Important differences in how the nasal cells of young and elderly people respond to the SARS-CoV-2 virus, could explain why children typically experience milder COVID-19 symptoms, finds a new study led by researchers at UCL and the Wellcome Sanger Institute. The study, published in Nature Microbiology, focused on the early effects of SARS-CoV-2 infection on the cells first targeted by the viruses, the human nasal epithelial cells (NECs). These cells were donated from healthy participants from Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH), University College London Hospital (UCLH) and the Royal ...

New research from the Crowther Lab at ETH Zurich illustrates a critical barrier to natural regeneration of tropical forests. Their models – from ground-based data gathered in the Atlantic Forest of Brazil - show that when wild tropical birds move freely across forest landscapes, they can increase the carbon storage of regenerating tropical forests by up to 38 percent. Birds seed carbon potential Fruit eating birds such as the Red-Legged Honeycreeper, Palm Tanager, or the Rufous-Bellied Thrush play a vital role in forest ecosystems by consuming, excreting, and ...

BUFFALO, N.Y. — The key to growing coffee plants that can better resist climate change in the decades to come may lie in the ancient past. Researchers co-led by the University at Buffalo have created what they say is the highest quality reference genome to date of the world’s most popular coffee species, Arabica, unearthing secrets about its lineage that span millennia and continents. Their findings, published today in Nature Genetics, suggest that Coffea arabica developed more than 600,000 years ago in the forests of Ethiopia ...

How muscle changes with ageing, and tries to fight its effects, is now better understood at the cellular and molecular level with the first comprehensive atlas of ageing muscles in humans. Researchers from the Wellcome Sanger Institute and their collaborators at Sun Yat-sen University, China applied single-cell technologies and advanced imaging to analyse human skeletal muscle samples from 17 individuals across the adult lifespan. By comparing the results, they shed new light on the many complex processes underlying age-related muscle changes. The atlas, published ...

A new study led by the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), a centre supported by the "la Caixa" Foundation, sheds light on the growth of lung function in children. The results show that increased levels of physical activity and a higher body mass index (BMI) play a key role in the recovery of early deficits. These findings, published in the journal Thorax, have important implications for clinical practice, research and public health policy, providing new insights into how to improve respiratory health from childhood to adulthood. The study analysed data from the ...

Modern websites place ever greater demands on the computing power of computers. For this reason, web browsers have also had access to the computing capacities of the graphics card (Graphics Processing Unit or GPU) in addition to the CPU of a computer for a number of years. The scripting language JavaScript can utilise the resources of the GPU via programming interfaces such as WebGL and the new WebGPU standard. However, this harbours risks. Using a website with malicious JavaScript, researchers from the Institute of Applied Information Processing and Communications at Graz University of Technology (TU Graz) were able to spy on information about data, keystrokes and encryption ...

Key Takeaways Results from a new study indicate that physical activity may help protect against cardiovascular disease in part by reducing stress-related brain activity This effect in the brain may help to explain why study participants with depression (a stress-related condition) experienced the greatest cardiovascular benefits from physical activity. BOSTON – New research indicates that physical activity lowers cardiovascular disease risk in part by reducing stress-related signaling in the brain. In the study, which was led by investigators at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), a founding member of the Mass General Brigham healthcare ...

With an increasing number of space missions targeting various celestial bodies, including Mars, Europa, and the Moon, the importance of maintaining the integrity of these environments while protecting our own biosphere has never been greater. The ICPPW will serve as a platform for promoting international collaboration and knowledge exchange on best practice in planetary protection. The event will feature a range of sessions, meetings, as well as panel discussions, covering key topics such as the current and ...

Premature deaths related to opioids doubled between 2019 and 2021 across Canada, with more than 1 in 4 deaths among young adults aged 20–39 years attributable to opioids, according to new research published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) https://www.cmaj.ca/lookup/doi/10.1503/cmaj.231339. Opioid-related deaths have continued to increase over the past decade across Canada, with 6222 deaths occurring in 2021. This trend worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic, although the scale and rapidity of increases varied across provinces and territories. ...

Severe morning sickness in pregnancy, known medically as hyperemesis gravidarum, can negatively affect both maternal and infant health. A review published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) https://www.cmaj.ca/lookup/doi/10.1503/cmaj.221502 provides information to clinicians on the causes, diagnosis, and treatment of the condition. Although nausea and vomiting are common in pregnancy, affecting as many as 70% of pregnancies, severe vomiting and nausea can prevent people from eating and drinking sufficiently, leading to weight loss and ...

Palaeontologists from Flinders University have described three unusual new species of giant fossil kangaroo from Australia and New Guinea, finding them more diverse in shape, range and hopping method than previously thought. The three new species are of the extinct genus Protemnodon, which lived from around 5 million to 40,000 years ago – with one about double the size of the largest red kangaroo living today. The research follows the discovery of multiple complete fossil kangaroo skeletons from Lake Callabonna in arid South Australia in 2013, 2018 and 2019. These extraordinary fossils allowed lead researcher ...

Innovative carbon beads, invented by researchers at UCL, reduce bad bacteria and inflammation in animal models, which are linked to liver cirrhosis and other serious health issues. The study, published in Gut, found that the carbon beads, licensed to UCL-spinout Yaqrit, were effective in restoring gut health and had a positive impact on liver, kidney and brain function in rats and mice. They were also found to be safe for human use. The next step will be to see if the same benefits can be realised in humans, which would ...

Managing problematic student behaviour is one of the most persistent, challenging, and controversial issues facing schools today. Yet despite best intentions to build a more inclusive and punitive-free education system, school suspensions and expulsions remain.   Now, new research from the University of South Australia shows that exclusionary practices not only fail to identify the deep-rooted causes of challenging student behaviours but exacerbate negative issues rather than resolve them.   Lead researcher, UniSA’s Professor Anna Sullivan, says schools face difficult decisions around ...

