Art Garfunkel once described his legendary musical chemistry with Paul Simon, "We meet somewhere in the air through the vocal cords ... ." But a new study of duetting songbirds from Ecuador, the plain-tail wren (Pheugopedius euophrys), has offered another tune explaining the mysterious connection between successful performing duos. It's a link of their minds, and it happens, in fact, as each singer mutes the brain of the other as they coordinate their duets. In a study published May 31 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a team of researchers studying brain ...

Three groups (Dr. James Birchler's group from University of Missouri, Dr. Jan Barto's group from Institute of Experimental Botany of the Czech Academy of Sciences and Dr. HAN Fangpu's group from the Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences) recently reported a reference sequence for the supernumerary B chromosome in maize in a study published online in PNAS (doi:10.1073/pnas.2104254118). Supernumerary B chromosomes persist in thousands of plant and animal genomes despite being nonessential. They are maintained in populations by mechanisms of "drive" that make them inherited at higher than typical Mendelian rates. Key properties such as its origin, evolution, and the molecular mechanism for its accumulation in ...

While it is widely accepted that climate change drove the evolution of our species in Africa, the exact character of that climate change and its impacts are not well understood. Glacial-interglacial cycles strongly impact patterns of climate change in many parts of the world, and were also assumed to regulate environmental changes in Africa during the critical period of human evolution over the last ~1 million years. The ecosystem changes driven by these glacial cycles are thought to have stimulated the evolution and dispersal of early humans. A paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS) this week challenges this view. Dr. Kaboth-Bahr ...

The Sahara has not always been covered by only sand and rocks. During the period from 14,500 to 5,000 years ago large areas of North Africa were more heavily populated, and where there is desert today the land was green with vegetation. This is evidenced by various sites with rock paintings showing not only giraffes and crocodiles, but even illustrating people swimming in the "Cave of Swimmers". This period is known as the Green Sahara or African Humid Period. Until now, researchers have assumed that the necessary rain was brought from the tropics through an enhanced summer monsoon. The northward shift of the monsoon was attributed to rotation of the Earth's tilted axis that produces higher levels of ...

An emotion regulation strategy known as cognitive reappraisal helped reduce the typically heightened and habitual attention to drug-related cues and contexts in cocaine-addicted individuals, a study by Mount Sinai researchers has found. In a paper published in PNAS, the team suggested that this form of habit disruption, mediated by the prefrontal cortex (PFC) of the brain, could play an important role in reducing the compulsive drug-seeking behavior and relapse that are the hallmarks, and long-standing challenges, of addiction. "Relapse in addiction is often precipitated by heightened attention-bias to drug-related cues, which could consist of sights, smells, ...

You may think a little white lie about a bad haircut is strictly for your friend's benefit, but your brain activity says otherwise. Distinct activity patterns in the prefrontal cortex reveal when a white lie has selfish motives, according to new research published in JNeurosci. White lies -- formally called Pareto lies -- can benefit both parties, but their true motives are encoded by the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC). This brain region computes the value of different social behaviors, with some subregions focusing on internal motivations and others on external ones. Kim and Kim predicted activity patterns in these subregions could elucidate the true motive behind white lies. The research team deployed a stand in for white lies, having participants tell lies to earn a reward ...

By including multi-ethnic participants, a largescale genetic study has identified more regions of the genome linked to type 2 diabetes-related traits than if the research had been conducted in Europeans alone. The international MAGIC collaboration, made up of more than 400 global academics, conducted a genome-wide association meta-analysis led by the University of Exeter. Now published in Nature Genetics, their findings demonstrate that expanding research into different ancestries yields more and better results, as well as ultimately benefitting global patient care. Up to now, nearly 87 per cent of ...

Artificial intelligence promises to be a powerful tool for improving the speed and accuracy of medical decision-making to improve patient outcomes. From diagnosing disease, to personalizing treatment, to predicting complications from surgery, AI could become as integral to patient care in the future as imaging and laboratory tests are today. But as University of Washington researchers discovered, AI models -- like humans -- have a tendency to look for shortcuts. In the case of AI-assisted disease detection, these shortcuts could lead to diagnostic errors if deployed in clinical settings. In a new paper published May 31 in Nature Machine Intelligence, ...

The Water Oxidation Reaction (WOR) is one of the most important reactions on the planet since it is the source of nearly all the atmosphere's oxygen. Understanding its intricacies can hold the key to improve the efficiency of the reaction. Unfortunately, the reaction's mechanisms are complex and the intermediates highly unstable, thus making their isolation and characterisation extremely challenging. To overcome this, scientists are using molecular catalysts as models to understand the fundamental aspects of water oxidation - particularly the oxygen-oxygen bond-forming reaction. For the first time, scientists in ICIQ's ...

