BEAUFORT, N.C. – Microscopic plastic particles have been found in the fats and lungs of two-thirds of the marine mammals in a graduate student’s study of ocean microplastics. The presence of polymer particles and fibers in these animals suggests that microplastics can travel out of the digestive tract and lodge in the tissues. The study, slated for the Oct. 15 edition of Environmental Pollution, appeared online this week. Harms that embedded microplastics might cause to marine mammals are yet to be determined, ...

Text-to-image (T2I) generative artificial intelligence tools are increasingly powerful and widespread tools that can create nearly any image based on just a few inputted words. T2I generative AI can create convincingly realistic photos and videos which are being used more and more for a multitude of purposes, from art to political campaigning.  However, the algorithmic models that power these tools are trained on data from humans, and can replicate human biases in the images they produce, such as biases around gender and skin tone. These biases can harm marginalized populations, reinforcing stereotypes and potentially leading to discrimination.  To address these implicit biases, ...

Sodium, Potassium and zinc have all been promising contenders for lithium’s place in rechargeable batteries of the future, but researchers at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) have added an unusual and more abundant competitor to the mix: chloride, the richest negatively charged ions in seawater.  Xiaowei Teng, the James H. Manning professor of Chemical Engineering at WPI, has discovered a new redox chemistry empowered by chloride ions for the development of seawater green batteries. Modern lithium-ion batteries used in various applications, including electric vehicles, can be problematic for grid storage, given their ...

A new analysis shows that infectious bacteria exposed to the antibiotic albicidin rapidly develop up to a 1,000-fold increase in resistance via a gene amplification mechanism. Mareike Saathoff of Freie Universität Berlin, Germany, and colleagues present these findings August 10th in the open access journal PLOS Biology. Bacterial resistance to antibiotics is a growing problem associated with millions of deaths around the world every year. Understanding how bacteria evolve resistance is key to developing more effective antibiotics and strategies for using them. In recent years, albicidin has emerged as a promising antibiotic capable of killing a wide range of bacterial species ...

Pushing into a new chapter of technologically advanced biological sensors, scientists from the University of California San Diego and their colleagues in Australia have engineered bacteria that can detect the presence of tumor DNA in a live organism. Their innovation, which detected cancer in the colons of mice, could pave the way to new biosensors capable of identifying various infections, cancers and other diseases. The advancement is described Aug. 11, 2023, in the journal Science. Bacteria previously have been designed to carry out various diagnostic and therapeutic functions, but lacked the ability to identify specific DNA sequences and mutations outside ...

In two studies, researchers demonstrate how climate modeling approaches can fill gaps in our understanding of hominin evolution and migration. Over the last several decades, research efforts into the lives of hominins – humans and their close ancestors – have shifted from identifying fossils and artifacts to understanding the environmental and climate settings in which they lived and how these factors could have influenced hominin evolution and migration. However, like the hominin fossil record, environmental and climate records that accurately capture environmental change and span the period over which ...

In two studies, researchers present new ways to convert common waste plastics, polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP), into high-value chemical products, including alcohols, aldehydes, surfactants, and detergents. The approaches provide a pathway toward creating a circular plastics economy and the ability to produce high-value chemicals more sustainably. Waste plastics are increasingly being considered a potentially abundant source of feedstock to produce valuable chemical compounds. However, some plastics, particularly polyolefin plastics like PE and PP – widely used commodity plastics that account ...

In this Special Issue of Science, three Reviews, a Policy Forum, and a Perspective highlight Australia’s exceptional exposure to the risks of climate change and ecosystem degradation. Australia is home to Earth’s most ancient ecosystems and oldest continuous indigenous cultures, which have survived for more than 60,000 years. However, the continent’s unique ecosystems and cultural history have proved vulnerable to waves of European colonization and its associated social and environmental impacts. Ongoing climate change and the ...