Finding strongly indicates that post-TB lung disease is an under-recognised global challenge, UK researchers say **Note: the release below is a special early release from the ESCMID Global Congress (formerly ECCMID, Barcelona, Spain, 27-30 April). Please credit the congress if you use this story** **ECCMID has now changed name to ESCMID Global, please credit ESCMID Global Congress in all future stories** New research being presented at this year’s ESCMID Global Congress (formerly ECCMID) in Barcelona, Spain (27-30 ...

Sunday, April 14, 2024 - Toronto - “Dreams are messages from the deep.” (Dune Part 1) Musings about dreams abound throughout society, from movies to TV to books. But despite being a constant source of fascination, the role of dreams in our lives still remains elusive. As recently noted in the TV show Grey’s Anatomy: “Honestly, no one knows why we dream or why we have nightmares.” While true, neuroscientists are finding innovative new ways to study dreams and how they influence our cognition. “Understanding how dreams are generated and what their function might be — if any — is one of science's ...

A University of Sydney study investigating menu items on major online food delivery outlets and applications (apps) in Australia has found most advertised items are missing nutritional information that would otherwise help consumers make healthy choices.   Researchers say the findings show this information is largely absent or poorly provided on online food retail platforms and menu labelling laws need to keep up with increasing demand of online food delivery services. The 2011 New South Wales Menu Labelling Scheme require large fast-food outlets to display both the average energy content (as Kilojoules) on menu items and the reference statement ‘the ...

Finding highlights the importance of including pet-owning households in surveillance programmes for antibiotic resistance **Note: the release below is a special early release from the ESCMID Global Congress (formerly ECCMID, Barcelona, Spain, 27-30 April). Please credit the congress if you use this story** **ECCMID has now changed name to ESCMID Global, please credit ESCMID Global Congress in all future stories** Pet dogs and cats play an important role in the spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, new research be presented at the ESCMID Global ...

In a new paper published in JACS AU, researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign analyzed the effects of solvation and ion valency on metallopolymers, with implications for critical materials recovery and recycling, and environmental remediation. Chemical and biomolecular engineering (ChBE) professor Xiao Su led the research, which explored the science behind the selectivity “preferences” of monovalent and divalent anions towards redox polymers. In other words, why – when electrodes are coated with redox polymer films and potential is applied – one ion prefers the redox polymer while ...

RIVERSIDE, Calif. -- Last September, the James Webb Space Telescope, or JWST, discovered JWST-ER1g, a massive ancient galaxy that formed when the universe was just a quarter of its current age. Surprisingly, an Einstein ring is associated with this galaxy. That’s because JWST-ER1g acts as a lens and bends light from a distant source, which then appears as a ring — a phenomenon called strong gravitational lensing, predicted in Einstein’s theory of general relativity.  The total mass enclosed within the ring has two components: stellar and dark matter components.  “If ...

Clear guidelines should be established for the generation and processing of synthetic data to ensure transparency, accountability and fairness, a new study says. Synthetic data - generated through machine learning algorithms from original real-world data - is gaining prominence because it may provide privacy-preserving alternatives to traditional data sources. It can be particularly useful in situations where the actual data is too sensitive to share, too scarce, or of too low quality. Synthetic data differs from real-world data as it is generated by algorithmic models known as synthetic data generators, such as Generative Adversarial ...

Washington, April 12, 2024—Gender and racially based employment disparities, differences in perceptions of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), and workplace discrimination remain significant issues in the field of educational measurement, according to a new report supported by the American Educational Research Association (AERA), the National Council on Measurement in Education (NCME), and Women in Measurement (WIM). Educational measurement professionals who work at universities, thinktanks, and other research organizations are ...

HOUSTON, April 10, 2024 - The University of Houston (UH) and Scotland’s Heriot-Watt University (HWU) signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) today, marking the beginning of their partnership to foster global collaboration in education, research and innovation in the energy sector and beyond. At the heart of the MoU lies a commitment to advance research that helps society deliver a just energy transition, with a particular emphasis on hydrogen – a critical element in the transition to sustainable energy ...

HOUSTON – (April 12, 2024) – Rice University engineers have developed the smallest implantable brain stimulator demonstrated in a human patient. Thanks to pioneering magnetoelectric power transfer technology, the pea-sized device developed in the Rice lab of Jacob Robinson in collaboration with Motif Neurotech and clinicians Dr. Sameer Sheth and Dr. Sunil Sheth can be powered wirelessly via an external transmitter and used to stimulate the brain through the dura ⎯ the protective ...

Jennifer Stinson a renowned researcher in the field of chronic pain management in children, has received the 2023 Barer-Flood Prize from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR).  The prize, named in honour of the first two Scientific Directors of CIHR-IHSPR, Drs. Morris Barer and Colleen Flood, recognizes the highest-ranking senior-career investigator who identifies as a woman, and their research excellence.  Dr. Stinson, a Professor at the Lawrence Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing, Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation, and Temerty Department of Anesthesiology & Pain Medicine, is being acknowledged ...

Modern Eurasian sheep predominantly belong to only two so-called genetic matrilineages inherited through the ewes. Previous research thereby assumed that genetic diversity must already have decreased rapidly in the early stages of domestication of wild sheep. Our study of a series of complete mitogenomes from the early domestication site Asıklı Höyük in central Anatolia, which was inhabited between 10,300 and 9,300 years ago, disproves this assumption: despite a millennium of human interference with the keeping and breeding of sheep, mitogenomic diversity remained invariably high, with five matrilineages ...