Antibody disease enhancement of COVID-19 does not appear to occur in animal models

RUDN University doctors found out what role macrophages play in the recovery of the liver after the removal of its significant part. The results are published in the journal Biomedicine & Pharmacotherapy. The liver in mammals is the most regenerative internal organ. It can restore the original size from as little as 25% of the preserved tissue. An important role in this process is played by macrophages. These are the cells that can engulf and digest particles. It is known, for example, that if the liver is affected by foreign substances, including drugs, macrophages migrate to the liver, absorb harmful microorganisms and dead cells, cause inflammation and thus contribute to the restoration of the organ. However, it is still unknown unambiguously how macrophages affect the ...

Nearly a third of Americans who arranged for paid care for an older person or someone with dementia employed workers who were not hired through a regulated agency, according to a new RAND Corporation study. Individuals who hired gray market caregivers were less likely to be employed and more likely to also use unpaid care for their family members. In addition, people who lived in rural areas had an almost five-times higher odds of arranging dementia care through gray markets as compared to those who lived in urban areas. The study is the first national survey to probe the use of gray market care for older adults and people with dementia. The findings ...

HOUSTON - (June 21, 2021) - Rice University engineers have created microscopic seeds for growing remarkably uniform 2D perovskite crystals that are both stable and highly efficient at harvesting electricity from sunlight. Halide perovskites are organic materials made from abundant, inexpensive ingredients, and Rice's seeded growth method addresses both performance and production issues that have held back halide perovskite photovoltaic technology. In a study published online in Advanced Materials, chemical engineers from Rice's Brown School of Engineering describe how to make the seeds and use them to grow homogenous thin films, highly sought ...

A team of scientists from NUST MISIS and MIPT have developed and tested a new platform for realization of the ultra-strong photon-to-magnon coupling. The proposed system is on-chip and is based on thin-film hetero-structures with superconducting, ferromagnetic and insulating layers. This discovery solves a problem that has been on the agenda of research teams from different countries for the last 10 years, and opens new opportunities in implementing quantum technologies. The study was published in the highly ranked journal Science Advances. The last decade has seen significant progress ...

AMHERST, Mass. - Millions of Americans will visit New England's beaches this summer to cool off, play in the waves and soak up the sun. Until now, the factors governing which beaches slope gradually to the sea and which ones end abruptly in a steep drop-off have been largely unknown. However, new research from the University of Massachusetts Amherst reveals, with unprecedented detail, how the grain size of beach sand relates to the slope of the beach itself. These new findings are critical to understanding how New England's beaches will respond to both rising sea levels and increased storm activity. Many of New England's beaches are made up of a mixture of sand and small stones. Or, to be more precise, the grain sizes on these beaches are "bi-modal" ...

WASHINGTON -- Although quantum technology has proven valuable for highly precise timekeeping, making these technologies practical for use in a variety of environments is still a key challenge. In an important step toward portable quantum devices, researchers have developed a new high-flux and compact cold-atom source with low power consumption that can be a key component of many quantum technologies. "The use of quantum technologies based on laser-cooled atoms has already led to the development of atomic clocks that are used for timekeeping on a national level," said research team ...

New findings published this week in Physical Review Letters, Measurement of the Iron Spectrum in Cosmic Rays from 10??GeV/n to 2.0??TeV/n with the Calorimetric Electron Telescope on the International Space Station, suggest that cosmic ray nuclei of hydrogen, carbon and oxygen travel through the galaxy toward Earth in a similar way, but, surprisingly, that iron arrives at Earth differently. A series of recent publications based on results from the CALorimetric Electron Telescope, or CALET, instrument on the International Space Station, or ISS, have cast new light on the abundance of high-energy cosmic ray nuclei -- atoms stripped of their ...

The human intestine is made up of more than 40 square meters of tissue, with a multitude of folds on its internal surface that resemble valleys and mountain peaks in order to increase the absorption of nutrients. The intestine also has the unique characteristic of being in a continuous state of self-renewal. This means that approximately every 5 days all the cells of its inner walls are renewed to guarantee correct intestinal function. Until now, scientists knew that this renewal could take place thanks to stem cells, which are protected in the so-called intestinal crypts, and which give rise to new differentiated cells. However, the process that leads to the concave shape of the crypts and the migration of new cells towards the intestinal peaks was unknown. Now, an international ...

Extreme heat waves in urban areas are much more likely than previously thought, according to a new modeling approach designed by researchers including University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) assistant professor Lei Zhao and alumnus Zhonghua Zheng (MS 16, PhD 20). Their paper with co-author Keith W. Oleson of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, "Large model structural uncertainty in global projections of urban heat waves," is published in the journal Nature Communications. Urban heat waves (UHWs) can be devastating; a 1995 heat wave in Chicago caused more than 1,000 deaths. Last year's heat wave on the west coast caused wildfires. ...

In a new publication from Opto-Electronic Advances; DOI https://doi.org/10.29026/oea.2021.200006, Researchers led by Professor Junsuk Rho from Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH), South Korea consider switchable diurnal radiative cooling by doped VO2. As the impacts of climate change are increasingly felt, thermoregulation technologies that do not consume external energy have attracted considerable attention in the field of energy-saving applications. Radiative cooling has received much research interest for its ability to cool an object even under direct solar illumination. Nanostructured materials, or multi-stacked layers, can be designed to control reflection and emission spectrum ...