A natural brilliant blue coloring has been discovered by an international team of researchers including chemists at the University of California, Davis. The new cyan blue, obtained from red cabbage, could be an alternative to synthetic blue food colorings such as the widely used FD&C Blue No. 1. The work is published April 7 in Science Advances. "Blue colors are really quite rare in nature - a lot of them are really reds and purples," said Pamela Denish, a graduate student working with Professor Justin Siegel at the UC Davis Department of Chemistry and Innovation Institute for Food and Health. Having ...

Scientists have developed a long-sought naturally derived cyan blue colorant sourced from red cabbage anthocyanin pigments that may offer an alternative to the industry standard blue dye, although more testing is needed to determine the compound's safety. The novel colorant, which was developed using an enzyme that converts a range of anthocyanins to one with the ideal wavelength, remains highly stable over time and may also produce better green colors than those derived from existing natural blue colorants. Several research programs around the world are dedicated to the hunt for a natural alternative to FD&C Blue No.1 - a challenging effort given that cyan blue is one of the rarest colors in nature. While previous research has shown that ...

DURHAM, N.C. -- An interdisciplinary team of scientists at Duke University has developed a highly sensitive and rapid diagnostic test for Ebola virus (EBOV) infection. In monkeys infected with Ebola, this diagnostic, called the D4-assay, proved to be 1000 times more sensitive than the currently approved rapid diagnostic test and capable of detecting the virus a full day earlier than the gold standard polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test. This work, which appears in Science Translational Medicine on April 7, was done by biomedical engineers, molecular ...

Progression of Duchenne Muscle Dystrophy (DMD) can be delayed in mice by supplementing their diets with Urolithin A, according to new results reported today. The findings, published in Science Translational Medicine, raise hopes that new treatment options could one-day be developed for DMD, an uncurable genetic condition characterized by progressive muscle degeneration. About 1 in 3,500 boys are born with DMD, which usually develops in childhood and significantly reduces life expectancy. The new research carried out at the laboratory of Professor Johan Auwerx, ...

The lungs were for a long time considered to be sterile in health, while in diseases like chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) failure in immune mechanisms were thought to allow microorganisms to proliferate and persist. New sequencing techniques have shown that several microorganisms reside in the lungs of healthy individuals, as well. Few studies have examined the fungal community in COPD and compared it to healthy controls using such techniques. According to the study findings, the compositions of these environments seem to be unaffected by the use of inhaled steroids. Lungs have a unique fungal environment The Bergen COPD Microbiome study (short name "MicroCOPD") is the world's largest single-centre study on the fungal community in ...

JUPITER, FL - People with Crohn's disease are typically treated with powerful anti-inflammatory medications that act throughout their body, not just in their digestive tract, creating the potential for unintended, and often serious, side effects. New research from the lab of Mark Sundrud, PhD, at Scripps Research, Florida suggests a more targeted treatment approach is possible. Crohn's disease develops from chronic inflammation in the digestive tract, often the small intestine. More than half a million people in the United States live with the disease, which can be debilitating and require repetitive surgeries to remove irreversibly damaged intestinal tissue. Writing in the journal Nature on April 7, Sundrud's team finds that certain immune cells ...

Tracking carbon dioxide levels indoors is an inexpensive and powerful way to monitor the risk of people getting COVID-19, according to new research from the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) and the University of Colorado Boulder. In any given indoor environment, when excess CO2 levels double, the risk of transmission also roughly doubles, two scientists reported this week in Environmental Science & Technology Letters. The chemists relied on a simple fact already put to use by other researchers more than a decade ago: Infectious people exhale ...

Harmful algal blooms (HABs) occur in all 50 U.S. states and many produce toxins that cause illness or death in humans and commercially important species. However, attempts to place a more exact dollar value on the full range of these impacts often vary widely in their methods and level of detail, which hinders understanding of the scale of their socio-economic effects. In order to improve and harmonize estimates of HABs impacts nationwide, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) National Center for Coastal Ocean Science (NCCOS) and the U.S. National Office for Harmful Algal Blooms at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) convened a workshop led by WHOI Oceanographer ...