Increases in global ecosystem water use efficiency – the ratio between carbon assimilation to water evapotranspiration – have stalled since 2001 due to a rising vapor pressure deficit, according to a new study. The findings highlight one way that the adverse effects of our warming climate may undermine human reliance on nature-based climate solutions to achieve carbon neutrality. The rapid rise of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) has led to substantial changes in global terrestrial carbon and water cycles. One of these impacts has been a generalized increase in ecosystem water use efficiency (WUEeco). On a global scale, WUEeco plays ...

A new study published in the journal Science by an international team finds that past changes in atmospheric CO2 and corresponding shifts in climate and vegetation played a key role in determining when and where early human species interbred. Modern-day people carry in their cells a small quantity of DNA deriving from other human species, namely the Neanderthals and the elusive Denisovans. Back in 2018, scientists announced to the world the discovery of an individual [Figure 1], later nicknamed Denny, who lived 90,000 years ago and who was identified as a daughter to a Denisovan father and a Neanderthal mother [Slon et al. 2018]. Denny, along with fellow mixed-ancestry ...

A new study published in the journal Science finds that around 1.12 million years ago a massive cooling event in the North Atlantic and corresponding shifts in climate, vegetation and food resources disrupted early human occupation of Europe. The study published by an international group of scientists from the UK, South Korea and Spain presents observational and modelling evidence documenting that unprecedented climate stress changed the course of early human history. Archaic humans, known as Homo erectus moved from Africa into central Eurasia around 1.8 million years. From there on they spread towards western Europe, reaching the Iberian peninsula around 1.5 million ...

Scientists at UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine and UCLA Health led an international research team that published two articles detailing changes in DNA – changes that researchers found are shared by humans and other mammals throughout history and are associated with life span and numerous other traits. “We've discovered that the life spans of mammals are closely associated with chemical modifications of the DNA molecule, specifically known as epigenetics, or more accurately, methylation. In essence, mammals with longer life spans exhibit more pronounced DNA methylation landscapes, whereas those ...

Paleoclimate evidence shows that around 1.1 million years ago, the southern European climate cooled significantly and likely caused an extinction of early humans on the continent, according to a new study led by UCL researchers. Published in the journal Science, the team of researchers discovered the occurrence of previously unknown extreme glacial conditions around 1.1 million years ago. The glacial cooling pushed the European climate to levels beyond what archaic humans could tolerate, emptying the continent of human populations. The oldest known human remains in ...

A team led by Virginia Tech researchers has developed a new method for upcycling plastics into high-value chemicals known as surfactants, which are used to create soap, detergent, and more. Plastics and soaps tend to have little in common when it comes to texture, appearance, and, most importantly, how they are used. But there is a surprising connection between the two on a molecular level: The chemical structure of polyethylene — one of the most commonly used plastics in the world today — is strikingly similar ...

Plants orient their organs in response to the gravity vector, with roots growing towards gravity and shoots growing in the opposite direction. The movement of statoliths responding to the inclination relative to the gravity vector is employed for gravity sensing in both plants and animals. However, in plants, the statolith takes the form of a high-density organelle, known as an amyloplast, which settles toward gravity within the gravity sensing cell. Despite the significance of this gravity sensing mechanism, the exact process behind it has eluded scientists ...

LOS ANGELES — There are currently few effective treatment options for patients with recurrent ovarian cancer and other solid tumors, but City of Hope researchers are trying to change that.  Researchers with City of Hope, one of the largest cancer research and treatment organizations in the nation, have published preclinical research in Nature Communications demonstrating that a chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-engineered T cell therapy worked against ovarian cancer in the laboratory and in preclinical models.  “City of Hope’s ...

SAN DIEGO (AUG. 10, 2023) — A new study on gray-necked rockfowl has found a much smaller range of suitable habitat for this elusive African bird than was previously assumed, and may warrant a downgrade in its conservation status. Scientists from the Cameroon Biodiversity Association (CAMBIO) in Cameroon, in partnership with San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance, set out to better understand how much suitable habitat remains for the rockfowl, and where the birds can still be found. Understanding suitable habitat and its extent is crucial for protecting species. However, scientists have limited knowledge ...

