SAN FRANCISCO —The Public Library of Science (PLOS) is pleased to announce that PLOS Complex Systems and PLOS Mental Health are now open for submissions. Both journals have a strong community of editors who will represent the full diversity of the research communities we aim to serve. PLOS Mental Health is an inclusive journal led by Editors-in-Chief Charlene Sunkel and Rochelle Burgess, working alongside staff Executive Editor Karli Montague-Cardoso and in collaboration with a diverse Editorial Board. The journal is seeking research that addresses challenges and gaps in the field of mental health research, ...

In the 1980s, geophysicists made a startling discovery: two continent-sized blobs of unusual material were found deep near the center of the Earth, one beneath the African continent and one beneath the Pacific Ocean. Each blob is twice the size of the Moon and likely composed of different proportions of elements than the mantle surrounding it. Where did these strange blobs—formally known as large low-velocity provinces (LLVPs)—come from? A new study led by Caltech researchers suggests that they are remnants of an ancient planet that violently collided with Earth billions of years ago in the same giant impact that created ...

Optical tweezers manipulate tiny things like cells and nanoparticles using lasers. While they might sound like tractor beams from science fiction, the fact is their development garnered scientists a Nobel Prize in 2018.  Scientists have now used supercomputers to make optical tweezers safer to use on living cells with applications to cancer therapy, environmental monitoring, and more. “We believe our research is one significant step closer towards the industrialization of optical tweezers in biological applications, specifically in both selective cellular surgery and targeted drug delivery,” ...

COLUMBIA, Mo. -- The rate of opioid use among pregnant women in the United States quadrupled between 1999 and 2014 and continues to rise — an alarming trend that researchers from the University of Missouri and University of Iowa say has exposed the stigma felt by opioid-dependent mothers and how their shame has negatively impacted the health care received by their infants. Jamie Morton led a study, which was a metasynthesis of existing literature on the topic, as a doctoral student at the MU Sinclair School of Nursing. She said the findings can help ensure health care providers, family ...

Exploring Arctic nature can be difficult. Harsh conditions and great distances are significant challenges when researchers want to coax secrets out of nature.   However, a research project, led by Greenlandic and Danish researchers, has now succeeded in describing a new type of ringed seal that lives in the Icefjord near Ilulissat in West Greenland; a unique natural area on the UNESCO World Heritage List.   The results have just been published in the renowned scientific journal Molecular Ecology.   A small population Over ...

WASHINGTON  –  The U.S. Naval Research Laboratory’s Melanized Microbes for Multiple Uses in Space Project, or MELSP, will use the International Space Station (ISS) to search for production of melanin variants and other useful biomaterials that can have applications both on Earth and in space. The mission is scheduled to launch in early November 2023.   Melanin is described as a group of biopolymers responsible for various biological functions, including pigmentation of skin, hair, and iris of the eyes, which helps protect body ...

New research combining computer modeling and experiments with macaques shows the body’s immune system helps control human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infections largely by suppressing viral production in already infected cells while also killing viral infected cells, but only within a narrow time window at the start of a cell’s infection. “To eliminate HIV, we have to understand how the immune system attempts to control the infection,” said Ruy M. Ribeiro, a theoretical biologist at Los Alamos National Laboratory who led the development of the model ...

Researchers have genetically engineered the first mice that get a human-like form of COVID-19, according to a study published online November 1 in Nature. Led by researchers from NYU Grossman School of Medicine, the new work created lab mice with human genetic material for ACE2 – a protein snagged by the pandemic virus so it can attach to human cells as part of the infection. The mice with this genetic change developed symptoms similar to young humans infected with the virus causing COVID-19, instead of dying ...

PHILADELPHIA (November 1, 2023) – Many people overlook the short- and long-term costs of financial caregiving, a growing problem that financial advisors and employers can help address, according to a new report by the TIAA Institute and the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing (Penn Nursing). One in five adults now provide uncompensated care to loved ones with health problems, and the report provides a comprehensive compilation of insights and research that underscores how the caregivers face a ...

Researchers at Baylor College of Medicine and collaborating institutions working with human intestinal organoids, also called mini guts, have shed new light on the potential causes of Cronkhite-Canada syndrome, a rare condition characterized by abundant non-cancerous growths or polyps in the intestine and other symptoms such as hair and nail loss and changes in skin pigmentation. Published in The Journal of Clinical Investigation, the study is the first to show a connection between high polyp proliferation and increased levels of serotonin produced by the intestinal epithelium. The findings suggest a potential new approach to treat this disease with serotonin ...

For centuries, naturalists have puzzled over what might constitute the head of a sea star, commonly called a “starfish.” When looking at a worm, or a fish, it’s clear which end is the head and which is the tail. But with their five identical arms — any of which can take the lead in propelling sea stars across the seabed — it’s been anybody’s guess how to determine the front end of the organism from the back. This unusual body plan has led many to conclude that sea stars perhaps don’t have a head at all. But ...

EMBARGOED: Not for Release Until 01 November 2023 at 16:00 (London time) The bodies of starfish and other echinoderms are more like heads, according to new research involving the University of Southampton. The research, published today [1 November] in Nature, helps to answer the mystery of how these creatures evolved their distinctive star-shaped body, which has long puzzled scientists. Echinoderms are a group of animals that includes starfish (or sea stars), sea urchins, and sand dollars. They have a unique ‘fivefold symmetric’ body plan, which means ...

(Memphis, Tenn – November 1, 2023) Neurons talk to each other using chemical signals called neurotransmitters. Scientists at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital have drawn on structural biology expertise to determine structures of vesicular monoamine transporter 2 (VMAT2), a key component of neuronal communication. By visualizing VMAT2 in different states, scientists now better understand how it functions and how the different shapes the protein takes influence drug binding — critical information for ...