Scientists are testing our fundamental understanding of the universe, and there's much more to discover. What do touch screens, radiation therapy and shrink wrap have in common? They were all made possible by particle physics research. Discoveries of how the universe works at the smallest scale often lead to huge advances in technology we use every day. Scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory and Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, along with collaborators from 46 other institutions and seven countries, are conducting an experiment to put our current understanding of the universe to the test. The first result points to the existence of undiscovered particles or forces. This new physics could help explain long-standing ...

AMHERST Mass. - The long-awaited first results from the Muon g-2 experiment at the U.S. Department of Energy's Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory show fundamental particles called muons behaving in a way that is not predicted by scientists' best theory, the Standard Model of particle physics. This landmark result, made with unprecedented precision and to which UMass Amherst's David Kawall's research group made key contributions, confirms a discrepancy that has been gnawing at researchers for decades. "Today is an extraordinary day, long awaited ...

Sutures are used to close wounds and speed up the natural healing process, but they can also complicate matters by causing damage to soft tissues with their stiff fibers. To remedy the problem, researchers from Montreal have developed innovative tough gel sheathed (TGS) sutures inspired by the human tendon. These next-generation sutures contain a slippery, yet tough gel envelop, imitating the structure of soft connective tissues. In putting the TGS sutures to the test, the researchers found that the nearly frictionless gel surface mitigated the damage typically ...

Published in the Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences, researchers in the Climate Intervention Biology Working Group -- including Jessica Hellmann from the University of Minnesota Institute on the Environment -- explored the effect of solar climate interventions on ecology. Composed of climate scientists and ecologists from leading research universities internationally, the team found that more research is needed to understand the ecological impacts of solar radiation modification (SRM) technologies that reflect small amounts of sunlight back into space. The team focused on a specific proposed SRM strategy -- referred ...

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - Race associates with the risk of death from end-stage heart failure. So, identifying the molecular determinants of that risk may help the pursuit of the novel diagnosis and prognosis of heart failure, and its therapy. A University of Alabama at Birmingham study of end-stage heart-failure patients has found that cytosine-p-guanine, or CpG, methylation of the DNA in the heart has a bimodal distribution among the patients, and that race -- African American versus Caucasian -- was the sole variable in patient records that explained the difference. A subsequent ...

More than 20 years after the discovery of the parkin gene linked to young-onset Parkinson's disease, researchers at The Ottawa Hospital and the University of Ottawa may have finally figured out how this mysterious gene protects the brain. Using human and mouse brain samples and engineered cells, they found that the parkin protein works in two ways. First, it acts like a powerful antioxidant that disarms potentially harmful oxidants in the brain, including dopamine radicals. Second, as the brain ages and dopamine radicals continue to build up, parkin sequesters these harmful molecules in a special storage site within vulnerable nerve cells, so they can continue to ...

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. -- If, as the saying goes, less is more, why do we humans overdo so much? In a new paper featured on the cover of Nature, University of Virginia researchers explain why people rarely look at a situation, object or idea that needs improving -- in all kinds of contexts -- and think to remove something as a solution. Instead, we almost always add some element, whether it helps or not. The team's findings suggest a fundamental reason that people struggle with overwhelming schedules, that institutions bog down in proliferating red tape, and, of particular ...

Mobility tracking using cell phone data showing greater movement of people is a strong predictor of increased rates of COVID-19, according to new data in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal). "This study shows that mobility strongly predicts [severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2] SARS-CoV-2 growth rate up to 3 weeks in the future, and that stringent measures will continue to be necessary through spring 2021 in Canada," writes Dr. Kevin Brown, Public Health Ontario, with coauthors. Until Canadians are widely vaccinated against SARS-CoV-2, nonpharmaceutical public health interventions such as physical distancing and limiting social contact will be the main population-based means of controlling the spread of the virus. "Mobility ...

While studying genetic diversity in bumblebees in the Rocky Mountains, USA, researchers from Uppsala University discovered a new species. They named it Bombus incognitus and present their findings in the journal Molecular Biology and Evolution. Bumblebees are vital for agriculture and the natural world due to their role in plant pollination. There are more than 250 species of bumblebee, and they are found mainly in northern temperate regions of the planet. Alarmingly, many species are declining due to the effects of climate change, and those with alpine and arctic habitats are particularly threatened. However, the full diversity of bumblebee ...

