.
What The Study Did: Researchers compared changes in preoperative aided speech recognition with postoperative speech recognition among individuals who received cochlear implants.
Authors: Theodore R. McRackan, M.D., M.S.C.R., of the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, 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/jamaoto.2020.5094)
Some people have lost their eyesight, but they continue to "see." This phenomenon, a kind of vivid visual hallucination, is named after the Swiss doctor, Charles Bonnet, who described in 1769 how his completely blind grandfather experienced vivid, detailed visions of people, animals and objects. Charles Bonnet syndrome, which appears in those who have lost their eyesight, was investigated in a study led by scientists at the Weizmann Institute of Science.
In a study spanning four decades, researchers from the University of Hong Kong's Research Division for Ecology & Biodiversity (HKU) in the Faculty of Science, and Toho University's Department of Biology (Toho), Japan, have discovered that predation by snakes is pushing lizards to be active at warmer body temperatures on islands where snakes are present, in comparison to islands free from snakes. Their work also detected significant climatic warming throughout the years and found lizard body temperatures to have also increased accordingly.