The Saker Falcon (Falco cherrug) is a bird of prey living in plains and forest-steppes in the West and semi-desert montane plateaus and cliffs in the East. The majority of its Central and Eastern European population is migratory and spends winters in the Mediterranean, the Near East and East Africa. With its global population estimated at 6,100-14,900 breeding pairs, the species is considered endangered according to the IUCN Red List. In Bulgaria, the Saker Falcon, considered extinct as a breeding species since the early 2000s, was recovered in 2018 with the discovery of the first active nest from its new history in Bulgaria. The nest is built by two birds that were reintroduced back in 2015 as part of the first ever Saker Falcon reintroduction programme. The results of the 5-year programme ...

Northern Chile is an ideal natural laboratory to study the origin of earthquakes. Here, the Pacific Nazca plate slides underneath the South American continental plate with a speed of about 65 millimetres per year. This process, known as subduction, creates strain between the two plates and scientists thus expected a mega-earthquake here sooner or later, like the last one in 1877. But although northern Chile is one of the focal points of global earthquake research, until now there was no comprehensive data set on the structure of the marine subsurface - until nature itself stepped in to help. On 1 April 2014, a segment of the subduction zone ...

St. Petersburg, like other cities in the Russian Federation, is actively participating in the establishment of the "Smart City" program, which will provide new services for residents of the megalopolis, increasing the safety of citizens. Digital services are essential for such a system. Due to the Internet of Things (IoT) systems, the environment can adapt to the needs of humanity on its own accord. Cybersecurity threats are especially dangerous for such infrastructure. Specialists from Peter the Great St.Petersburg Polytechnic University (SPbPU) developed the methodology for assessing cyber risks in intelligent systems of a Smart City. The developed methodology was tested on the "smart crossroads" ...

A reliable projection of extreme El Niño frequency change in future warmer climate is critical to managing socio-economic activities and human health, strategic policy decisions, environmental and ecosystem managements, and disaster mitigations in many parts of the world. Unfortunately, long-standing common biases in CMIP5 models, despite enormous efforts on the numerical model development over the past decades, make it hard to achieve a reliable projection of the extreme El Niño frequency change in the future. While increasing attentions have been paid to estimate possible impacts of models' biases, it is not yet fully understood whether and how much models' common biases would impact the projection ...

Using Zebrafish, researchers from the School of Neurobiology, Biochemistry and Biophysics at the Faculty of Life Sciences of Tel Aviv University have developed an advanced simulation of a key process in the brain - the activation of the stem cells responsible for generating neurons. The simulation revealed that the process, which until today was considered to be random, is in fact coordinated, thereby ensuring the normal production of neurons in the brain. According to the researchers, their findings add another layer of understanding to brain development, ...

Ishikawa, Japan - History tells us that games are an inseparable facet of humanity, and mainly for good reasons. Advocates of video games laud their pros: they help develop problem-solving skills, socialize, relieve stress, and exercise the mind and body--all at the same time! However, games also have a dark side: the potential for addiction. The explosive growth of the video game industry has spawned all sorts of games targeting different groups of people. This includes digital adaptations of popular board games like chess, but also extends to gambling-type games like online casinos and betting on ...

According to the British Heart Foundation, heart and circulatory diseases cause more than a quarter (27 per cent) of all deaths in the UK, which equates to more than 160,000 deaths each year - or one death every three minutes. The research, published in the top science journal Advanced Science, found that injection of the trace mineral manganese could enhanced MRI scans so that they provided more accurate details of heart function than traditional MRI methods. These findings, if confirmed in human subjects, could have major implications for the treatment of heart attack patients. The findings could also be of great use in the preclinical evaluation of treatments for patients who suffer from cardiac ischemia - a reduction in blood supply ...

By combining two medications, researchers at Michigan Medicine optimized a therapy for people with gout, a condition that causes severe damage and disability if left untreated. The study revealed how a second drug taken orally more than doubled the effectiveness of Pegloticase, an intravenous gout treatment used to dissolve crystalized uric acid in the joints when oral medications fail. "Gout is a challenging disease to treat because there are only a handful of oral therapies to lower uric acid," says Puja Khanna, M.D., M.P.H., a rheumatologist at Michigan Medicine. "Now, we have a medication that works and gives us a ...

