Freshwater is essential for human life and the scarcity of freshwater is a critical issue in parts of the world today. In recent years, scientists have put great efforts into developing desalination technologies so that clean water can be produced from seawater. Interfacial solar evaporation (ISE) is a technology that holds promise for helping to relieve worldwide freshwater shortages. A team of researchers has undertaken a review study of the strategies available for constructing efficient ISE systems.   Their ...

Sleep disturbances can be an early sign of Alzheimer’s disease. Many people eventually diagnosed with Alzheimer’s start experiencing difficulty falling and staying asleep years before cognitive problems such as memory loss and confusion emerge. It’s a vicious cycle: Alzheimer’s disease involves changes to the brain that disrupt sleep, and poor sleep accelerates harmful changes to the brain. Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have identified a possible way to help break that cycle. A small, two-night study has shown that people who took a sleeping pill before bed experienced a drop in the levels of key Alzheimer’s ...

Perovskite solar cells (PSCs) are considered a promising candidate for next-generation photovoltaic technology with high efficiency and low production cost, potentially revolutionizing the renewable energy industry. However, the existing layer-by-layer manufacturing process presents challenges that have hindered the commercialisation of this technology. Recently, researchers from City University of Hong Kong (CityU) and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in the US jointly developed an innovative one-step solution-coating ...

Imagine lying on a bed, you just have to move your fingers to guide a mobile robot to bring you a cup of water, open the door to fetch some deliveries, or even do some laundry. If you are interested, you may want to learn more about a new remotely operated robotic system based on two mobile manipulators. This system was developed by roboticists from Osaka University. They published a research paper describing this robotic system on Feb. 10 in the journal Cyborg and Bionic Systems.   Back in the year of 2013, Fukushima nuclear power plant witnessed a catastrophic radioactive leakage and contamination, which makes the surrounding area extremely dangerous for ...

INDIANAPOLIS – A meta-analysis of studies involving 33,541 cancer patients evaluates the relationship between advance care planning and aggressive vs. comfort-focused end-of-life care. The study, led by Kristin Levoy, PhD, MSN, RN, of the Regenstrief Institute and Indiana University School of Nursing, found a general trend toward less aggressive and more comfort-focused end-of-life care among cancer patients who had engaged in advance care planning, compared to those who did not do so. Advance care planning is a dynamic process to help prepare people for future decision-making with the goal of ensuring that individuals receive care at the end-of-life that is consistent ...

Imagine by only attaching a number of electromyography (EMG) sensors to your legs, your motion in the future several seconds can be predicted. Such a way of predicting motion via muscle states is an alternative to the mainstream visual cue-based motion prediction, which heavily relies on multi-view cameras to construct time-series posture. However, there is still a gap between muscle states and future movements.   Muscles act upon the ground, which induces ground reaction force. Together with muscle states and ground reaction force, body movements are produced. Therefore, estimating ...

The American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology released a statement this week calling on policymakers participating in debt-ceiling negotiations to preserve funding to major scientific agencies such as the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy. In January, the United States reached its debt limit of $31.4 trillion. House Republicans are resisting raising the debt ceiling unless federal spending levels are reduced to fiscal year 2022 levels, which would reduce discretionary funding ...

Iron deficiency is one of the five main causes of impaired health. It affects 30 percent of the world's population, particularly women. Why iron deficiency can occur, even if enough iron is supplied through the diet, has not yet been sufficiently clarified in scientific research. For the first time, a research team from MedUni Vienna has discovered that certain immune cells in the intestine play an important role in iron absorption in the body. The study results may provide a new approach for possible therapeutic measures and were recently published in the journal "Blood". Approximately one to two milligrams of ...

Every material possesses a unique natural vibration frequency such that when an external periodic force is applied to this material close to this frequency, the vibrations are greatly amplified. In the parlance of physics, this phenomenon is known as “resonance.” Resonance is ubiquitous in our daily life, and, depending on the context, could be deemed desirable or undesirable. For instance, musical instruments like the guitar relies on resonance for sound amplification. On the other hand, buildings and bridges are more likely to collapse under an earthquake if the ground vibration frequency matches their natural frequency. Interestingly, natural vibration has not received ...

