WASHINGTON--The global cryosphere--all of the areas with frozen water on Earth--shrank by about 87,000 square kilometers (about 33,000 square miles), a area about the size of Lake Superior, per year on average, between 1979 and 2016 as a result of climate change, according to a new study. This research is the first to make a global estimate of the surface area of the Earth covered by sea ice, snow cover and frozen ground. The extent of land covered by frozen water is just as important as its mass because the bright white surface reflects sunlight so effectively, cooling the planet. Changes in the size or location of ice and snow can alter air temperatures, change the sea level and even affect ocean currents worldwide. The new study is published in Earth's ...

People lived without plastic until the last century or so, but most of us would find it hard to imagine how. Plastics now are everywhere in our lives, providing low-cost convenience and other benefits in countless applications. They can be shaped to almost any task, from wispy films to squishy children's toys and hard-core components. They have shown themselves vital in medicine and have been pivotal in the global effort to slow the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic over the past 16 months. Plastics seem indispensable these days. Unfortunately for the long-term, they are also nearly indestructible. Our planet now bears the weight of more than seven billion tons ...

As smart watches are increasingly able to monitor the vital signs of health, including what's going on when we sleep, a problem has emerged: those wearable, wireless devices are often disconnected from our body overnight, being charged at the bedside. "Quality of sleep and its patterns contain a lot of important information about patients' health conditions," says Sunghoon Ivan Lee, assistant professor in the University of Massachusetts Amherst College of Information and Computer Sciences and director of the Advanced Human Health Analytics Laboratory. But that information can't be tracked on smartwatches if the wearable devices are ...

Over years of studying antibody responses against the flu in the Wilson lab at the University of Chicago, researchers kept coming up with a strange finding: antibodies that seemed to bind not only to the flu virus, but to every virus the lab could throw at them. Since antibodies are usually highly specific to individual pathogens, in order to maximize their targeted protective response, this pattern was extremely unusual. Until finally, they realized: The antibodies weren't responding to the viruses, but rather to something in the biological material in which the viruses had been grown. ...

Astrocytes are cells in the brain which have long been considered only as mere support cells for neurons. In recent years, the study of astrocytes has grown, gradually revealing their importance in brain function. Researchers from Inserm, CNRS and Collège de France at the Center for Interdisciplinary Research in Biology have now uncovered their crucial role in closing the period of brain plasticity that follows birth, finding them to be key to the development of sensory and cognitive faculties. Over the longer term, these findings will make it possible to envisage new strategies for reintroducing brain plasticity in adults, thereby promoting rehabilitation following brain lesions or neurodevelopmental disorders. This research has been published in Science. Brain plasticity is ...

Hereditary information is passed from parent to offspring in the genetic code, DNA, and epigenetically through chemically induced modifications around the DNA. New research from the John Innes Centre has uncovered a mechanism which adjusts these modifications, altering the way information beyond the genetic code is passed down the generations. DNA methylation, one example of these epigenetic modifications, happens when a methyl group or chemical cap is added to the DNA, switching a gene, or genes, on or off. As germline (eggs and sperm) cells develop some of the methyl markers are reset, affecting the information passed onto the next generation. How this process ...

Although plastics have become an essential material, permeating almost all aspects of modern living, many of the inherent properties that make them useful in such a wide variety of applications also make them a serious environmental threat. In a special issue of Science, "Our Plastics Dilemma," four Reviews, two Perspectives, a Policy Forum, an associated Report and two News features examine a wide range of topics related to plastics and the problems they present. "As for much new technology, their development and proliferation occurred with little consideration for their impacts, but now it's impossible to deny their dark side as we confront a rapidly ...

Through the sequencing of more than 640,000 human exomes, researchers identify rare gene coding variants strongly associated with body mass index (BMI) - including the variant GPR75, which conferred protection from obesity in mouse models. Not only do the findings provide potential therapeutic targets for treating obesity, but they also demonstrate the power and versatility of massive-scale exome sequencing in discovering rare coding variants that could offer new and potentially translatable biological functions. Body fat is a highly heritable trait and the obesity to which body ...

