Francis Crick Institute press release Under strict embargo: 16:00hrs BST 25 September 2023 Peer reviewed Observational study People Antiviral drug linked to SARS-CoV-2 mutations Researchers at the Francis Crick Institute, the University of Cambridge, Imperial College London, the University of Liverpool, the University of Cape Town and UKHSA have uncovered a link between an antiviral drug for COVID-19 infections called molnupiravir and a pattern of mutations in the SARS-CoV-2 virus.  Molnupiravir works by inducing mutations in the virus’s ...

The international study, published in Nature Human Behaviour, analysed millions of tweets by members of Congress over the last decade. Its findings showed both Republican and Democratic politicians were increasingly sharing their beliefs and opinions as well as evidence-based information. But among Republicans, their expression of honestly-held beliefs and opinions was strongly linked to less trustworthy information sources. Lead author Jana Lasser, a postdoctoral research fellow in computational social science at Graz University of Technology (TU Graz), said: “We wanted to find out what reasons and social changes contribute to people sharing ...

A new study shows unprecedented heat is likely to lead to the next mass extinction since the dinosaurs died out, eliminating nearly all mammals in some 250 million years time. The research, published today in Nature Geoscience and led by the University of Bristol, presents the first-ever supercomputer climate models of the distant future and demonstrates how climate extremes will dramatically intensify when the world’s continents eventually merge to form one hot, dry and largely uninhabitable supercontinent. The ...

New research, reported in Nature Ecology & Evolution, (25 September 2023) has for the first time validated at scale, one of the theories that has underpinned ecology for over half a century. In doing so, the findings raise further questions about whether models should be revised to capture human impacts on natural systems. Scientists working in the 50’s and 60’s developed theories to predict the ecological distribution of species.  These theories could be applied across a broad range of environments and variables such as food supply or temperature and when tested on a small scale they were found to be accurate. Amongst the earliest examples of these ...

A new objective examination of almost a quarter-of-a-century of ocean acidification research shows that, despite challenges, experts in the field can have confidence in their research. The University of Adelaide’s Professor Sean Connell from the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology unit led the study. “In our field, the marine science community was galvanised by the demonstration of how ocean acidification impairs shell-building life, which has profound implications for life on the planet,” ...

OXFORD - 25/09/2023 - A new study in Nature Sustainability - published today by researchers from Oxford University, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, the Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change, the European Institute on Economics and the Environment and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine - brings attention to a new relevant dimension of deprivation which is clearly emerging in a warming world: cooling poverty. The study highlights the multidimensional nature of cooling poverty and introduces the new concept of systemic cooling ...

In a warming Pacific Northwest, summers are getting hotter and winters less cold, but the atmospheric patterns that influence the weather aren’t necessarily expected to become stronger or more frequent by the end of the century, according to a new Portland State University study. That means that in an overall warmer climate, models suggest we'll have the same variety of atmospheric patterns as we have now but the weather we experience from them will be warmer and, in some cases, wetter. Graham Taylor, a Ph.D. student in PSU’s ...

Boosting virtual screening with machine learning allowed for a 10-fold time reduction in the processing of 1.56 billion drug-like molecules. Researchers from the University of Eastern Finland teamed up with industry and supercomputers to carry out one of the world’s largest virtual drug screens. In their efforts to find novel drug molecules, researchers often rely on fast computer-aided screening of large compound libraries to identify agents that can block a drug target. Such a target can, for instance, be an enzyme that enables a bacterium to withstand ...

Research is being conducted around the world to confine high-temperature plasma in a magnetic field to realize nuclear fusion power generation. The most important issue is maintaining stable high-temperature plasma for a long time, which involves many challenges. The plasma confined by a magnetic field has a temperature gradient from the low-temperature periphery to the high-temperature center, where the fusion reaction takes place, with the temperature at the center being over 100 million degrees Celsius and that at the periphery being several hundred ...

It is impossible to imagine modern agriculture without plastics. 12 million tonnes are used every year. But what about the consequences for the environment? An international team of authors led by Thilo Hofmann from the Division of Environmental Geosciences at the University of Vienna addresses this question in a recent study in Nature Communication Earth and Environment. The research shows the benefits and risks of using plastics in agriculture, and identifies solutions that ensure their sustainable use.  Once celebrated as a symbol of ...

Kyoto, Japan -- Not all yeasts are created equally. Unlike the yeast used by bakers and beer brewers for converting sugars to carbon dioxide and fermentation, oleaginous yeasts convert sugars from inedible biomass into fats and oils.  A research group jointly led by Kyoto University and Ryukoku University has discovered two new species of oil-forming yeast in the soil of Shiga Prefecture. Their study also examines the relationship between the prefecture's diverse climate and microbial ecology. "We are gauging the potential benefits of applying oleaginous yeast to sustainable oil and fat production through isolation technology, particularly in reducing ...

SAN ANTONIO — Sept. 25, 2023 —Southwest Research Institute and The University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) are collaborating to study the “felt heat” of San Antonio’s historic West Side. The prevalence of paved surfaces creates an environment that feels considerably hotter than the rest of the city. The work, led by Principal Scientist Dr. Stuart Stothoff of SwRI’s Chemistry and Chemical Engineering Division and Dr. Esteban Lopez Ochoa of the Margie and Bill Klesse College of ...

