Hamilton, ON, Dec. 16, 2024 – Researchers at McMaster University have uncovered unexpected diversity in the genetic processes that determine the sex of the African clawed frog, a significant discovery in what was already one of the most widely studied amphibians in the world. A genomic analysis has uncovered a total of eight different sex chromosomes in just 11 species of the frog, many or all of which may contain unique and newly evolved genes that trigger male or female sexual differentiation.   Previously, researchers had known of only three different sex chromosomes ...

Mention emulsifiers and many people might be unaware what they are used for, but they are present in many daily products, from food to cosmetics. They keep substances that don’t usually mix, like water and oil, from separating and are either synthetically made or derived from milk, eggs, and soybeans, which are known as major food allergens. Thus, Osaka Metropolitan University researchers are looking at yeast proteins as emulsifiers. A research group led by Graduate School of Engineering Professor Masayuki Azuma and Associate Professor Yoshihiro Ojima previously showed that three yeast cell wall proteins ...

In recent years, microplastics have garnered significant attention due to their detection in tap and bottled water, as well as in rivers, lakes, and oceans. Conventional filtering technologies for water treatment have difficulty effectively filtering out microplastics of various sizes and shapes and are prone to clogging. Additionally, recovering small particles requires extremely fine filter meshes, which increases pressure and drastically reduces filter efficiency. Furthermore, they are not effective in open spaces such as lakes, rivers, or oceans, where microplastic pollution is increasing. Dr. Seong Jin Kim ...

“Needle exchange programs are evidence-based strategies that prevent transmission of blood-borne viruses, reduce injection-related infections, improve access to medical care, and facilitate entry into substance dependence programs for people who inject drugs,” writes Dr. Farah Houdroge, Disease Elimination Program, Burnet Institute, Melbourne, Australia, with coauthors. The World Health Organization has set a target of reducing hepatitis C infections to fewer than 2 per 100 people who inject drugs per year as part of an elimination strategy for hepatitis C. In 2024, Canada unveiled its 2024–2030 Sexually Transmitted and ...

EMBARGOED UNTIL 00:01 UK TIME, Monday 16 December 2024 (19:01 ET Sunday 15 December 2024)  Volume 99 No 403 February 2025 We aim to have all papers online by 10:00 UK time. More images and an embargoed preview of the paper can be found here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1yMsUjDe7xuLWDCNgPH0XIX6dZtHkX2_c?usp=sharing Analysis of the remains of at least 37 individuals from Early Bronze Age England finds they were killed, butchered, and probably consumed before being thrown down a 15m-deep shaft. It is the largest-scale ...

It’s that time of the year when most of us get the chance to sit back and enjoy some well-deserved down time. But whether you reach for the TV controller, or a favourite book, your choice could have implications for your long-term brain health, say researchers at the University of South Australia.   Assessing the 24-hour activity patterns of 397 older adults (aged 60+), researchers found that the context or type of activity that you engage in, matters when it comes to brain health. And specifically, that some sedentary (or sitting) behaviours are better for cognitive function than others.   When looking at different sedentary behaviours, they found ...

Tokyo, Japan – Researchers from Tokyo Metropolitan University have made tungsten disulfide nanotubes which point in the same direction when formed, for the first time. They used a sapphire surface under carefully controlled conditions to form arrayed tungsten disulfide nanotubes, each consisting of rolled nanosheets, using chemical vapor deposition. The team’s technique resolves the long-standing issue of jumbled orientations in collected amounts of nanotubes, promising real world device applications for the exotic anisotropy of single nanotubes.   Nanotubes consist of sheets of atoms rolled into a nanoscale tube, turning a two-dimensional ...

Batteries have become an integral component of modern technology. Lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) can be found virtually everywhere, from handheld electronic devices and electric vehicles to the large power banks used in renewable energy generation systems. However, current LIB designs suffer from some crippling drawbacks, including low durability and the use of toxic liquid electrolytes. To address these limitations, scientists have been studying all-solid-state batteries for over a decade. Although silicon-based all-solid-state batteries should be theoretically more durable than conventional LIBs, ...

