The quiet of pandemic-era lockdowns allowed some pumas to venture closer to urban areas

Roads, bridges, pipelines and other types of infrastructure in Alaska and elsewhere in the Arctic will deteriorate faster than expected due to a failure by planners to account for the structures' impact on adjacent permafrost, according to research by a University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute permafrost expert and others. The researchers say planners must account for the sideward repercussions of their projects in addition to the usual projection of the direct top-down effects. The finding was presented in a May 31 paper in The Cryosphere, a publication of the European Geosciences Union. UAF Geophysical Institute geophysics professor Vladimir Romanovsky is among the 13 authors ...

For the past several years, chemical engineer Michelle O'Malley has focused her research on the anaerobic fungi found in the guts of herbivores, which make it possible for those animals to fuel themselves with sugars and starches extracted from fibrous plants. O'Malley's work, reflected in multiple research awards and journal articles, has centered on how these powerful fungi might be used to extract value-added products from the nonedible parts of plants -- roots, stems and leaves -- that are generally considered waste products. Now, her lab has discovered that those same fungi likely produce novel "natural products," which could function as antibiotics or other compounds of use for biotechnology. The research is described in a paper titled "Anaerobic gut ...

The body's immune cells naturally fight off viral and bacterial microbes and other invaders, but they can also be reprogrammed or "trained" to respond even more aggressively and potently to such threats, report UCLA scientists who have discovered the fundamental rule underlying this process in a particular class of cells. In END ...

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- Researchers report that small quantities of useful molecules such as hydrocarbons are produced when carbon dioxide and water react in the presence of light and a silver nanoparticle catalyst. Their validation study - made possible through the use of a high-resolution analytical technique - could pave the way for CO2-reduction technologies that allow industrial-scale production of renewable carbon-based fuels. The study, led by University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign chemistry professor Prashant Jain, probes chemical activity at the surface of silver nanoparticle catalysts under visible light and uses carbon isotopes to track the origin and production of these previously undetected chemical reactions. The findings are published in the journal Nature Communications. Sunlight-driven ...

By Benjamin Boettner (Boston) - Muscular dystrophies are a group of genetic diseases that lead to the progressive loss of muscle mass and function in patients, with the incurable Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD), which affects all the body's muscles primarily in boys, being particularly severe. DMD can be caused by more than 7,000 unique mutations in the largest gene of the human genome, which encodes a central protein in muscle fibers. While this astounding number of mutations all variably block muscle function, the affected muscles share another common feature - chronic inflammation. As chronic inflammation ...

Scientists need to focus on tangible efforts to boost equity, diversity and inclusion in citizen science, researchers from North Carolina State University argued in a new perspective. Published in the journal Science, the perspective is a response to a debate about rebranding "citizen science," the movement to use crowdsourced data collection, analysis or design in research. Researchers said that while the motivation for rebranding is in response to a real concern, there will be a cost to it, and efforts to make projects more inclusive should go deeper than that. Their recommendations speak to a broader discussion about how to ensure science is responsive to the needs of a diverse audience. "At its heart, citizen science is a system of knowledge production ...

Parents of children with the most complex medical conditions are more likely to report poor or fair mental health and struggle to find community help, according to a study completed by researchers at University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC) and Golisano Children's Hospital. The study was published in Pediatrics, the journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP). The study, "A National Mental Health Profile of Parents of Children with Medical Complexity," examined parent-reported data from the National Survey of Children's Health, and compared three groups: households of children with medical complexity (CMC), households of noncomplex children with special health care needs, and households of children ...

Not all stresses are created equal, according to a pair of new studies, which shows that distinct ubiquitination patterns underlie cell recovery following different environmental stressors. Eukaryotic cells respond to environmental stressors - such as temperature extremes, exposure to toxins or damage, for example - through adaptive programs that help to ensure their survival, including the shutdown of key cellular processes. These responses are often associated with the formation of stress granules (SGs) - dense cytoplasmic aggregations of proteins and RNA - as well as with ...

Although the Antibody Mediated Prevention (AMP) study that launched in 2016 failed to show significant efficacy in a pair of clinical trials, Denis Burton argues in a Perspective that the AMP study's results represent a landmark in AIDS research; they show - for the first time - that a broadly neutralizing antibody (bnAb) can protect humans against exposure to some strains of HIV. According to Burton, the AMP study's data - despite not showing a significant difference between the numbers of infected individuals in the treated groups versus those in the placebo groups - still have tremendous implications for future HIV vaccine design and passive bnAb use strategies. The AMP study evaluated the immunotherapeutic ...

BINGHAMTON, N.Y. -- Analysis of recently discovered fossils found in Israel suggest that interactions between different human species were more complex than previously believed, according to a team of researchers including Binghamton University anthropology professor Rolf Quam. The research team, led by Israel Hershkovitz from Tel Aviv University, published their findings in Science, describing recently discovered fossils from the site of Nesher Ramla in Israel. The Nesher Ramla site dates to about 120,000-140,000 years ago, towards the very end of the Middle Pleistocene time period. The human fossils were found by Dr. Zaidner of ...