Children learn to understand language and to speak largely independently of cognitive functions like spatial awareness, working (short-term) memory and perception (interpreting and organizing sensory impressions), according to established theory and tradition within linguistics. Professor Mila Vulchanova at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) heads the university's language laboratory and studies language learning. Her findings over several years have challenged this linguistic assumption and demonstrated ...

TORONTO - In a study published in Nature Communications, a team led by Krembil Brain Institute Senior Scientists, Drs. Lorraine Kalia and Suneil Kalia, and University of Toronto (U of T) Professor, Dr. Philip M. Kim, identified a protein-protein interaction that contributes to Parkinson’s disease. In the disease, a protein called α-synuclein (a-syn) accumulates in the brain and leads to cell death. Much research is currently focused on clearing a-syn with antibodies or using small molecules to prevent a-syn from aggregating. In this study, the researchers took an alternate approach by looking for protein-protein interactions that may be promoting ...

Dr. Natalya Chernichenko, a leading otolaryngologist who specializes in tumors of the head and neck, has been named site chief of otolaryngology at NewYork-Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist Hospital, effective May 1. Dr. Chernichenko was also recruited to Weill Cornell Medicine as an assistant professor of clinical otolaryngology and vice chair in the Department of Otolaryngology—Head and Neck Surgery. In her new role, Dr. Chernichenko will lead a skilled team of specialists and surgeons providing comprehensive otolaryngology care, also known as ear, nose and throat, or ENT care, and further develop the hospital’s head and neck surgical oncology ...

Youth mental and emotional health is a matter of high priority in Florida. A 2019 Florida Department of Health survey showed that 12.7 percent of Florida high schoolers (grades 9 to 12) had carried a weapon; 21.2 percent were involved in a physical altercation; 24.2 percent reported having been teased about their size, weight or physical appearance; and 11.3 percent and 14.9 percent were bullied electronically or on school property, respectively. In this same survey, 15.6 percent of Florida high school students reported they had seriously considered attempting suicide, and 33.7 percent acknowledged feeling sad or hopeless for two or more weeks in a row. Alarmingly, the 2019 survey ...

New research out of the University of Cincinnati examines the impact that maternal stress during pregnancy has on the neurodevelopment of babies. The study was published in the journal Molecular Psychiatry. Prenatal maternal stress life events are associated with adverse neurodevelopmental outcomes in offspring. Biological mechanisms underlying these associations are largely unknown, but a chemical reaction in the body in which a small molecule known as a methyl group gets added to DNA, called DNA methylation, likely plays a role, according to researchers. These findings could provide new insights into how the fetal environment potentially influences ...

(LOS ANGELES) – April 20, 2023 - Dr. Ali Khademhosseini has been awarded the 2023 Technology Innovation and Development Award from the Society of Biomaterials (SFB). The award honors those whose research, scientific innovations, and leadership are used to develop novel products or technologies to benefit patients. Dr. Khademhosseini is the founding Director and CEO of the Terasaki Institute for Biomedical Innovation (TIBI), which incorporates a variety of interdisciplinary research platforms and uses patient-derived cells for micro- and ...

Aggressive periodontitis is a severe type of gum infection that causes the destruction of ligament and bone and can lead to tooth loss in otherwise healthy individuals. Traditional treatment typically involves deep cleaning and antibiotics.  Lehigh University researcher Angela Brown and her team were recently awarded a grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to pursue a novel treatment alternative.  Brown, an associate professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering in Lehigh’s P.C. Rossin College of Engineering and Applied Science, received an Exploratory/Development Research ...