Between 1991 and 2018, more than a third of all deaths in which heat played a role were attributable to human-induced global warming, according to a new article in Nature Climate Change. The study, the largest of its kind, was led by the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) and the University of Bern within the Multi-Country Multi-City (MCC) Collaborative Research Network. Using data from 732 locations in 43 countries around the world it shows for the first time the actual contribution of man-made climate change in increasing mortality risks due to heat. Overall, ...

In a study of 11 medical-mystery patients, an international team of researchers led by scientists at the National Institutes of Health and the Uniformed Services University (USU) discovered a new and unique form of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Unlike most cases of ALS, the disease began attacking these patients during childhood, worsened more slowly than usual, and was linked to a gene, called SPTLC1, that is part of the body's fat production system. Preliminary results suggested that genetically silencing SPTLC1 activity would be an effective strategy for combating this type of ALS. "ALS is a paralyzing ...

LOS ANGELES (May 31, 2021) -- Today The Lundquist Institute announced that its investigators contributed data from several studies, including data on Hispanics, African-Americans and East Asians, to the international MAGIC collaboration, composed of more than 400 global academics, who conducted a genome-wide association meta-analysis led by the University of Exeter. Now published in Nature Genetics, their findings demonstrate that expanding research into different ancestries yields more and better results, as well as ultimately benefitting global patient care. Up to now nearly 87 percent of genomic research of this type has been conducted in Europeans. ...

Pollution from manufacturing is now widespread, affecting all regions in the world, with serious ecological, economic, and political consequences. Heightened public concern and scrutiny have led to numerous governments considering policies that aim to lower pollution and improve environmental qualities. Inter-governmental agreements such as the Paris Agreement and the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals all focus on lowering emissions of pollution. Specifically, they aim to achieve a "zero-emission society," which means that pollution is cleaned up as it is produced, while also reducing pollution (This idea of dealing with pollution is referred to as the "kindergarten rule.") Of course, any efforts to achieve this ...

The use of many chemical fumigants in agriculture have been demonstrated to be harmful to human health and the environment and therefore banned from use. Now, in an effort to reduce waste from the agricultural industry and reduce the amounts of harmful chemicals used, researchers have investigated using organic byproducts from beer production and farming as a potential method to disinfest soils, preserve healthy soil microorganisms and increase crop yields. In this study published to Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems, researchers from the Neiker Basque Institute for Agricultural Research and Development in Spain investigated using agricultural by-products rapeseed cake and beer bagasse (spent beer grains), along with fresh cow manure as two organic biodisinfestation ...

Oncotarget published "Activation of plasmacytoid dendritic cells promotes AML-cell fratricide" which reported that Interferons have been previously shown to aid in the clearance of AML cells. Type I interferons are produced primarily by plasmacytoid dendritic cells. However, these cells exist in a quiescent state in AML. In addition, the authors showed increased expression of the immune-stimulatory receptor CD40. Then they next tested whether IFNβ would influence antibody-mediated fratricide among AML cells, as our recent work showed that AML cells could undergo cell-to cell killing in the presence of the CD38 antibody daratumumab. These Oncotarget findings suggest that the tolerogenic phenotype ...

Oncotarget published "A higher De Ritis ratio (AST/ALT) is a risk factor for progression in high-risk non-muscle invasive bladder cancer" which reported that a recent study revealed that a high De Ritis ratio was a risk factor in some solid malignancies. This Oncotarget study examined the importance of the De Ritis ratio as a prognostic marker in high-risk NMIBC. This Oncotarget study examined the importance of the De Ritis ratio as a prognostic marker in high-risk NMIBC Among these patients, 32 patients developed recurrent disease and 15 patients showed progression. A multivariate analysis revealed that non-BCG treatment was an independent risk factor ...

Oncotarget published "Piperlongumine promotes death of retinoblastoma cancer cells" which reported that while retinoblastoma initiation is triggered by the inactivation of both alleles of the retinoblastoma tumor suppressor gene in the developing retina, tumor progression requires additional epigenetic changes, retinoblastoma genomes being quite stable. In this report, the authors analyzed the pro-death effect of piperlongumine, a natural compound isolated from Piper longum L., on two human retinoblastoma cell lines, WERI-Rb and Y79. The effects of PL on cell proliferation, cell death and cell cycle were investigated. PL effectively inhibited cell growth, impacted ...

