The precise catalytic conversion of chemical bonds is a paramount goal in catalysis. Enzymes, as efficient biocatalysts, are well known for their high catalytic activity, selectivity, and substrate specificity under mild reaction conditions, which can be attributed to the synergistic catalysis of multiple active sites. Inspired by the catalytic mechanism of enzymes, the rational design of catalysts with multiple active sites to stabilize TS and accelerate the rate-determining step is a promising strategy for achieving high activity and selectivity. However, integrating multiple active sites into a single catalyst without interference during the catalytic process remains an enormous ...

Today marks the launch of The Transmitter, a new publication focused on helping neuroscientists stay current on the latest developments in the field and build new connections. Created by the team that brings Spectrum to autism researchers, The Transmitter will provide essential news, insights and resources across neuroscience disciplines and career stages. Spectrum will continue to publish news and perspectives on autism research as an anchor of The Transmitter. Like Spectrum, The Transmitter is an editorially independent publication of the Simons Foundation. “Neuroscience discoveries are rapidly shifting our understanding of ...

Uncontrolled hypertension, the leading preventable risk factor for cardiovascular disease and premature deaths worldwide, disproportionately affects low-income populations. Now, a new strategy that trains healthcare providers to deliver more comprehensive, team-based care has been found to significantly lower blood pressure in low-income patients compared to the “usual care” approach. The findings were reported by Tulane University researchers at this week’s American Heart Association Scientific Sessions in Philadelphia. Tulane researchers conducted an 18-month clinical trial with 1,272 hypertension patients at 36 Federally Qualified Health Centers ...

The majority of breast cancers start in the lining of a breast milk duct and, if they remain there, are very treatable. But once these cancers become invasive – breaking through a thin matrix around the duct, called the basement membrane, and spreading to the surrounding tissue – treatment becomes more challenging. In a recent paper, published on Nov. 13 in Nature Materials, researchers at Stanford revealed a novel physical mechanism that breast cancer cells use to break out and become invasive. They found that, in addition to established chemical methods of degrading the basement membrane, cancer ...

The production of ammonia for fertilisers – which has one of the largest carbon footprints among industrial processes – will soon be possible on farms using low-cost, low-energy and environmentally friendly technology. This is thanks to researchers at UNSW Sydney and their collaborators who have developed an innovative technique for sustainable ammonia production at scale. Up until now, the production of ammonia has relied on high-energy processes that leave a massive global carbon footprint – temperatures of more ...

American Geophysical Union 13 November 2023 AGU Release No. 23-42 For Immediate Release This press release and accompanying multimedia are available online at: https://news.agu.org/press-release/some-of-todays-earthquakes-may-be-aftershocks-from-quakes-in-the-1800s Some of today’s earthquakes may be aftershocks from quakes in the 1800s Aftershocks follow large earthquakes — sometimes for weeks, other times for decades. But in the U.S., some areas may be experiencing shocks from centuries-old events. AGU press contact: Liza Lester, +1 (202) 777-7494, news@agu.org (UTC-5 hours) Contact ...

A few decades ago, seismologists imaging the deep planet identified a thin layer, just over a few hundred kilometers thick. The origin of this layer, known as the E prime layer, has been a mystery — until now. An international team of researchers, including Arizona State University scientists Dan Shim, Taehyun Kim and Joseph O’Rourke of the School of Earth and Space Exploration, has revealed that water from the Earth's surface can penetrate deep into the planet, altering the composition of the outermost region of the metallic liquid core and creating a distinct, thin layer. Illustration of silica crystals coming out from the liquid metal of ...

Faster warming in the Arctic will be responsible for a global 2C temperature rise being reached eight years earlier than if the region was warming at the average global rate, according to a new modelling study led by UCL researchers. The Arctic is currently warming nearly four times faster than the global average rate. The new study, published in the journal Earth System Dynamics, aimed to estimate the impact of this faster warming on how quickly the global temperature thresholds of 1.5C and 2C, set down in the Paris Agreement, are likely to be breached. To do this, the research team created alternative ...