Researchers could not confirm that a feature that supposedly signals the presence of Majorana bound states - the unusual quasiparticles that may become the cornerstone of topological quantum computing - was in fact due to elusive Majorana particles, in full-shell semiconductor/superconductor nanowires. Rather, this feature, known as zero bias conductance peak, can arise from another quantum phenomenon in these hybrid nanowire structures, the authors say. In recent years, intense research has been conducted on nanowire-based semiconductor-superconductor hybrid systems because predictions suggest that a topological superconductor state with Majorana zero modes (MZMs) can be engineered from them. Even though several experiments in such platforms have reported ...

Researchers introduce "sci-Space," a new approach to spatial transcriptomics that can retain single-cell resolution and spatial heterogeneity at scales much larger than previous methods. They used their approach to build single-cell atlases of whole sections of mouse embryos at 14 days of development. Single-cell RNA sequencing methods have led to great advances in understanding how organisms and complex tissues develop. Although cells' spatial organization is central to normal development, homeostasis, and pathophysiology, many single-cell RNA sequencing methods lose valuable contextual spatial information. Those that preserve spatial context between cells can be limited to a specific set of genes and/or ...

A new technique called sci-Space, combined with data from other technologies, could lead to four-dimensional atlases of gene expression across diverse cells during embryonic development of mammals. Such atlases would map how the gene transcripts in individual cells reflect the passage of time, cell lineages, cell migration, and location on the developing embryo. They would also help illuminate the spatial regulation of gene expression. Mammalian embryonic development is a remarkable phenomenon: a fertilized egg divides repeatedly and turns, in a matter of weeks or months, into a complex organism capable of a myriad of physiological processes and composed of a variety ...

Quantum computers promise great advances in many fields - from cryptography to the simulation of protein folding. Yet, which physical system works best to build the underlying quantum bits is still an open question. Unlike regular bits in your computer, these so-called qubits cannot only take the values 0 and 1, but also mixtures of the two. While this potentially makes them very useful, they also become very unstable. One approach to solve this problem bets on topological qubits that encode the information in their spatial arrangement. That could provide a more stable ...

Current rates of plastic emissions globally may trigger effects that we will not be able to reverse, argues a new study by researchers from Sweden, Norway and Germany published on July 2nd in Science. According to the authors, plastic pollution is a global threat, and actions to drastically reduce emissions of plastic to the environment are "the rational policy response". Plastic is found everywhere on the planet: from deserts and mountaintops to deep oceans and Arctic snow. As of 2016, estimates of global emissions of plastic to the world's lakes, rivers and ...

Scientists have long searched in vain for a class of brain cells that could explain the visceral flash of recognition that we feel when we see a very familiar face, like that of our grandmothers. But the proposed "grandmother neuron"--a single cell at the crossroads of sensory perception and memory, capable of prioritizing an important face over the rabble--remained elusive. Now, new research reveals a class of neurons in the brain's temporal pole region that links face perception to long-term memory. It's not quite the apocryphal grandmother neuron--rather than a single ...

The COVID-19 catastrophe in India has resulted in more than 30 million people infected with the virus and nearly 400,000 deaths, though experts are concerned that the figures most likely are much higher. Meanwhile, another public health crisis has emerged along with COVID-19: the widespread misuse of antibiotics. During India's first surge of COVID-19, antibiotic sales soared, suggesting the drugs were used to treat mild and moderate cases of COVID-19, according to research led by Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. Such use is considered inappropriate because antibiotics are only effective against bacterial infections, not viral infections such as COVID-19, and overuse increases the risk ...

Fifteen years ago, UC Santa Barbara electrical and materials professor John Bowers pioneered a method for integrating a laser onto a silicon wafer. The technology has since been widely deployed in combination with other silicon photonics devices to replace the copper-wire interconnects that formerly linked servers at data centers, dramatically increasing energy efficiency -- an important endeavor at a time when data traffic is growing by roughly 25% per year. For several years, the Bowers group has collaborated with the group of Tobias J. Kippenberg at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL), within the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Direct On-Chip Digital Optical ...

Optical frequency combs consist of light frequencies made of equidistant laser lines. They have already revolutionized the fields of frequency metrology, timing and spectroscopy. The discovery of ''soliton microcombs'' by Professor Tobias Kippenberg's lab at EPFL in the past decade has enabled frequency combs to be generated on chip. In this scheme, a single-frequency laser is converted into ultra-short pulses called dissipative Kerr solitons. Soliton microcombs are chip-scale frequency combs that are compact, consume low power, and exhibit broad bandwidth. Combined with large spacing of comb "teeth", microcombs are uniquely ...