By Jenifer Fouch University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Causing an estimated $160 billion in damages globally each year, one of agriculture’s biggest enemies is too small to see without a microscope. Plant-parasitic nematodes feed on agricultural crops at their roots, reducing yields and profits for producers. In the U.S., soybean producers lose about 11 percent of their crops to soybean diseases, including the southern root-knot nematode, Meloidogyne incognita, or SRKN as it’s commonly known. The nematode forms abnormal growths — or knots — in soybean ...

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – Immune checkpoint blockades, or ICBs, have revolutionized treatment for various advanced cancers. However, their effectiveness has plateaued due to therapeutic resistance that renders tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes, or TILs, ineffective. Thus, finding ways to disarm that resistance and rejuvenate anti-cancer TILs — so they can kill tumor cells — is an important goal for cancer clinicians. Yet any potential intervention has to take place under unusual conditions — the cancer microenvironment nearly devoid of oxygen due to fast ...

A team of researchers at The Keck School of Medicine of USC have received a $3.4 million federal grant to advance research on an innovative approach to slowing age-related cognitive decline. The award is from the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H), an agency withing the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that funds transformational research to tackle tough health problems. The grant is part of ARPA-H’s Sprint for Women’s Health initiative to address critical unmet challenges in women’s health, champion transformative ...

Raw milk, hailed by some as a natural and nutritious alternative to pasteurized dairy, may come with hidden dangers, according to a new Stanford University study. The research, published December 12 in Environmental Science & Technology Letters reveals that influenza or flu virus can remain infectious in refrigerated raw milk for up to five days. The findings come at a time when outbreaks of bird flu in dairy cattle have raised concerns about the potential for a new pandemic. "This work highlights the potential risk of avian influenza ...

Early identification of placental infection could help mothers, babies receive antibiotics Could help doctors in low-resource areas with no pathology labs, specialists quickly spot issues In well-resourced hospitals, tool could help doctors determine which placentas need a closer look  CHICAGO --- A newly developed tool that harnesses computer vision and artificial intelligence (AI) may help clinicians rapidly evaluate placentas at birth, potentially improving neonatal and maternal care, according to new research from scientists at Northwestern Medicine and Penn State. The study, which was published Dec. 13 in ...

PHILADELPHIA – During a shortage of the generic platinum chemotherapy drugs cisplatin and carboplatin that began in early 2023, there was no difference in mortality rates among patients with advanced cancer compared to the previous year, and prescription rates for the two drugs fell less than three percent overall—and 15.1 percent at the peak—according to an analysis published this week in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute by researchers from the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman ...

A new study led by UCLA Health Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center investigators offers new evidence that dietary changes may help reduce cancer cell growth in patients undergoing active surveillance, a treatment approach that involves regular monitoring of the cancer without immediate intervention. The findings, published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, show that a diet low in omega-6 and high in omega-3 fatty acids, combined with fish oil supplements, significantly reduced the growth rate of prostate cancer cells in men with early-stage disease. “This ...

Dan G. Duda, DMD, PhD, of the Edwin L. Steele Laboratories for Tumor Biology and Department of Radiation Oncology at Massachusetts General Hospital, is the corresponding author of a paper published in Cancer Immunology Research, “Combination CXCR4 and PD1 Blockade Enhances Intratumoral Dendritic Cell Activation and Immune Responses Against Hepatocellular Carcinoma.” How would you summarize your study for a lay audience? Immunotherapy has revolutionized the management of cancer, including liver malignancies. However, the benefits are limited by multiple mechanisms ...

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Dark-humored memes — like “This is fine,” featuring a dog wearing a bowler hat in a room on fire — tend to dominate social media during times when the world appears to be falling apart. But what bothers people most can spur action and change, especially on the local level, according to Lisa Silvestri, associate teaching professor of communication arts and sciences at Penn State. Silvestri shifted her research focus to peace- and community building after studying ...