The hormone auxin is of central importance for the development of plants. Scientists at the University of Bayreuth and the Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology in Tübingen have now developed a novel sensor that makes the spatial distribution of auxin in the cells of living plants visible in real time. The sensor opens up completely new insights into the inner workings of plants for researchers. Moreover, the influences of changing environmental conditions on growth can now also be quickly detected. The team presents its research results in the journal Nature. The effects of the plant hormone auxin were first described ...

Ants react to social isolation in a similar way as do humans and other social mammals. A study by an Israeli-German research team has revealed alterations to the social and hygienic behavior of ants that had been isolated from their group. The research team was particularly surprised by the fact that immune and stress genes were downregulated in the brains of the isolated ants. "This makes the immune system less efficient, a phenomenon that is also apparent in socially isolating humans - notably at present during the COVID-19 crisis," said Professor Susanne Foitzik, who headed up the study at Johannes ...

Cancer therapy in recent times relies on the use of several drugs derived from biological sources including different bacteria and viruses, among others. However, these bio-based drugs get easily degraded and therefore inactivated on administration into the body. Thus, effective delivery to and release of these drugs at target tumor sites are of paramount importance from the perspective of cancer therapy. Recently, scientists have discovered unique three-dimensional, water-containing polymers, called hydrogels, as effective drug delivery systems (DDSs). Drugs loaded into these hydrogels remain relatively stable owing to the network-like structure and organic tissue-like consistency of these DDSs. Besides, drug release from hydrogels can ...

By Karina Ninni | Agência FAPESP – A multidisciplinary research group affiliated with the Department of Physical Education’s Human Movement Laboratory (Movi-Lab) at São Paulo State University (UNESP) in Bauru, Brazil, measured step length synergy while crossing obstacles in patients with Parkinson’s disease and concluded that it was 53% lower than in healthy subjects of the same age and weight. Step length is one of the main variables affected by the disease. Synergy, defined as combined operation, refers in this case to the capacity of the locomotor (or musculoskeletal) system to adapt movement while crossing an obstacle, combining factors such as speed and foot position, for example. Improving synergy in Parkinson’s patients while they ...

You might not think an animal made out of stone would have much to worry about in the way of predators, and that's largely what scientists had thought about coral. Although corallivores like parrotfish and pufferfish are well known to biologists, their impact on coral growth and survival was believed to be small compared to factors like heatwaves, ocean acidification and competition from algae. But researchers at UC Santa Barbara have found that young corals are quite vulnerable to these predators, regardless of whether a colony finds itself alone on the reef or surrounded by others of its kind. The research, led by doctoral student Kai Kopecky, appears in the journal Coral Reefs. Kopecky and his co-authors ...

Unusual diseases are medical mysteries that fascinate us, and one such disease is multiple system atrophy, or MSA. This rare neurological disorder causes failures in the proper functioning of the body's autonomic system (processes that are not under our conscious control, such as blood pressure, breathing, and involuntary movement). The resulting symptoms can look like two other types of neurodegenerative disease: Parkinson's disease and cerebellar ataxia. In fact, MSA can be separated into a parkinsonism subtype or a cerebellar subtype based on whether the resultant movement-related ...

Within multicellular organisms, cells build connections with each other forming cell layers that cover the surfaces of tissues and organs and separate structures in the body. For example, the skin forms a mantle around the entire organism, and the layer of cells lining the blood vessels creates a boundary between the bloodstream and tissues. Special connections between neighbouring cells ensure that these cellular barriers are, on the one hand, stable and tight - thus protecting the body and organs against pathogens - while, on the other hand, they remain permeable to specific substances or migrating cells. This is how the cells allow dissolved ...

Imagine the process of distributing electricity to homes from the power grid is like travelers boarding a train. There are multiple steps to take before they can reach their final destination. First, they have to buy a ticket at the ticketing booth - this is where the power is generated. Then, they board a train that departs from the station - the power is transmitted over distances using transmission lines. Finally, the train takes the travelers (electricity) to their final destination. This final step of sending power to homes and businesses is called the distribution system - and it is critical that ...