Tech
Certain species of snake - think pit vipers, boa constrictors and pythons, among others - are able to find and capture prey with uncanny accuracy, even in total darkness. Now scientists have discovered how these creatures are able to convert the heat from organisms that are warmer than their ambient surroundings into electrical signals, allowing them to "see" in the dark.
Despite the remarkable successes of immune-based treatments for cancer, not everyone responds to these approaches and relapses do occur. Researchers around the world are racing to find ways to improve outcomes for people receiving immunotherapy. But new findings from scientists at Memorial Sloan Kettering suggest they may be focusing too narrowly on the problem.
What impact does a classroom's indoor environment have on teaching, learning, and students' academic achievement in colleges and universities? This is the question researchers set out to answer in their analysis of all relevant published studies.
Membranes with microscopic pores are useful for water filtration. The effect of pore size on water filtration is well-understood, as is the role of ions, charged atoms, that interact with the membrane. For the first time, researchers have successfully described the impact water molecules have on other water molecules and on ions as part of the filtration mechanism. The researchers detail a feedback system between water molecules which opens up new design possibilities for highly selective membranes. Applications could include virus filters.
Drinking plenty of both green tea and coffee is linked to a lower risk of dying from any cause among people with type 2 diabetes, suggests research published in the online journal BMJ Open Diabetes Research & Care.
Drinking 4 or more daily cups of green tea plus 2 or more of coffee was associated with a 63% lower risk of death over a period of around 5 years, the findings show.
With a little tweak of the color palette, University of Virginia School of Medicine researchers have made it easier for scientists to understand biological processes, track happenings inside individual cells, unravel the mysteries of disease and develop new treatments.
(Vienna, 20 October 2020) Patients with thyroid dysfunction are routinely treated with drugs to regulate the hormone imbalance. The effect of these drugs is clinically evaluated by means of blood tests. A team led by Michael Krebs from MedUni Vienna's Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism has now conducted a study to test the use of magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMRS) to measure the effect in body tissue as well. They were able to identify certain phosphorus-containing compounds that are visible in NMRS as markers for thyroid hormone action in tissue.
What The Study Did: Researchers in this randomized clinical trial compared the effect of early administration of tocilizumab with standard therapy in preventing clinical worsening in patients hospitalized with COVID-19 pneumonia.
Authors: Carlo Salvarani, M.D., of Unita Operativa di Reumatologia in Reggio Emilia, Italy, 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.2020.6615)
CAR-T biotherapeutics company Carina Biotech and researchers at the University of South Australia have developed a novel approach based on microfluidic technology to "purify" the immune cells of patients in the fight against cancer.
A highly effective drug therapy is urgently required to combat coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). The authors of this article have developed a molecular docking based webserver, namely D3Targets-2019-nCoV, with two functions, one is for predicting drug targets for drugs or active compounds observed from clinic or in vitro/in vivo studies, the other is for identifying lead compounds against potential drug targets via docking. This server has several unique features:
Discovering and synthesizing symmetry-protected topological (SPT) band degeneracies, including nodal points and nodal lines (NLs), is a rapidly growing frontier in the field of topological materials. Interestingly, since the crystallographic space groups impose fewer constraints on the energy bands than the continuous Poincaré group, more exotic multifold band crossings were found in lattice systems, which have no counterparts in high-energy physics.
In humans, vitamin D is formed in the skin following its exposure to sunlight. In comparison to the body's own formation of vitamin D, dietary consumption generally makes up only a relatively small proportion of the vitamin D supply to the body. While an overdose resulting from the body's own production is not possible, it certainly can result from the consumption of highdoses of vitamin D - such as via certain food supplements.
The discovery and formulation of new drugs, antivirals, antibiotics and in general chemicals with tailored properties is a long and painstaking process. Interdisciplinary research at the crossroads of biochemistry, physics and computer science can change this. The development of machine learning (ML) methods, combined with first principles of quantum and statistical mechanics and trained on increasingly available molecular big datasets, has the potential to revolutionise the process of chemical discovery.
As early as December 2018, EFSA published a re-evaluation of health risks arising from the presence of certain PFAS in food and derived significantly lower guidance values for two compounds, perfluorooctane sulfonic acid (PFOS) and perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) than before.
Those with food allergies must avoid allergens in food. Health problems can be triggered by even the smallest traces for those affected. This is why manufacturers of ready-made foods must list the ingredients on the packaging. A special declaration obligation applies to major allergens, such as peanuts, celery or egg, even if these are only found in small quantities in the recipe. However, the declaration of allergens that inadvertently enter a food, in other words which are not part of the regular ingredients, is not regulated.