Significant quantities of microplastic particles are being trapped in riverbed sediments or carried through the air along major river systems, a new study has shown. The research, conducted along the length of the Ganges River in South Asia, found on average about 41 microplastic particles per square metre per day settled from the atmosphere. . In addition, analysis by scientists found 57 particles per kilogram on average in sediment from the riverbed as well as one particle in every 20 litres of ...

Highlights: Ecological disturbances like wildfires disrupt microbial communities. Researchers studied microbial succession for a year in a field, following a fire. They found that dispersal played a pivotal role in re-establishing surface-level communities.  Dispersal from wind or rain explained the return of most fungal species. Bacterial communities were influenced by both air and deeper bulk soil.    Washington, D.C. — The disruption brought by wildfires reaches everything that lives in or near a burning field or forest—including microbes. A better understanding ...

WASHINGTON – Companies that reveal their struggles to increase racial diversity in their workforces are perceived as more trustworthy and committed to diversity than companies that remain silent, according to research published by the American Psychological Association.   “We suspect that many companies fear that revealing lagging diversity numbers will undermine their reputation and credibility, so they don’t disclose that information, but that strategy may be misplaced,” said lead researcher Evan ...

HOUSTON, September 25, 2023 – In Houston, people who live south of downtown in the Sunnyside neighborhood can expect to live an average of 21 years less than those who live just nine miles away in the more affluent Bellaire community[1]. This life expectancy gap is nearly equivalent to the difference in life expectancy between low-income and high-income countries. The science tells us that physical conditions in which people live explain in part why some are healthier than others[2]. To sustainably remove the social and economic barriers preventing access to equitable health for everyone ...

The effects of in-stream video advertising on ad information encoding have long remained a mystery. A recent study, led by Professor Sung-Phil Kim and his research team in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at UNIST sheds light on this subject. By integrating the negative emotion–memory model (NEMM) and the limited capacity model of motivated–mediated message processing (LC4MP), researchers investigated how advertising content is encoded within the context of in-stream video advertising. The ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – In this era of extreme partisanship, the people who express the most negativity in their political choices are those we may least expect: independents.   In a new paper, researchers conducted five studies in which they found that independents were more likely than partisans to frame their position in terms of opposition to one party, candidate, message or option rather than in support of the other choice.   And it’s not just in politics: One study found that “independents” ...

Loma Linda University (LLU) researchers found microbial contamination in common sources of drinking water in the Eastern Coachella Valley, including soda fountains at fast-food restaurants. Their findings revealed that 41% of the water samples researchers collected from these soda fountains contained total coliforms, an indicator of water contamination. Molecular analysis of the water samples revealed traces of genetic material found in bacteria, including Salmonella spp (Salmonella), Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and Escherichia coli (E. coli). Given these findings, ...

Endocytosis is an important cellular process through which cells internalize substances such as water and nutrients. These substances are first transported as cargo to the initial sorting compartment (endosomes) before being degraded (endo-lysosomal pathway) or recycled (recycling pathway of the plasma membrane). The trans-Golgi network (TGN), which lies adjacent to the Golgi apparatus, is a key mediator of this intracellular transport. Endocytosis mediates the infection of harmful pathogens such as bacteria and virus, and its disruption may lead to several diseases. It is, ...

[Rome, 25 September] - The cacao sector has long grappled with challenges stemming from the absence of commonly agreed standardised protocols for evaluating cacao quality and flavour, as well as the lack of a common language to describe the sensory experience of cacao. These issues have impeded effective communication and understanding between producers and buyers, disproportionately affecting farmers in developing countries who strive to cultivate and sell superior quality cacao deserving of higher prices. Today, Cacao of Excellence is proud to unveil a groundbreaking initiative aimed at addressing these long-standing issues — the Guide for the Assessment of Cacao Quality and Flavour. ...

GENETIC CODE OF RARE KIDNEY CANCER CRACKED The genetic code of a rare form of kidney cancer, called reninoma, has been studied for the first time. In the new paper, published today (25th September) in Nature Communications, researchers at the Wellcome Sanger Institute, Great Ormond Street Hospital and The Royal Free Hospital also revealed a new drug target that could serve as an alternative treatment if surgery is not recommended.  There are around 100 cases of reninoma reported to date worldwide (1), and it is amongst the rarest of tumours in humans. Although it can usually be cured with surgery, ...

Tiny waterfleas could play a pivotal role in removing persistent chemical pollutants from wastewater – making it safe to use in factories, farms and homes, a new study reveals. Rapid urbanisation, population growth, unsustainable food production and climate change have put unprecedented pressure on water resources, culminating in a global water crisis. The sustainable management and reuse of water resources is paramount for ensuring societal, economic, and environmental well-being. Persistent chemical pollutants, originating from domestic and industrial processes, ...

Antibiotic resistant bacteria are a threat to human lives, and yet the development of new drugs to treat bacterial infections is slow. A group of proven drugs used in cancer treatment for decades could possibly be the solution. A new class of antibiotics is now being developed by researchers at Linköping University, Sweden. Many drugs and drug candidates have proven highly effective in killing bacteria or tumour cells. The problem is that they also harm the patient, and they are therefore used very sparingly or not at all. When used to treat for instance cancer, they are delivered directly into the blood and spread throughout the body. ...

New research has uncovered elevated rates of high blood sugar, or hyperglycemia, among patients with breast cancer who are treated with the oral medication alpelisib. The results are published by Wiley online in CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society. Alpelisib targets the phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K) protein that is involved in cell growth and when mutated can contribute to cancer. In 2019, the US Food and Drug Administration approved the use of this drug in combination with fulvestrant, ...