New guidelines for coral reef restoration aiming to reduce the risk of flooding in tropical coastal communities have been set out in a new study that simulated the behavior of ocean waves travelling over and beyond a range of coral reef structures. Published in Frontiers in Marine Science, these guidelines hope to optimize restoration efforts not only for the benefit of the ecosystem, but also to protect the coast and people living on it. "Our research reveals that shallow, energetic areas such as the upper fore reef and middle reef flat, typically characterized by physically-robust coral species, should be targeted for restoration to reduce coastal flooding," says Floortje Roelvink, lead author on the paper and researcher at Deltares, a Dutch research ...

Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) in children and adolescents is associated with impaired education and worse general health later in life. Access to specialist treatment is often limited. According to a study from Centre for Psychiatry Research at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden and Region Stockholm, internet-delivered cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) can be as effective as conventional CBT. The study, published in the prestigious journal JAMA, can help make treatment for OCD more widely accessible. Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a potentially serious mental disorder that normally debuts in childhood. Symptoms include intrusive thoughts that trigger anxiety ...

Toxicity and Challenges in Transferability of Surface-functionalized Metallic Nanoparticles https://doi.org/10.15212/bioi-2020-0047 Announcing a new article publication for BIO Integration journal. In this review the authors Muhammad Arif Asghar, Rabia Ismail Yousuf, Muhammad Harris Shoaib, Muhammad Arif Asghar and Nazish Mumtaz from Jinnah Sindh Medical University, Karachi, Pakistan, University of Karachi, Karachi, Pakistan, Food and Marine Resources Research Centre, Pakistan and Benazir Bhutto Shaheed University, Karachi, Pakistan discuss toxicity and challenges in transferability of surface-functionalized metallic nanoparticles from animal models to humans. The unique size and surface morphology of nanoparticles ...

A new drug combination that is better at treating miscarriage is also more cost effective than current standard NHS treatment, finds a new study led by the University of Birmingham and Tommy's National Centre for Miscarriage Research. A previous study by the same team and published in The Lancet * in August last year, found that a combined drug treatment is more effective than the standard medication for women having miscarriages without symptoms - also known as missed, delayed or silent miscarriage. Missed miscarriage occurs when a baby has died in the womb but the mother hasn't ...

A study by the University of Southampton has shown its LifeLab programme, aimed at improving adolescent health through hands-on learning, significantly increases young people's understanding of what it means to lead a healthy lifestyle. Led by a team from both the Faculty of Medicine and Education School at the University of Southampton, the LifeLab programme aims to encourage engagement with the science behind public health messages, to support development of health literacy alongside decision-making skills and promotion of adolescents' sense of control over their lives and futures. Based at University Hospital Southampton (UHS) NHS Foundation Trust, LifeLab is a state-of-the-art teaching laboratory ...

The COVID-19 pandemic has now claimed over 2 million deaths worldwide, and this number is only increasing. In response, health agencies have rolled out tests to diagnose and understand the disease. Besides the now widely known PCR test, there is interest in serological (blood) tests that detect "antibodies" against SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. These blood tests have considerable applications, from identifying blood donors with high levels of anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies, whose blood can be used for convalescent plasma therapy, to measuring vaccine effectiveness. So, what are antibodies? These are proteins produced by the ...

This rare fossil find comes from the Kimmeridge Clay Formation in England, a series of sedimentary rocks that was formed in a shallow, tropical-subtropical sea during the Upper Jurassic, about 150 million years ago. The fossil shark skeleton was found more than 20 years ago on the southern coast of England and is now held in the Etches Collection. Additional fossil shark specimens from it will be investigated in the years to come. Due to their life-long tooth replacement shark teeth are among the most common vertebrate finds encountered in the fossil record. The low preservation potential of their poorly mineralized cartilaginous skeletons, on the ...

A scientist from HSE University has developed an image recognition algorithm that works 40% faster than analogues. It can speed up real-time processing of video-based image recognition systems. The results of the study have been published in the journal Information Sciences. Convolutional neural networks (CNNs), which include a sequence of convolutional layers, are widely used in computer vision. Each layer in a network has an input and an output. The digital description of the image goes to the input of the first layer and is converted into a different set of numbers at the output. The result goes to the input of ...