An interdisciplinary international research team has recently discovered that a massive anomaly deep within the Earth’s interior may be a remnant of the collision about 4.5 billion years ago that formed the Moon. This research offers important new insights not only into Earth’s internal structure but also its long-term evolution and the formation of the inner solar system. The study, which relied on computational fluid dynamics methods pioneered by Prof. DENG Hongping of the Shanghai Astronomical Observatory (SHAO) of ...

If you put a hat on a starfish, where would you put it? On the center of the starfish? Or on the point of an arm and, if so, which one? The question is silly, but it gets at serious questions in the fields of zoology and developmental biology that have perplexed veteran scientists and schoolchildren in introductory biology classes alike: Where is the head on a starfish? And how does their body layout relate to ours? Now, a new Stanford study that used genetic and molecular tools to map out the body regions of starfish – by creating a 3D atlas of their gene ...

In a study published in Nature, researchers from the Hefei Institutes of Physical Science (HFIPS) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences have proposed a new and promising method of fabricating homogenized perovskite films for solar cells. The process involves inhibiting phase segregation caused by internal cation inhomogeneity to increase conversion efficiency to 26.1%, thus tying the existing record. Their work was also featured as a Nature Editor’s Pick. For solar cells, an important alternative energy ...

In a study published in Nature, researchers from the Hefei Institutes of Physical Science (HFIPS) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences have proposed a new and promising method of fabricating homogenized perovskite films for solar cells. The process involves inhibiting phase segregation caused by internal cation inhomogeneity to increase conversion efficiency to 26.1%, thus tying the existing record. Their work was also featured as a Nature Editor's Pick. For solar cells, an important alternative energy source, the pursuit of higher conversion efficiency and the attempt to keep the cells table as long as possible are core issues that scientists and engineers all over the world are ...

A new analysis of the bones and muscles in ancient fish gives new clues about how the shoulder evolved in animals – including us. The shoulder girdle – the configuration of bones and muscles that in humans support the movement of the arms – is a classic example of an evolutionary ‘novelty’. This is where a new anatomical feature appears without any obvious precursors; where there is no smoking gun of which feature clearly led to another. The new research, which draws together a range of evolutionary investigation techniques including fossils, ...

In a recent publication in the journal Nature, researchers from the Institute of Basic Science (IBS) in South Korea have made significant strides in biomaterial technology and rehabilitation medicine. They've developed a novel approach to healing muscle injury by employing “injectable tissue prosthesis” in the form of conductive hydrogels and combining it with a robot-assisted rehabilitation system. Let’s imagine you are swimming in the ocean. A giant shark approaches and bites a huge ...

Atrial fibrillation, heart failure and stroke – hypertrophic cardiomyopathy can lead to many serious health conditions and is a major cause of sudden cardiac death in people younger than 35. „The heart muscle is a central engine of the human body. Of course, it is easier to fix a broken engine, if you know how it is built and how it functions”, says Stefan Raunser. “At the beginning of our muscle research we have successfully visualized the structure of the essential muscle building blocks and how they interact using electron cryo-microscopy. However, these were static images of proteins taken out of the living cell. They only tell us little ...

Peptides are biomolecules formed when two or more amino acids that perform key functions in the human organism, such as hormones, neurotransmitters, painkillers and antibiotics, bind together. For this reason, they are much studied and used by the pharmaceutical industry, for example. A study conducted by scientists in the Department of Biophysics at the Federal University of São Paulo's Medical School (EPM-UNIFESP) in Brazil identified significant changes in the physicochemical properties of peptides during a spontaneous process of chemical change called pyroglutamination.  Pyroglutamination is a modification resulting from spontaneous conversion ...

Amsterdam, November 1, 2023 – The Korean Society for Molecular and Cellular Biology (KSMCB), one of the largest and most prominent academic societies in the field of life sciences in Korea, and Elsevier, a leader in information and analytics for customers across the global research and health ecosystems, are pleased to announce a new partnership to publish Molecules and Cells, the flagship journal of KSMCB. This English-language publication will be hosted on Elsevier’s industry-leading online platform of peer-reviewed literature, ScienceDirect, beginning January 1, 2024. Continuing ...

In nature, swarms can accomplish amazing things. Schools of fish can more efficiently find food and migrate. Flocks of birds can confuse predators. Bees, ants, and termites can work together to feed, defend and build their colonies.  Robotics researchers have long been trying to harness this ability to explore environments, capture objects and build structures using robot swarms. “But the problem of how do we efficiently control all those robots is still unsolved,” says David Saldaña, an assistant professor ...

The Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) is pleased to announce the appointment of Dr. Jennifer Lotz as the Director of the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI). Dr. Lotz will begin her five-year appointment as STScI Director starting February 12, 2024. Previously, Dr. Lotz was the Director of the International Gemini Observatory which is operated by NSF’s NOIRLab, and managed by AURA. “Dr. Lotz is a science driven, accomplished leader,” said Dr. Matt Mountain, President of AURA, which manages STScI on behalf of NASA. “Jen’s passion for the Institute’s mission, to enable the ...

Sperm can modulate their energetics by regulating their flagellar waveform—how the sperm oscillate their tails—in order to adapt to varying fluid environments, potentially optimizing their motility and navigation within the reproductive tract. This research is reported in a study publishing November 1 in the journal Cell Reports Physical Science. “Our approach allowed us to investigate how variations in viscosity and shear rates affect sperm behavior at the single-cell level, which was not possible using traditional methods,” says senior study author Reza Nosrati of Monash University. Biochemical and biophysical cues within the reproductive ...