Following the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, many Americans have raised concerns about the future of democracy in the United States.   Yet the American public, including Democrats and Republicans alike, strongly oppose anti-democratic actions and partisan violence, according to a new study by the Polarization Research Lab.   "Democracy is under threat in America, but these data show we are not on the brink of a citizen-supported push toward authoritarianism," says the lab's ...

A new report uncovers how hydrogen gas, the energy of the future, provided energy in the past, at the origin of life 4 billion years ago. Hydrogen gas is clean fuel. It burns with oxygen in the air to provide energy with no CO2. Hydrogen is a key to sustainable energy for the future. Though humans are just now coming to realize the benefits of hydrogen gas (H2 in chemical shorthand), microbes have known that H2 is good fuel for as long as there has been life on Earth. Hydrogen is ancient energy. The very first cells on Earth lived from H2 produced in hydrothermal vents, using the reaction of H2 with CO2 to make the molecules of ...

The United States could triple its current bioeconomy by producing more than 1 billion tons per year of plant-based biomass for renewable fuels, while meeting projected demands for food, feed, fiber, conventional forest products and exports, according to the Department of Energy’s latest Billion-Ton Report led by Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The 2023 Billion-Ton Report, or BT23, announced by DOE, is the fourth in a series of national biomass resource assessments spanning two decades. The report identifies feedstocks that could be ...

March 18, 2024 – Cure Mito Foundation and Hope for PDCD foundation, both patient-led foundations focused on advancing research and supporting families affected by Leigh syndrome and Pyruvate Dehydrogenase Complex Deficiency (PDCD), respectively, are excited to announce a launch of a PDCD patient registry. This innovative registry will be led by the Hope for PDCD foundation and hosted on the same registry platform as the well-established Leigh Syndrome patient registry, developed by the Cure Mito Foundation. This strategic move is aimed at enhancing patient convenience and improving data alignment and research ...

Although prevention and treatment strategies are available for influenza, they are not sufficient for vulnerable populations such as young children and newborns. In a new study, published in Virology, a multidisciplinary team of researchers have studied newborn piglets to better understand the progression of influenza infections. The influenza A virus can infect a variety of birds and mammals, including humans and pigs, due to which it is a threat to public health and food security. While it causes mild ...

After weight loss, people with overweight and obesity express more of the protein Kallistatin* in subcutaneous white adipose tissue. This was demonstrated by researchers from the DZD in a recent study. In addition, Kallistatin improves metabolism and could open up new therapeutic options for people with obesity and type 2 diabetes in future. The results have now been published in Molecular Metabolism. An increasing number of people are developing type 2 diabetes and obesity. These are highly complex and multifaceted diseases. In order to treat them sustainably, new approaches to therapy are needed. Clinical studies on humans have ...

Scientists trying to understand the physical and chemical properties that govern biomolecular condensates now have a crucial way to measure pH and other emergent properties of these enigmatic, albeit important cellular compartments. Condensates are communities of proteins and nucleic acids. They lack a membrane and come together and fall apart as needed. The nucleolus is a prominent condensate in cells. It serves vital roles in cellular physiology and is the site of ribosome production. Ribosomes are the multi-protein ...

A landmark study by the German Diabetes Center (DDZ), published in The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology, sheds new light on the heterogeneity of type 2 diabetes. The researchers employed an innovative algorithm to stratify people with type 2 diabetes using routine data and thus visualize the metabolic diversity of diabetes. Type 2 diabetes is a disease with highly diverse progression pathways. Using an innovative algorithm, a team led by the German Diabetes Center (DDZ) used routinely measured variables to open up new perspectives on the diversity of type 2 diabetes in terms of insulin sensitivity, insulin secretion, ...

A longstanding problem in physics has finally been cracked by Professor Kostya Trachenko of Queen Mary University of London's School of Physical and Chemical Sciences. His research, published in the Physical Review E, unveils a general theory for predicting melting points, a fundamental property whose understanding has baffled scientists for over a century.  For decades, our understanding of the three basic states of matter – solids, liquids, and gases – relied on temperature-pressure phase diagrams. These diagrams depict the conditions under which each state exists, with distinct lines separating them. However, one crucial line, ...

A team from the University of Ottawa's Faculty of Medicine has completed an exciting new study that reveals the inner workings of gene mutations that result in an ultra-rare syndrome with fewer than 100 reported cases since its first description in the early 1960s. The hard-won research discovery may accelerate the development of a treatment for Borjeson-Forssman-Lehmann Syndrome (BFLS), a neurodevelopmental disorder linked to the X chromosome that’s characterized by seizures, intellectual disability, and behavioural ...

Scientists at the USC Rossier School of Education’s Center for Affective Neuroscience, Development, Learning and Education (CANDLE), have shown for the first time that a type of thinking, that has been described for over a century as a developmental milestone of adolescence, may grow teenagers’ brains over time. This kind of thinking, which the study’s authors call “transcendent,” moves beyond reacting to the concrete specifics of social situations to also consider ...

Scientists are always on the lookout for ways to make our world a better place, and one area they're focusing on is solar energy. One idea in this area is to make solar cells more efficient by concentrating more solar light onto them. While investigating this recently, a group of scientists at the Cavendish Laboratory and AMOLF (Amsterdam NL) have found that improving solar cells efficiency in this way is harder than we might think but have discovered other avenues by which it might be possible to improve solar energy capture anywhere on the planet. The researchers ...

With the rise in gestational diabetes and metabolic disorders during pregnancy, metformin is also being prescribed more frequently. Although it is known that the oral antidiabetic agent can cross the placental barrier, the impacts on the brain development of the child are largely unknown. An interdisciplinary research team from the German Institute of Human Nutrition Potsdam-Rehbrücke (DIfE) have now been able to demonstrate in a mouse model that although metformin has positive effects in pregnant animals, it does not in the offspring. The results were published in the specialist ...