Physicians, psychologists, advanced practice providers, dietitians, and others who are committed to treating and preventing obesity in Louisiana have come together to formally launch the Louisiana Obesity Society, a new statewide professional organization. The Louisiana Obesity Society will be hosting its inaugural annual conference in conjunction with the Louisiana Chapter of American Society of Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery on Saturday, Aug. 12, at the Renaissance New Orleans Arts Warehouse District Hotel in New Orleans. The Louisiana Obesity Society was created to support providers treating obesity through education and networking. The society will also advocate ...

Although millions are spent each year on entrepreneurship training that is intended to help alleviate poverty and elevate the quality of life of entrepreneurs in developing nations, these programs often fail to make an impact. Brigham Young University professors Shad Morris and Chad Carlos, along with three other colleagues, were invited by the Tanzania Social Action Fund (“TASAF”) to see if they could help figure out why TASAF’s entrepreneurship trainings were not producing the results they were hoping for. In order to assist TASAF, Morris, Carlos, and colleagues Geoff Kistruck, Elly Tumsifu and Bob Lount, carried out an extensive ...

For now, cyborgs exist only in fiction, but the concept is becoming more plausible as science progresses. And now, researchers are reporting in ACS’ Nano Letters that they have developed a proof-of-concept technique to “tattoo” living cells and tissues with flexible arrays of gold nanodots and nanowires. With further refinement, this method could eventually be used to integrate smart devices with living tissue for biomedical applications, such as bionics and biosensing. Advances in electronics have enabled manufacturers ...

Long COVID can persist for at least a year after the acute illness has passed, or appear months later, according to the most comprehensive look yet at how symptoms play out over a year.     The multicenter study, a collaboration between UC San Francisco, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and seven other sites, expands knowledge of post-COVID-19 conditions, describing trends in more detail than previous research and highlighting significant impacts the epidemic has had on the U.S. health care system.     The study appears Aug. 10, 2023, in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR), ...

Open Access publisher PeerJ have announced their second Editor-in-Chief partnership for the Open Advances series of journals. Professors Ute Roessner and Luis E. Eguiarte have agreed to take on the leadership of PeerJ Open Advances in Plant Science as Co-Editors-in-Chief.  Professors Roessner and Eguiarte are highly respected, award-winning scientists working at the forefront of their fields. As Co-Editors-in-Chief they will provide the scientific leadership for the journal, starting with recruiting an Editorial Board who will ...

A microscopy image created by National Institutes of Health researchers is part of the “Life Magnified” stamp panel issued today by the United States Postal Service (USPS®). The NIH zebrafish image, which was taken to understand lymphatic vessel development in the brain, merges 350 individual images to reveal a juvenile zebrafish with a fluorescently tagged skull, scales and lymphatic system.  “Zebrafish are used as a model for typical and atypical human development. It is surprising how much we have in common with ...

Brazilian researchers combined environmental physical, social and economic indicators to create an index that measures a region’s vulnerability and used it to analyze the basins of the Parnaíba River and São Francisco River in the Northeast of Brazil. The index is named SEVI (for Socio-Environmental Vulnerability). The Parnaíba and São Francisco basins are considered crucial to agricultural expansion and biodiversity conservation. They contain more than 780 municipalities and part of the semi-arid Caatinga and savanna-like Cerrado biomes, which are threatened ...

ROCHESTER, Minn. — Using human "mini-brain" models known as organoids, Mayo Clinic and Yale University scientists have discovered that the roots of autism spectrum disorder may be associated with an imbalance of specific neurons that play a critical role in how the brain communicates and functions. The specific cells are known as excitatory cortical neurons. The new study is published in Nature Neuroscience. Findings The team found an abnormal imbalance of excitatory ...