Gender roles absorbed at an early age seem to have shaped today's youth regarding their involvement in politics, in line with traditional stereotypes, concludes a new study, conducted amongst adolescents and young adults aged between 15 and 30 in Italy, within the Horizon 2020 project: "CATCH-EyoU. Processes in Youth's Construction of Active EU Citizenship". In their research article, published in the peer-reviewed, open-access scientific journal Social Psychological Bulletin, the research team from the University of Bologna report that it is young males that would more often engage directly with politics, like enrolling in a political party, acting to influence government policy, contacting a politician or taking part in a protest. On ...

Debates over women's health have long been contentious, but have also resulted in significant improvements in areas like equitable access to health care and survivorship. But the overall picture remains far from perfect. For example, the United States still has the highest rate of maternal death among high-income countries, particularly among African American women. As the United States Supreme Court prepares to hear a Mississippi abortion case challenging the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, some experts are questioning whether women's health may be reversing course. Cynthia A. Stuenkel, MD, clinical professor ...

Tokyo, Japan - Researchers from Tokyo Metropolitan University have enhanced "super-resolution" machine learning techniques to study phase transitions. They identified key features of how large arrays of interacting "particles" behave at different temperatures by simulating tiny arrays before using a convolutional neural network to generate a good estimate of what a larger array would look like using "correlation" configurations. The massive saving in computational cost may realize unique ways of understanding how materials behave. We are surrounded by different states or "phases" of matter i.e. gases, liquids, and solids. The study of phase transitions, how one phase transforms into another, lies at the heart of our understanding of matter in the universe, and remains a hot topic ...

Highlight Among individuals with healthy kidneys, those with more frequent depressive symptoms were more likely to show signs of rapid kidney function decline over a median follow-up of 4 years. Washington, DC (May 28, 2021) -- In a study of adults with normal kidney function, those who had frequent depressive symptoms were more likely to later experience a rapid decline in kidney function. The study will appear in an upcoming issue of CJASN. Depression is a common condition in middle-aged and older adults, and it can contribute to a variety of mental and physical problems. Previous research has found a link between depressive symptoms and rapid kidney function decline in patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD). To look ...

In 2015, nearly half of Hawai?i's coral reefs were affected by the most severe bleaching event to date. Coral bleaching occurs when warmer-than-normal ocean temperatures prompt corals to expel the algae that normally live inside them and on which the corals rely for food. Bleaching events are dismaying, but corals can sometimes recover, while others resist bleaching altogether. In a new study in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers led by Katie Barott of the University of Pennsylvania found that these battle-tested, resilient corals could thrive, even when transplanted to a different environment and subjected to additional heat stress. The findings offer hope that hardy corals could ...

Boulder, Colo., USA: The Geological Society of America regularly publishes articles online ahead of print. For April, GSA Bulletin topics include multiple articles about the dynamics of China and Tibet; new insights into the Chicxulub impact structure; and the dynamic topography of the Cordilleran foreland basin. You can find these articles at https://bulletin.geoscienceworld.org/content/early/recent . Tectonic and eustatic control of Mesaverde Group (Campanian-Maastrichtian) architecture, Wyoming-Utah-Colorado region, USA Keith P. Minor; Ronald J. Steel; Cornel Olariu Abstract: We describe and analyze the depositional history and stratigraphic architecture of the Campanian and Maastrichtian ...

WACO, Texas (May 28, 2021) - About 36 million people have blindness including 1 million children. Additionally, 216 million people experience moderate to severe visual impairment. However, STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) education maintains a reliance on three-dimensional imagery for education. Most of this imagery is inaccessible to students with blindness. A breakthrough study by Bryan Shaw, Ph.D., professor of chemistry and biochemistry at Baylor University, aims to make science more accessible to people who are blind or visually impaired through small, candy-like models. The ...

Five researchers shed new light on a key argument to reduce greenhouse gases (GHG): they provided the first economic analysis of conversion factors of other GHG like methane into their CO2 equivalent in overshoot scenarios. Although the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) considers settling for one value of reference (known as "Common Metric") to make this conversion among the Paris Agreement, the models presented here show the economic advantage of flexibility between various factors of conversion. "A key notion in the UNFCCC is to reduce GHG emissions in the least costly way so as to ensure global benefits" highlights Katsumasa Tanaka, primary author of the Science Advances study. The research provides series of dynamic variations of ...