In 2016, researchers from the EDDyLab - Evolution & Diversity Dynamics Lab - at the University of Liège (Belgium) proposed a new definition of the geological boundary between the Devonian and Carboniferous periods (359 million years). This new definition has been tested by hundreds of researchers around the world and the results are now compiled in a special issue of the journal Palaeodiversity & Palaeoenvironments. Geological time is divided into periods (Cambrian, Carboniferous, Jurassic, etc.), together covering the 4.6 billion year history of the Earth. The many climatic, environmental and biological changes that have punctuated this history are recorded in the rock layers, forming an incredibly rich archive of the Earth's past. "The study of these successive ...

Scientists from Tohoku University and the University of Maryland have pinpointed the strong magnetic field of the early sun as the reason behind the radial variation of rock and metal in rocky planets' cores. This magnetic field, which pulled small iron grains inward, explains Mercury's big iron core and why Mars has so little iron in its core. The details of their research were published in the journal Progress in Earth and Planetary Science on July 5, 2021. Planets have iron cores surrounded by a rocky shell, mostly made up of mantle and a thin skin of crust. The four inner planets of our Solar System, Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars have their own distinctive size and density. These ...

Recently, a research team led by Prof. KONG Lingtao at the Hefei Institutes of Physical Science (HFIPS) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) has prepared a type of hollow amorphous Co/C composites to activate hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) to generate singlet oxygen, achieving selective elimination of oxytetracycline (OTC) in complicated water matrices. The relevant results was published in Chemical Engineering Journal. OTC is the most common tetracycline antibiotic in the field of animal husbandry. It can be detected in water, soil and other areas which features ...

The study is the first on epidemiology and causes of traumatic brain injury in over 20 years. The research team reports in the journal BMJ Open of 4 June 2021. Falling and cycling without a helmet are common causes From a minor fall on a bicycle to a serious road traffic accident: The causes of a traumatic brain injury are manifold. About 90 percent of the approximately 270,000 cases per year are classified as mild, ten percent as moderate or severe. Current findings show that traumatic brain injury is increasing in the age group of over-65s. The research team at BG Kliniken in Bochum, Hamburg, Berlin, Halle, Frankfurt, Ludwigshafen and Murnau found that there has been a shift in the age group most frequently affected and ...

[Background] Aryl halides*1) with a benzene ring directly bonded to a halogen atom are readily available and chemically stable, so they are used as a source of benzene rings in organic synthesis. For example, a chemical reaction that generates a highly reactive aryl radical*2) from an aryl halide using a toxic tin compound has long been known as a method for supplying a benzene ring (Figure 1A). In recent years, chemical reactions have been developed, in which an aryl halide is reduced using a metal catalyst or a photocatalyst*3) followed by cleavage of the bond between the benzene ring and the halogen atom to generate ...

Together with their multifaceted action mechanisms, activation-induced cytidine deaminase (AID) and so-called APOBEC proteins are important factors in the body's immune response and offer fast and effective protection against a large number of DNA and RNA viruses. The task of AID is to strengthen the human immune response, while APOBECs are able to block the virus. A MedUni Vienna research team comprising Anastasia Meshcheryakova, Diana Mechtcheriakova and Peter Pietschmann from the Institute of Pathophysiology and Allergy Research has now addressed the potential interrelations between AID/APOBECs and the SARS-CoV-2 virus, ...

Ishikawa, Japan - Many researchers in the field of materials science constantly seek novel and versatile platforms that can be used to tailor materials to match their intended use. One example of this are covalent organic frameworks (COFs), an emerging class of crystalline porous polymers with a favorable set of fundamental properties, namely crystallinity, stability, and porosity. This combination makes them, in theory, adjustable to many modern applications. Unfortunately, owing to the way COFs are usually obtained, these properties are not very pronounced, resulting in unstable, low-crystallinity solids with limited porosity. At the Japan Advanced Institute of ...

Recently, Prof. WANG Zhenyang's research group from the Hefei Institutes of Physical Science (HFIPS) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) has prepared macroscopic thick three-dimensional (3D) porous graphene films. Using high-energy electron beam as the energy source and taking advantages of high kinetic energy and low reflection characteristics of e-beam, the researchers directly induced polyimide precursor into a 3D porous graphene crystal film with a thickness of up to 0.66 mm. Related research results were published in the journal Carbon. Graphene has been proved ...