Surrey scientists are celebrating with colleagues around the world, after winning new funding for a ‘library of greening’ – a new database enabling towns and cities to learn from each other's success developing green spaces, waterways and other sustainability initiatives.    The RECLAIM Network Plus provides a one-stop-shop for towns and cities looking to mitigate the impacts of climate change and improve their resilience. It has over 500 members worldwide, offering information and support to implement projects such as ...

Investigators from the Antiphospholipid Syndrome Alliance for Clinical Trials and International Networking (APS ACTION) presented new research findings in antiphospholipid syndrome (APS) at the American College of Rheumatology (ACR) Convergence 2023, the ACR’s annual meeting. Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS), one of the leading centers in the United States providing care for adults and children with APS, is the lead coordinating center for APS ACTION, an international research network of 34 academic institutions dedicated to advancing the understanding and management of APS. APS ACTION conducts large, ...

A University of Texas at Arlington engineering researcher has received a NASA grant to use rotating detonation rocket engines (RDREs) for in-space propulsion to make them more efficient, compact and powerful. Liwei Zhang, an assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (MAE), will lead the $900,000 grant. “Detonation is very fast combustion. Inside an RDRE, detonation waves spin around in a circle at supersonic speeds. Compared to conventional engines that rely on regular combustion, an RDRE has a theoretically ...

A University of Texas at Arlington civil engineering researcher is determining what strategies are most effective at lessening flooding in coastal communities. Michelle Hummel, a civil engineering assistant professor, is using a $499,973 National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) grant to study the benefits and costs of flood-reduction strategies aimed at increasing coastal resilience to storms and sea-level rise. Hummel and her colleague, Kevin Befus of the University of Arkansas, will apply advanced ...

In a study published in Nature Astronomy, astronomers from New Jersey Institute of Technology’s Center for Solar-Terrestrial Research (NJIT-CSTR) have detailed radio observations of an extraordinary aurora-like display — occurring 40,000 km above a relatively dark and cold patch on the Sun, known as a sunspot. Researchers say the novel radio emission shares characteristics with the auroral radio emissions commonly seen in planetary magnetospheres such as those around Earth, Jupiter and Saturn, as well as certain low-mass stars. The discovery offers new insights into the origin of such intense solar radio bursts and potentially opens new avenues ...

FINDINGS An experimental computing system physically modeled after the biological brain “learned” to identify handwritten numbers with an overall accuracy of 93.4%. The key innovation in the experiment was a new training algorithm that gave the system continuous information about its success at the task in real time while it learned. The algorithm outperformed a conventional machine-learning approach in which training was performed after a batch of data has been processed, producing 91.4% accuracy. The researchers also showed that memory of past inputs stored in the system itself enhanced learning. In contrast, other ...

Intratumoral therapy – in which cancer drugs are injected directly into tumors – is a promising treatment option for solid cancers but has shown limited success in clinical trials due to an inability to precisely deliver the drug and because most immunotherapies quickly dissipate from the site of injection. A team of researchers from Mass General Brigham, in collaboration with colleagues at the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, has developed a gel delivery system that overcomes these challenges. The gel is injectable but solidifies upon delivery; contains an imaging agent for visualization under CT scan; and can hold a high ...

Cardiovascular diseases rank among the top causes of death across the world, and cardiac interventions are similarly very common. For example, cardiac catheter ablation procedures, which are used to treat arrythmias, number in several tens of thousands per year in the US alone. In these procedures, surgeons insert a thin, flexible tube called a catheter into the femoral vein in the leg and navigate their way up to the heart, where the problematic tissue is destroyed using cold or focused radiation. Even though cardiac catheter-based procedures are considered minimally invasive, the position ...

