Vegan diet better for weight loss and cholesterol control than Mediterranean diet

Rain falls lightly on the ocean's surface. Marine mammals chirp and squeal as they swim along. The pounding of surf along a distant shoreline heaves and thumps with metronomic regularity. These are the sounds that most of us associate with the marine environment. But the soundtrack of the healthy ocean no longer reflects the acoustic environment of today's ocean, plagued with human-created noise. A global team of researchers set out to understand how human-made noise affects wildlife, from invertebrates to whales, in the oceans, and found overwhelming evidence that marine fauna, and their ecosystems, are negatively ...

In the framework of the Chlorella microalgae cultivation process, the researchers from Peter the Great St.Petersburg Polytechnic University (SPbPU) obtained microalgae biomass with a high content of carotenoid pigments, which is suitable for the food industry. The research results were published Nov. 2020 in the scientific journal "Agronomy Research". The deterioration of the ecological status of urban areas and the industrialization of the food industry requires the additional enrichment of the diet with biologically valuable food substances. Such pigments as carotenoids, from which vitamin A is synthesized in the body, are ...

Astronomers have for the first time used distant galaxies as 'scintillating pins' to locate and identify a piece of the Milky Way's missing matter. For decades, scientists have been puzzled as to why they couldn't account for all the matter in the universe as predicted by theory. While most of the universe's mass is thought to be mysterious dark matter and dark energy, 5 percent is 'normal matter' that makes up stars, planets, asteroids, peanut butter and butterflies. This is known as baryonic matter. However, direct measurement has only accounted for about half ...

Using AI and computer automation, Technion researchers have developed a "conjecture generator" that creates mathematical conjectures, which are considered to be the starting point for developing mathematical theorems. They have already used it to generate a number of previously unknown formulas. The study, which was published in the journal Nature, was carried out by undergraduates from different faculties under the tutelage of Assistant Professor Ido Kaminer of the Andrew and Erna Viterbi Faculty of Electrical Engineering at the Technion. The project deals with one of the most fundamental elements of mathematics - mathematical constants. ...

When treating cancer, researchers are always searching for ways to remove cancer cells while minimizing damage to the rest of the body. One possible approach is to find processes unique to cancer cells, and which would allow specific targeting. If such a process can be disrupted, only those cells would be affected. A process (or absence thereof) can be unique to some types of cancer, and not be present in others. In such a case, we would want a simple way to recognize whether a particular tumor possesses the unique trait or not. The implication of this question is whether the tumor would respond to ...

Researchers from the HSE Institute for Cognitive Neuroscience have proposed a new method to process magnetoencephalography (MEG) data, which helps find cortical activation areas with higher precision. The method can be used in both basic research and clinical practice to diagnose a wide range of neurological disorders and to prepare patients for brain surgery. The paper describing the algorithm was published in the journal NeuroImage. Magnetoencephalography (MEG) is a method based on measuring very weak magnetic fields (several orders of magnitude weaker than the Earth's magnetic field) induced by the brain's electrical activity. When using MEG, researchers face the complicated task ...

Professionalisation in any field requires long-term experience and training. In the past decades, studies have demonstrated that the professionalisation of athletes and artists create differences in the behaviour of the brain while carrying out activities related to their area of expertise. To detect the effects of media professionalisation in the brain, a research team from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, the Instituto Ràdio Televisió Espanyola and the Universidad Pablo de Olavide in Seville conducted a study published in Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience in which audiovisual contents were presented to a group of media ...

Machines, thanks to novel algorithms and advances in computer technology, can now learn complex models and even generate high-quality synthetic data such as photo-realistic images or even resumes of imaginary humans. A study recently published in the international journal PLOS Genetics uses machine learning to mine existing biobanks and generate chunks of human genomes which do not belong to real humans but have the characteristics of real genomes. "Existing genomic databases are an invaluable resource for biomedical research, but they are either not publicly accessible or shielded behind long and exhausting application procedures due to valid ethical concerns. This creates a major scientific barrier for researchers. Machine-generated genomes, or artificial ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] -- A new technique developed by Brown University researchers reveals the forces involved at the cellular level during biological tissue formation and growth processes. The technique could be useful in better understanding how these processes work, and in studying how they may respond to environmental toxins or drug therapies. As described in the journal Biomaterials, the technique makes use of cell-sized spheres made from a highly compliant polymer material, which can be placed in laboratory cultures of tissue-forming cells. As the tissue-formation process unfolds, microscope imaging of the spheres, which are stained with fluorescent dye, reveals the extent to which they are deformed by the pressure of surrounding cells. A ...

Bird species that live in their natural habitats can help zoos learn how to manage those in captivity, according to a new review. Birds are the most diverse group housed by zoos around the world, but zoo-based research tends not to focus on birds. A new article published in the journal Birds, by Dr Paul Rose of the University of Exeter, suggests zoos can improve management of birds by looking at how species live in their natural habitats. Likewise, birds living under the care of humans can also help guide and develop conservation action for those living in the wild. "Research into wild birds is extremely useful for furthering how birds are managed in zoos," said ...