The earliest artificial neural network, the Perceptron, was introduced approximately 65 years ago and consisted of just one layer.  However, to address solutions for more complex classification tasks, more advanced neural network architectures consisting of numerous feedforward (consecutive) layers were later introduced. This is the essential component of the current implementation of deep learning algorithms. It improves the performance of analytical and physical tasks without human intervention, and lies behind everyday automation products such as the emerging technologies for self-driving cars and autonomous chat bots. The key question driving new research published today in Scientific ...

Cedars-Sinai investigators have identified a genetic variant that increases people’s risk of developing perianal Crohn’s disease, the most debilitating manifestation of Crohn’s disease. The variant generates changes to DNA that lead to a loss of protein function, which in turn, alters how the body recognizes and handles bacteria, making it less effective at fighting infections. The discovery is published in the peer-reviewed journal GUT. “Fistulizing perianal Crohn’s disease ...

Gut bacteria that break down a sugar called fucose could be dampening our immune response to the COVID-19 mRNA vaccine, according to a study led by researchers from the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST).  The scientists report that increased fucose digestion by bacteria in the gut before vaccination was associated with lower numbers of T-cells activated by vaccination. T-cells are an important type of blood immune cell that are activated by a specific strain of bacteria or virus, and then multiply to fight the infection.  The findings, published ...

There are high expectations that quantum computers may deliver revolutionary new possibilities for simulating chemical processes. This could have a major impact on everything from the development of new pharmaceuticals to new materials. Researchers at Chalmers University have now, for the first time in Sweden, used a quantum computer to undertake calculations within a real-life case in chemistry. “Quantum computers could in theory be used to handle cases where electrons and atomic nuclei move in more complicated ways. If we can learn to utilise their full potential, we should be able to advance the boundaries of what is possible to calculate and understand,” says Martin Rahm, ...

The seven worst years for polar ice sheets melting and losing ice have occurred during the past decade, according to new research, with 2019 being the worst year on record. The melting ice sheets now account for a quarter of all sea level rise – a fivefold increase since the 1990’s – according to IMBIE, an international team of researchers who have combined 50 satellite surveys of Antarctica and Greenland taken between 1992 and 2020. Their findings are published today in the journal Earth System Science Data. Global heating is melting ...

Cattle-rearing is the biggest cause of tropical deforestation in the Amazon - and the world. A study has found that some of the world’s largest slaughterhouses reduced cattle-driven deforestation in the Amazon by 15% - equivalent to sparing 7,000km2 of forest from clearance (4.5 times the size of London) - through their commitment to zero-deforestation policies between 2010 and 2018. If these policies were fully implemented and adopted across all cattle companies operating in the Amazon, 24,000km2 of forest (an area larger than Wales) could have been spared over this time, effectively halving cattle-driven deforestation in Brazil. Deforestation ...

During pregnancy, women are more susceptible to severe respiratory infections from multiple viruses, including influenza A virus (IAV), respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2). Additionally, pregnant women are disproportionately affected by influenza, resulting in a more than 10-fold increase in hospitalization risk. A new study led by Dr. Natalie Johnson, associate professor in the Texas A&M University School of Public Health’s Department of Environmental and Occupational Health, shows that exposure to ultrafine particles (UFPs) during pregnancy enhances respiratory ...

LA JOLLA, CA— A new HIV vaccine from Scripps Research has shown a significantly improved ability to neutralize the virus in preclinical tests, and it will soon be studied in healthy people who volunteer to participate in clinical trials. The new and unique vaccine design, described in a paper in Nature Communications on April 9, 2023, uses tiny protein “nanoparticles” to display multiple copies of HIV’s surface protein Env, thus presenting itself to the immune system much as real HIV particles would ...

Over the past two hundred years, the ocean and atmosphere have been accumulating massive amounts of carbon dioxide as factories, automobiles, airplanes, and more churn out the powerful greenhouse gas. Two articles published recently in Nature by University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa oceanographers provide a reality check on the limitations of carbon dioxide removal and a warning­ that marine heatwaves need clear definitions so communities can adapt. Carbon dioxide removal is not the golden ticket In all the scenarios assessed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, nations around the world must dramatically and rapidly reduce their dependence ...