A new nanotechnology development by an international research team led by Tel Aviv University researchers will make it possible to generate electric currents and voltage within the human body through the activation of various organs (mechanical force). The researchers explain that the development involves a new and very strong biological material, similar to collagen, which is non-toxic and causes no harm to the body's tissues. The researchers believe that this new nanotechnology has many potential applications in medicine, including harvesting clean energy to operate devices implanted ...

Recently, with the help of a steady-state strong magnetic field experimental device, scientists constructed nano-scale borate bioactive glass (Nano-HCA@BG), which can effectively reduce the biological toxicity of borate bioglass, improve the biocompatibility of the glass, and promote the effect of borate bioglass on skin repair. Prof. WANG Junfeng from the Hefei Institutes of Physical Science (HFIPS) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), collaborating with Prof. ZHANG Teng from Fuzhou University in this study, said, "it is expected to become the next generation of skin wound repair dressings." Related research was published in Chemical Engineering Journal. Borate bioglass is a glass with boron element (B) as the glass network matrix. With good dopability and degradability, it ...

Sleep deprivation - from lifestyle choices, pandemic stress, or late-night computer study - can quickly lead to loss of energy and function during the day and even feelings of anger and depression, an Australian sleep institute study has shown. The study, led by Flinders University, asked 34 health teenagers (20 males) aged between 15 and 17 to spent 10 days and nine nights in a specially designed sleep centre. They were allocated to one of three sleep 'doses' for five consecutive nights- from five hours, 7.5 hours, or 10 hours in bed per night - with two baseline and two 'recovery' nights of up to 10 hours' time in bed. Their mood was measured every three hours after waking up to assess responses to feelings such as 'depressed', 'afraid', 'angry', 'confused', ...

Wetland, forest, and ocean are the three largest ecosystems in the world. Although the area of wetland ecosystem accounts for only 4-6% of the total land area, the carbon reserves of wetland ecosystem accounts for 12-24% of the global land carbon reserves. Under the background of global climate change, the research on carbon sequestration of wetland has become an important subject of global carbon cycle research. The area of marshes in China ranks third in the world, and herbaceous marsh is the most widely distributed among all the types of marshes. As an important quality parameter of marsh ecosystem, aboveground biomass of vegetation is a crucial index estimating the carbon storage of marsh vegetation, and the basis for studying ...

A KAIST immunology research team found that most convalescent patients of COVID-19 develop and maintain T cell memory for over 10 months regardless of the severity of their symptoms. In addition, memory T cells proliferate rapidly after encountering their cognate antigen and accomplish their multifunctional roles. This study provides new insights for effective vaccine strategies against COVID-19, considering the self-renewal capacity and multipotency of memory T cells. COVID-19 is a disease caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection. When patients recover from COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2-specific adaptive immune memory is developed. The adaptive immune system consists ...

While this isn't the fountain of youth, scientists may have improved healing in our joints - even in areas that become weaker as we grow older. The meniscus is a durable, yet flexible tissue found in joints like our wrist and knees that helps them absorb shock during movement. Occasionally tears can occur in the meniscus due an awkward movement or structural weakness from old age. When we are young, there is plenty of blood flowing to this area allowing for quick healing, but as we get older, the meniscus receives less and less blood - with the inner most area becoming ...

An international team including Lancaster University researchers has created a strategy for understanding the evolution of the COVID-19 pandemic throughout the African continent. Their COVID-19 surveillance strategy will improve the ability of African countries to interpret the complex data available to them during the pandemic. Professor Peter Diggle, Dr Chris Jewell and Dr Claudio Fronterre from the Centre for Health Informatics, Computing and Statistics (CHICAS) at Lancaster Medical School worked with colleagues in the USA, Uganda and Switzerland to create a data-driven disease surveillance framework to track and predict ...

Cleft lip and palate is one of the most common congenital malformations. Its causes are mainly genetic. However, it is still largely unknown exactly which genes are affected. A new international study led by the University of Bonn now provides new insights. The results are published in the journal Human Genetics and Genomics Advances, but are already available online. The researchers from the Institute of Human Genetics at the University Hospital Bonn combined various data sources in their work. In the course of their research, they discovered five new regions in the human genome in which variations in the DNA sequence are associated with an ...

A new report that could help improve how immersive technologies such as Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) are used in healthcare education and training has been published with significant input from the University of Huddersfield. Professor David Peebles, Director of the University's Centre for Cognition and Neuroscience, and Huddersfield PhD graduate Matthew Pears contributed to the report - 'Immersive technologies in healthcare training and education: Three principles for progress' - recently published by the University of Leeds with input from range of academics, technologists and health professionals. The principles have also been expanded upon in a letter to the prestigious journal BMJ ...