Wastewater testing is an effective way to identify new cases of COVID-19 in nursing homes and other congregate living settings, and it may be particularly useful for preventing outbreaks in college dormitories, a new University of Virginia study finds. The research, a collaboration of UVA's School of Medicine and School of Engineering, was led by UVA Health's Amy Mathers, MD. It offers some of the first clear guidance on the most effective methods to perform testing to detect COVID-19 in wastewater. The researchers evaluated and compared sampling and analysis techniques by testing them within buildings with known numbers of positive cases. They were then able to determine wastewater testing's strengths and limitations as a tool for monitoring COVID-19 in a building population. ...

SASKATOON - Tepary beans--a high protein legume common to the southwest United States and Mexico--may hold the key to adapting bean crops for the increasingly harsh conditions brought on by a changing climate, according to research led by University of Saskatchewan (USask) and Michigan State University. In a study just published in Nature Communications, the researchers found that as the mercury rises to 27oC at night--a temperature devastating for current bean crops--specific genes sensitive to heat stress in the tepary bean get activated, protecting the plant. ...

The investigators used machine learning to predict which patients might get worse and not respond positively to being turned onto their front in intensive care units (ICUs) - a technique known as proning that is commonly used in this setting to improve oxygenation of the lungs. While the AI model was used on a retrospective cohort of patient data collected during the pandemic's first wave, the study demonstrates the ability of AI methods to predict patient outcomes using routine clinical information used by ICU medics. The researchers say the approach, where each patient's ...

Alexandria, Va., USA -- Carbon dioxide (CO2) is a byproduct of human metabolism and exists in high levels in exhaled air, and is therefore often used as a proxy for indoor air quality. The study "Ventilation Assessment by Carbon Dioxide Levels in Dental Treatment Rooms," published in the Journal of Dental Research (JDR), evaluated CO2 levels in dental operatories and determined the accuracy of using CO2 levels to assess ventilation rate in dental clinics. Researchers at the University of Rochester, Eastman Institute for Oral Health, N.Y., USA, conducted CO2 concentration and ventilation rate assessments in 10 closed dental treatment rooms with varying ...

Roads can be barriers to wildlife of all sorts, and scientists have studied road impacts on animals ranging from Florida panthers and grizzly bears to box turtles, mice, rattlesnakes and salamanders. But much less is known about the impact of roads on pollinating insects such as bees and to what extent these structures disrupt insect pollination, which is essential to reproduction in many plant species. In a paper published online May 10 in the Journal of Applied Ecology, University of Michigan researchers describe how they used fluorescent pigment as an analog for pollen. They applied the luminous pigment to ...

(Boston)--Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) is a disease caused by cigarette smoking that reduces lung function and causes difficulty breathing. It is the third leading cause of death worldwide. Current treatments for COPD only affect symptoms, not progression. Identifying who is going to get COPD before they get it is key to figuring out how to intercept the disease at an early stage. Researchers from Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) have identified a panel of genes that are active in smokers and ex-smokers who experience faster loss of lung function over time. They believe these genes could be useful to predict which people are most at risk for smoking-related ...

(Boston)--Knee osteoarthritis (OA) is a global health problem. Almost half the adults over the age of 75 have some form of knee OA--one of the leading causes of disability worldwide. Because there is no cure for knee OA, current treatment relies on accurately identifying and staging the disease. Using an Artificial Intelligence-based approach known as deep learning, researchers from Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) have now identified a new measure to determine the severity of knee osteoarthritis--named "subchondral bone length" (SBL). There are only a handful of proven imaging markers of knee OA. Currently, medical imaging tools such as Magnetic ...

DALLAS - April 30, 2021 - UT Southwestern scientists successfully employed a new type of gene therapy to treat mice with Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD), uniquely utilizing CRISPR-Cas9-based tools to restore a large section of the dystrophin protein that is missing in many DMD patients. The approach, described online today in the journal Science Advances, could lead to a treatment for DMD and inform the treatment of other inherited diseases. "Thousands of different mutations causing Duchenne have been identified, but they tend to cluster into certain parts of the dystrophin gene," says study leader END ...

University of Miami Miller School of Medicine researchers are the first to demonstrate that COVID-19 can be present in the penis tissue long after men recover from the virus. The widespread blood vessel dysfunction, or endothelial dysfunction, that results from the COVID-19 infection could then contribute to erectile dysfunction, or ED, according to the study recently published in the World Journal of Men's Health. Endothelial dysfunction is a condition in which the lining of the small blood vessels fails to perform all of its functions normally. As a result, the tissues ...