Conversations between seriously ill people, their families and palliative care specialists lead to better quality-of-life. Understanding what happens during these conversations - and particularly how they vary by cultural, clinical, and situational contexts - is essential to guide healthcare communication improvement efforts. To gain true understanding, new methods to study conversations in large, inclusive, and multi-site epidemiological studies are required. A new computer model offers an automated and valid tool for such large-scale scientific analyses. Research results on this model were published today in PLOS ONE. Developed by a team of computer scientists, clinicians and engineers at the University of Vermont, the approach - called CODYM ...

A study by Stanford University School of Medicine investigators hints that people with COVID-19 may experience milder symptoms if certain cells of their immune systems "remember" previous encounters with seasonal coronaviruses -- the ones that cause about a quarter of the common colds kids get. These immune cells are better equipped to mobilize quickly against SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus responsible for COVID-19, if they've already met its gentler cousins, the scientists concluded. The findings may help explain why some people, particularly children, seem much more resilient than others to infection by SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19. They also might make it possible ...

Scientists have developed a new technology to detect a wider variety of T cells that recognize coronaviruses, including SARS-CoV-2. The technology revealed that killer T cells capable of recognizing epitopes conserved across all coronaviruses are much more abundant in COVID-19 patients with mild disease versus those with more severe illness, suggesting a protective role for these broad-affinity T cells. The ability to distinguish T cells based on their affinities to SARS-CoV-2 could help scientists elucidate the disparity in COVID-19 outcomes and determine which COVID-19 patients will or will not exhibit a successful immune response ...

In a new Editorial, Peter Heeger, Christian Larsen, and Dorry Segev discuss recent evidence - including a recent Science Immunology study by Hector Rincon-Arevalo and colleagues - that points to a diminished immune response to COVID-19 vaccines among organ transplant recipients and others on immunosuppressive drug regimens. The authors note that this presents challenges at both the individual and population levels, since current vaccine protocols may not provide adequate protection to immunosuppressed patients - who could, in turn, become reservoirs for new and dangerous variants of the virus. As such, Heeger, Larsen, and Segev argue that developing vaccination strategies for transplant recipients should be a high priority in the next wave of research focused on fighting COVID-19. ...

ROCHESTER, Minn. -- Research by investigators at Mayo Clinic Cancer Center suggests that physicians should screen patients with lung cancer for MET amplification/overexpression before determining a treatment strategy. Their findings are published Cancer Discovery, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research. "In our research we found several lung cancer cases that were not responsive to standard chemotherapy," says Zhenkun Lou, Ph.D., a cancer researcher at Mayo Clinic. "Because these lung cancers were positive for PD-L1, a protein that allows some cells ...

A key factor in America's prodigious agricultural output turns out to be something farmers can do little to control: clean air. A new Stanford-led study estimates pollution reductions between 1999 and 2019 contributed to about 20 percent of the increase in corn and soybean yield gains during that period - an amount worth about $5 billion per year. The analysis, published this week in Environmental Research Letters, reveals that four key air pollutants are particularly damaging to crops, and accounted for an average loss of about 5 percent of corn and soybean production over the study period. The findings could help inform technology and policy changes to benefit American agriculture, and underscore the ...

The number of people who live past the age of 100 has been on the rise for decades, up to nearly half a million people worldwide. There are, however, far fewer "supercentenarians," people who live to age 110 or even longer. The oldest living person, Jeanne Calment of France, was 122 when she died in 1997; currently, the world's oldest person is 118-year-old Kane Tanaka of Japan. Such extreme longevity, according to new research by the University of Washington, likely will continue to rise slowly by the end of this century, and estimates show that a lifespan of 125 years, or even 130 years, is possible. "People are fascinated by the extremes of humanity, whether it's going to the moon, how fast someone can run in the Olympics, or even how long someone ...

In Canada, low-income hospital patients under palliative care are less likely to receive medical assistance in dying compared to those who are high income, according to a study published in British Medical Journal Open (BMJ Open). Medical assistance in dying (MAID) is legal and free under Medicare, Canada's universal health care system. Patients with low socioeconomic status (SES), however, generally tend to experience less access to medical care compared to their high SES counterparts. Eldar Shafir, professor of psychology and public affairs at the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs, along ...