A train carrying cargo has finite space. The amount of cargo that can be carried onboard is limited by the size of the cargo and the capacity of the train. Analogously, the amount of time taken up by an optical signal limits the amount of data that can be carried. Temporally shorter signals allow more data to be squeezed into a given time duration, in a method called optical time division multiplexing. Photonics researchers have recently succeeded in squeezing light in time by 11 times. The developed temporal compression system allows an equivalent increase in the number of bits transmitted by light ...

A new international study has found that the key properties of the spikes of SARS-CoV-2 virus which causes COVID-19 are consistent with those of several laboratory-developed protein spikes, designed to mimic the infectious virus. A central component in designing serological tests and vaccines to protect against COVID-19 is the manufacture of protein "spikes". These recombinant spikes closely mimic those sticking out of surface of the infectious virus and trigger the body's immune system into action. Laboratory manufactured spikes are also used for serological testing (also referred to as antibody testing) and as research reagents. The findings show how that viral spike manufactured through different methods in laboratories across the globe ...

Since July 2020, remdesivir has been conditionally approved in Europe for the treatment of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in adults and adolescents aged 12 years and older with pneumonia who require supplemental oxygen but no invasive ventilation. In an early benefit assessment, the German Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG) has now investigated whether the drug, which was originally developed for the treatment of Ebola virus disease, offers these patients an added benefit compared to the appropriate comparator therapy (here: therapy according to physician's choice). This investigation yielded an indication of a considerable added benefit of remdesivir compared to the appropriate comparator therapy for adults with pneumonia ...

In a study published in Physical Review Letters, academician GUO Guangcan's team from University of Science and Technology of China of the Chinese Academy of Sciences made progress in the open quantum system research. This team, collaborating with Austrian theoretical physicist Philip Taranto, demonstrated the non-Markovianity in the multi-step evolution of the open quantum system, and proved the measurement-dependent property of quantum memory effects. In quantum information science, it is crucial to understand and control the memory effects for the development of quantum technology. For the coupling of the system and environment, the evolution of open quantum system presents the non-Markovianity, ...

Faba beans have been an excellent source of food protein since pre-historic times, but about 5% of people, mostly from regions where malaria has been endemic and who carry a certain mutation, can't eat them. Now, an international team of researchers, led by the Universities of Helsinki and Copenhagen as well as Luke Natural Resources Institute Finland, has identified the gene responsible for the production of vicine and convicine, which are harmful to these people. In the work published in Nature Plants, the team reports that the VC1 gene plays a central role in the biosynthesis these compounds. Faba beans - Pythagoras and his followers avoided them and Roman priests of Jupiter associated them with death. ...

A research team led by Prof. CHEN Xianhui from University of Science and Technology of China of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) found an unusual competition between charge density wave (CDW) and superconductivity in CsV3Sb5, a layered kagome metal, which provides key experimental evidence for understanding novel CDW and superconductivity. The result was published on Nature Communications and recommended as featured article. Traditional superconductivity and CDW are two different electronic states, which both originate from electron phonon coupling and Fermi instability. In the conventional coexistence image of CDW and superconductor, after entering the CDW state, the energy gap is opened due to the nesting of Fermi surface, resulting in the loss of density ...

The stage is set for a new carbon storage economy to emerge along the Gulf Coast, according to a study led by The University of Texas at Austin, with the region offering ample opportunities to capture and store carbon, and recent state and federal incentives giving an added push to get started. Carbon capture and storage, or CCS, is a technology that keeps CO2 out of the atmosphere by capturing emissions and storing them deep underground. It can help fight climate change by lowering industrial emissions now while renewable energy sources are being developed, said Tip Meckel, a senior research scientist at the Gulf Coast Carbon Center, a research group at the UT Bureau ...

Since the discovery of the first fossil remains in the 19th century, the image of the Neanderthal has been one of a primitive hominin. People have known for a long time that Neanderthals were able to effectively fashion tools and weapons. But could they also make ornaments, jewellery or even art? A research team led by the University of Göttingen and the Lower Saxony State Office for Heritage has analysed a new find from the Unicorn Cave (Einhornhöhle) in the Harz Mountains. The researchers conclude that, in fact, Neanderthals, genetically the closest relative to modern humans, had remarkable cognitive abilities. The results of the study were published in Nature Ecology and Evolution. Working with the Unicornu Fossile society, the scientists ...