Tech
Our thoughts, feelings, and movements are controlled by billions of neurons talking to each other at trillions of specialized communication points called synapses. In an in-depth study of neurons grown in laboratory petri dishes, National Institutes of Health researchers discovered how the chattiest of some synapses find the energy to support intense conversations thought to underlie learning and memory.
A team of scientists led by the Max Born Institute (MBI), Berlin, Germany, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, USA, has demonstrated how tiny magnetization patterns known as skyrmions can be written into a ferromagnetic material faster than previously thought possible. The researchers have clarified how the topology of the magnetic system changes in this process.
In a new research paper published in Police Quarterly, University of Colorado Denver School of Public Affairs Assistant Professor Paul Taylor found officers can significantly improve shoot/no-shoot decisions by simply lowering the position of their firearm. In the study, Taylor looked at 313 active law enforcement officers in a randomized controlled experiment that incorporated a police firearms training simulator.
There were three different positions tested during the experiment:
OCTOBER 5, 2020, NEW YORK - A Ludwig Cancer Research study has uncovered a mechanism by which the tumor's harsh internal environment sabotages T lymphocytes, leading cellular agents of the anticancer immune response. Reported in Nature Immunology, the study describes how a variety of stressors prevalent in the tumor microenvironment disrupt the power generators, or mitochondria, of tumor-infiltrating T lymphocytes (TILs), pushing them into a permanently sluggish state known as terminal exhaustion.
Human papillomavirus (HPV) is the most common sexually transmitted disease and the primary cause of several cancers. Recent estimates indicate that 70-90 percent of HPV-related cancers may be prevented through vaccination. Despite widespread scientific agreement on benefits, misleading information about the HPV vaccine and concerns about safety are prevalent on social media.
COLUMBUS, Ohio - Preliminary results from two independent, phase II clinical trials investigating a new PD-1 (programmed cell death protein 1)-based immune therapy for metastatic cervical cancer suggest potential new treatment options for a disease that currently has limited effective options and disproportionately impacts younger women.
Long known as the hardest of all natural materials, diamonds are also exceptional thermal conductors and electrical insulators. Now, researchers have discovered a way to tweak tiny needles of diamond in a controlled way to transform their electronic properties, dialing them from insulating, through semiconducting, all the way to highly conductive, or metallic. This can be induced dynamically and reversed at will, with no degradation of the diamond material.
Using a novel technique, scientists working at the Florida State University-headquartered National High Magnetic Field Laboratory have found evidence for a quantum spin liquid, a state of matter that is promising as a building block for the quantum computers of tomorrow.
DURHAM, N.C. -- Even when a person suffering from malaria is burning up with fever and too sick to function, the tiny blood-eating parasites lurking inside them continue to flourish, relentlessly growing and multiplying as they gobble up the host's red blood cells.
The single-celled Plasmodium parasites that cause 200 million cases of malaria each year can withstand feverish temperatures that make their human hosts miserable. And now, a Duke University-led team is beginning to understand how they do it.
BOSTON - The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has caused widespread harm to the health and well-being of already vulnerable children and adolescents in the U.S., particularly those in low-income households and children of color. Nevertheless, evidence-based programs known to reverse the negative effects of poverty are being widely neglected, according to a new report in Health Affairs. Such programs include basic income supports, other family supports, and universal health care structured to meet family needs.
East Hanover, NJ. October 5, 2020. Lauren Strober, PhD, at Kessler Foundation recently published results of the first prospective study of employment and multiple sclerosis (MS). Dr. Strober compared two groups of individuals with MS - those 'at risk' and 'not at risk' for unemployment, examining the influences of multiple factors on the likelihood of staying in the workplace.
NASA's Terra satellite obtained visible imagery of Tropical Storm Gamma being battered by outside winds in the south central Gulf of Mexico. Over the weekend of Oct. 3 and 4, Gamma tracked over Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula.
Tropical Depression 25 formed on Oct. 2 by 11 a.m. EDT over the northwestern Caribbean Sea. At the time of formation, NOAA's National Hurricane Center (NHC) issued warnings and watches for a portion of the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico. By 8 p.m. EDT, the depression strengthened into a tropical storm and re-named Gamma.
The most significant advances in human civilization are marked by the progression of the materials that humans use. The Stone Age gave way to the Bronze Age, which in turn gave way to the Iron Age. New materials disrupt the technologies of the time, improving life and the human condition.
NASA's Aqua satellite provided an infrared view of Tropical Storm Marie that revealed the effects of outside winds battering the storm.
Wind shear occurs when winds at different levels of the atmosphere push against the rotating cylinder of winds, weakening the rotation by pushing it apart at different levels.
NASA's Aqua Satellite Reveals Effects of Wind Shear
EVANSTON, Ill. -- Northwestern University researchers are casting a net for nanoparticles.
The team has discovered a new, rapid method for fabricating nanoparticles from a simple, self-assembling polymer. The novel method presents new possibilities for diverse applications, including water purification, diagnostics and rapidly generating vaccine formulations, which typically require many different types of molecules to be either captured or delivered at the same time.