Physics lab courses are vital to science education, providing hands-on experience and technical skills that lectures can’t offer. Yet, it’s challenging for those in Physics Education Research (PER) to compare course to course, especially since these courses vary wildly worldwide.  To better understand these differences, JILA Fellow and University of Colorado Boulder physics professor Heather Lewandowski and a group of international collaborators are working towards creating a global taxonomy, a classification system that could create a more equitable way to compare these courses. Their findings were recently ...

Key takeaways The galaxy M87, located in the Virgo constellation, provided the first-ever photo of a black hole in 2019, when the Event Horizon Telescope captured an image of the supermassive black hole at the galaxy’s center. An international research team including UCLA has observed a teraelectronvolt gamma-ray flare seven orders of magnitude — tens of millions of times — larger than the event horizon, or surface of the black hole itself.  A flare of this intensity — which has not been observed in over a decade —  can offer crucial insights ...

The Alliance of Hispanic-Serving Research Universities (HSRU) will lead a project to increase the number of doctoral graduates in technical fields from its 22 institutions from across the nation. The initiative is supported by a new $9.3 million grant from the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD). UCF’s portion of the funding totals approximately $4.8 million. The effort, titled Hispanic Serving Research Institutions Research and STEM Education (HSI-RSE) Project, is co-led by UCF and the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP).  The project aims to address the critical need for high-quality ...

Multinational enterprises (MNEs) are not just falling short of global sustainability targets but are actively contributing to the very problems they claim to address, according to a new study from the University of Surrey. This study argues that there is an urgent need for MNEs to reassess their innovation strategies to align with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The research team found that many MNEs are prioritising profit over sustainable practices. The study highlights how MNEs often adopt superficial compliance measures rather than engaging in meaningful, sustainable innovations by analysing case studies from various countries, including both advanced ...

Australian-led research is unlocking new ways for immunotherapy to better target cancer.  Cancer immunotherapy has revolutionised treatment for patients, whereby the body’s own immune system is harnessed to destroy cancer cells.  Typically, several molecules restrain the ability of T cells to target cancer cells and developing approaches to limit this restraining effect can lead to improved effectiveness of cancer immunotherapy.   Research published in Science Immunology has determined the structure of how an inhibitory molecule, LAG3, interacts with its main ligand and provides a new targeted approach to ...

A new twist: the molecular machines that loop our chromosomes also twist DNA Scientists from the Kavli Institute of Delft University of Technology and the IMP Vienna Biocenter discovered a new property of the molecular motors that shape our chromosomes. While six years ago they found that these so-called SMC motor proteins make long loops in our DNA, they now discovered that these motors also put significant twists into the loops that they form. These findings help us better understand the structure and function of our chromosomes. They also provide insight into how disruption of twisted DNA looping can affect health—for instance, in developmental ...

The air around us contains a powerful solution for making agriculture more sustainable. Researchers at Stanford University and King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals in Saudi Arabia have developed a prototype device that can produce ammonia – a key fertilizer ingredient – using wind energy to draw air through a mesh. The approach they developed, if perfected, might eliminate the need for a century-old method that produces ammonia by combining nitrogen and hydrogen at high pressures and temperatures. The older method consumes 2% of global energy and contributes 1% of annual carbon dioxide emissions from its ...

An international team of researchers, including a glaciologist at Newcastle University, UK, has discovered remarkably well-preserved glacial landforms buried almost 1 km beneath the North Sea. The team used sound wave, known as seismic, data to reveal Ice Age landforms buried beneath almost 1 km of mud in the North Sea. The results, reported in the journal Science Advances, suggest that the landforms were produced about 1 million years ago, when an ice sheet centred over Norway extended towards the British Isles. This is important because the timing of this ice advance corresponds to a period of global cooling called the Mid-Pleistocene Transition. Glacial ...