A team of engineers from the University of Illinois has published the first known study documenting the long-jumping motion of 3D-printed insect-scale robots. The new study, published in the journal Smart Materials and Structures, follows a previous publication that documented the same lab’s investigation of vertical jumping in insect-scale robots. The study is led by Professor Sameh Tawfick, an associate professor and Ralph A. Andersen Faculty Scholar in the Department of Mechanical Science and Engineering. His lab, the Kinetic Materials Research Group, studies the ...

University of Maryland researchers aiming to combat rising global temperatures have developed a new “cooling glass” that can turn down the heat indoors without electricity by drawing on the cold depths of space. The new technology, a microporous glass coating described in a paper published in the journal Science, can lower the temperature of the material beneath it by 3.5 degrees Celsius at noon, and has the potential to reduce a mid-rise apartment building’s yearly carbon emissions by 10%, according to the research team led by Distinguished University Professor Liangbing Hu in the Department of Materials ...

Optica, an international association in optics and photonics, recently announced the election of University of Oklahoma engineering professor Javier Jo, Ph.D., as a Fellow member.  Jo, a faculty member in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, was honored for his contributions to integrating optical imaging and artificial intelligence for biomedical applications. His research focuses on developing optical sensing and imaging technologies to understand pathophysiological mechanisms in human diseases and improve their clinical management. “Dr. Jo’s ...

From ChatGPT to DALL-E, deep learning artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms are being applied to an ever-growing range of fields. A new study from University of Toronto Engineering researchers, published in Nature Communications, suggests that one of the fundamental assumptions of deep learning models — that they require enormous amounts of training data — may not be as solid as once thought.    Professor Jason Hattrick-Simpers and his team are focused on the design of next-generation materials, from catalysts that convert captured carbon into fuels to non-stick surfaces that keep airplane wings ice-free.   One ...

Annals of Internal Medicine Tip Sheet @Annalsofim Below please find summaries of new articles that will be published in the next issue of Annals of Internal Medicine. The summaries are not intended to substitute for the full articles as a source of information. This information is under strict embargo and by taking it into possession, media representatives are committing to the terms of the embargo not only on their own behalf, but also on behalf of the organization they represent. ---------------------------- 1. Acupuncture may offer limited relief to patients with chronic hives   Abstract: https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M23-1043 Editorial: ...

Embargoed for release until 5:00 p.m. ET on Monday 13 November 2023  Annals of Internal Medicine Tip Sheet  @Annalsofim  Below please find summaries of new articles that will be published in the next issue of Annals of Internal Medicine. The summaries are not intended to substitute for the full articles as a source of information. This information is under strict embargo and by taking it into possession, media representatives are committing to the terms of the embargo not only on their own behalf, but also on behalf ...

A new study by investigators from Mass General Brigham found that one in five individuals taking Nirmatrelvir-ritonavir therapy, commonly known as Paxlovid, to treat severe symptoms of COVID-19, experienced a positive test result and shedding of live and potentially contagious virus following an initial recovery and negative test—a phenomenon known as virologic rebound. By contrast, people not taking Paxlovid only experienced rebound about 2 percent of the time. Results are published in Annals of Internal Medicine. “We conducted this study to address lingering questions about Paxlovid and virologic rebound in COVID-19 treatment,” said corresponding ...

JUPITER, Fla. — Slumbering among thousands of bacterial strains in a collection of natural specimens at The Herbert Wertheim UF Scripps Institute for Biomedical Innovation & Technology, several fragile vials held something unexpected, and possibly very useful. Writing in the journal Nature Chemical Biology, a team led by chemist Ben Shen, Ph.D., described discovery of two new enzymes, ones with uniquely useful properties that could help in the fight against human diseases including cancer. The discovery, published ...

New York, NY (November 13, 2023)—Researchers at the Mount Sinai Center for Transformative Disease Modeling have released a groundbreaking study identifying 4,749 key gene clusters, termed “prognostic modules,” that significantly influence the progression of 32 different types of cancer. The study, published in Genome Research, serves as a comprehensive resource and lays the foundation for the development of next-generation cancer treatments and diagnostic markers. Despite significant progress in cancer research, understanding the disease's genetic intricacies ...