Two progressively degenerative diseases, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease) and frontotemporal dementia (FTD, recently in the news with the diagnoses of actor Bruce Willis and talk show host Wendy Williams), are linked by more than the fact that they both damage nerve cells critical to normal functioning — the former affecting nerves in the brain and spinal cord leading to loss of movement, the latter eroding the brain regions controlling personality, behavior and language. Research studies have repeatedly shown that in patients with ALS or FTD, the function of TAR DNA-binding protein 43, more commonly called TDP-43, ...

“[...] we present an improved method for G4 landscape determination and by applying it we show that sequence property-specific constraints of the nuclear environment mitigate G4 formation.” BUFFALO, NY- March 18, 2024 – A new research paper was published in Oncotarget's Volume 15 on March 14, 2024, entitled, “G-quadruplex landscape and its regulation revealed by a new antibody capture method.” In this new study, researchers Subhamoy Datta, Manthan Patel, Chakkarai Sathyaseelan, Chandrama Ghosh, Akanksha Mudgal, Divyesh Patel, Thenmalarchelvi Rathinavelan, ...

Prof. ZHOU Meng’s research team from the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), collaborating with Prof. WANG Quanming’s team from Tsinghua University (THU) achieved near-unity room-temperature photoluminescence quantum yield (PLQY) (>99%) in the near-infrared (NIR) emission of metal nanoclusters in solution. Their work was published in Science. Gold nanoclusters (Au NCs) as NIR-emissive materials hold potential in biomedical applications. However, the PLQY of Au NCs in NIR region is typically low, often ...

KANSAS CITY, MO—March 18, 2024—Fatty liver, which can lead to liver damage and disease, can occur from both overeating and starvation. Now, new research shows how naturally starvation-resistant cavefish, unlike other animals, are able to protect their liver and remain healthy. The findings have implications for understanding and potentially addressing liver conditions in humans. Researchers from the Stowers Institute for Medical Research in collaboration with Université Libre de Bruxelles in Belgium and Iowa State University ...

A research team led by Prof. WU Wenbing and Prof. WANG Linfei from the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC), in collaboration with Prof. SI Liang’ s team from Northwest University, developed a new water-soluble sacrificial layer, “super-tectragonal” Sr4Al2O7 (SAOT), with broad tunability in lattice constants, which can be used to prepare high-quality freestanding oxide membrane. Their work was published in Science. Freestanding oxide membrane is a type of low-dimensional quantum material that maintains single-crystal properties even ...

A research team led by Prof. NI Yong and Prof. HE Linghui from the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) has developed a new composite glass combining the nacre-inspired structure and shear stiffening gel (SSG) material, maintaining transparency while exhibiting excellent thermal insulation and impact resistance. Their work was published in Advanced Materials. Bulk glass serves as an indispensable structural material in people’s daily lives. However, glass has poor thermal ...

For many people, leaving a job can be like leaving a family — and because of the personal and professional bonds they’ve forged, many naturally stay in touch with their former coworkers and keep apprised of what’s happening in the organization. But what happens when companies make a concerted effort to bolster those bonds, help former employees in their careers and keep them in the loop? According to new research from the UBC Sauder School of Business, it can have big benefits for both employees and employers. For the paper, researchers studied ...

A new analysis led by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health estimates that 68 percent of Chicago children under age six live in households with tap water containing detectable levels of lead.  For their analysis, the researchers used machine learning, an artificial intelligence technique, to gauge likely levels of lead in tap water in households across Chicago, based on an existing dataset that includes results from 38,385 tap water tests taken from 2016 to 2023. The tests were from households that had registered for a free self-administered testing service for lead exposure.  The threshold the researchers ...

When a star goes supernova, a massive burst of neutrinos is the first signal that can escape the density of the collapsing star. Detecting and analyzing this phenomenon in real time would allow us insight into stellar dynamics and, potentially, black hole formation. Detection of these types of signals from modern physics detectors is notoriously hard and presents computational challenges that push the bounds of modern and next-generation computing. Transmitting and analyzing the data from the massive particle physics detectors to the next generation of extreme-scale ...

Dr. James McCully of Harvard Medical School and Boston Children's Hospital, USA, invited by Dr. Marvin Edeas, from Institut Cochin, Université Paris Cité, France, will host an instructive discussion on Mitochondrial Transplantation. This collaboration with the World Mitochondria Society (WMS) promises an insightful presentation by Dr. McCully on the topic of "Mitochondrial Transplantation: Rescue of Cellular Viability and Function and Modulation of the Ischemic Phenotype in the Myocardium." Dr. McCully will present ...

Winston-Salem, North Carolina – March 18, 2024 – The Regenerative Manufacturing Innovation Consortium (RegMIC), a leading organization focused on advancing the field of regenerative medicine, today announced its annual meeting, scheduled for May 15, 2024, at the DoubleTree by Hilton Charlotte Airport. RegMIC is an initiative from the Regenerative Medicine Development Organization (ReMDO). This year’s meeting will convene industry leaders, researchers, and innovators to explore the latest advancements and opportunities in regenerative ...

U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm appointed Joe Powell, the founding executive director of the Energy Transition Institute at the University of Houston, to the U.S. Department of Energy’s Industrial Technology Innovation Advisory Committee (ITIAC). The 18-member committee, a diverse group of stakeholders who report directly to Granholm, will create a comprehensive strategy to accelerate the development of innovative technologies and processes designed to help decarbonize the American industrial sector and reduce emissions. This sector is ...