New Orleans, LA - Research conducted at LSU Health New Orleans Neuroscience Center of Excellence reports that Elovanoids, bioactive chemical messengers made from omega-3 very-long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids discovered by the Bazan lab in 2017, may block the virus that causes COVID-19 from entering cells and protect the air cells (alveoli) of the lung. Their findings are published online in Scientific Reports, available here. "Because the compounds are protective against damage in the brain and retina of the eye and the COVID-19 virus clearly damages the lung, ...

Fraud is going uninvestigated by police who are "hiding behind the veil" of the Action Fraud national crime reporting agency. In his paper published this week in Policing, Professor Mark Button, director of the Centre for Counter Fraud Studies at the University of Portsmouth argues that, Action Fraud, which has been widely derided, has become a useful veil from which the police can hide their inadequate response. Figures from Action Fraud, the arm of the police responsible for recording scams and fraud, show that between 2019 and 2020, over 800,000 people reported being a victim of fraud, with £2.3bn finding its way into criminal hands. However, Professor Button calculated just 0.6 per cent of police officers ...

For two decades, the number of Americans who die each year from drug overdoses has steadily risen, from less than 20,000 in 1999 to more than 80,000 in 2020. By studying patterns of these drug-related fatalities, researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine, San Diego State University (SDSU), and international collaborators have designed and validated a prediction model to signal counties at risk of future overdose death outbreaks. The goal of the open-source tool is to predict and prevent deaths through early deployment of public health resources. Findings were published June 9, 2021 by Lancet Public Health. "A big challenge for public health experts is figuring out which parts of the country are at greatest risk of ...

WASHINGTON -- In a new study, researchers show that the fiber optic cables that carry data across the world's oceans can also be used to sense geophysical events and monitor ocean and seafloor conditions. Although buoys and cabled observatories can be used to monitor parts of the ocean, the information they provide is limited to their immediate surroundings. The new approach could offer a way to use the global network of subsea fiber optic cables to study otherwise inaccessible parts of the ocean. "Once perfected, this new technique will allow geophysical sensing in the ocean depths, which are largely unexplored because of a lack of instrumentation that works in this environment," said Zhongwen Zhan, assistant professor of geophysics at Caltech. ...

A CABI-led study has revealed that the success of Classical Biological Control (CBC) in Europe, North Africa and the Middle East is only rarely dependent on the released biological control agent, but more often on other factors, such as the target pest, its host plant, or the circumstances of the releases. The research - published in the journal NeoBiota - suggests that the overall success of biological control introductions of insect predators and parasitoids against herbivorous insects in the Western Paleartic ecozone is comparable to the success of CBC worldwide. However, over 100 years of CBC in this region, has resulted in no overall rise in success in the fight against insect pests - including those of crops such as citrus, olive, potato, ...

The COVID-19 pandemic has made clear the importance of understanding precisely how diseases spread throughout networks of transportation. However, rigorously determining the connection between disease risk and changing networks--which either humans or the environment may alter--is challenging due to the complexity of these systems. In a paper publishing on Thursday in the END ...

Quantum coherence is a key ingredient in many fundamental tests and applications of quantum technology including quantum communication, imaging, computing, sensing and metrology. However, the transfer of quantum coherence in free-space has so far been limited to direct line-of-sight channels as atmospheric turbulence and scattering degrade the quality of coherence severely. In a new paper published in Light: Science & Applications, researchers from the University of Waterloo have successfully demonstrated the transfer and recovery of quantum coherence using photons scattered in free-space ...

Recently, a research group led by CHU Yannan and HUANG Chaoqun from the Institute of Health & Medical Technology of the Hefei Institutes of Physical Science (HFIPS) developed an effective method for on-site detection of methamphetamine (MA) in the presence of nicotine by a homemade ion mobility spectrometry. Relevant results were published in Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemistry. MA is a highly addictive stimulant that affects the central nervous system. The on-site rapid detection of trace amounts of MA and screening illicit drugs in clandestine laboratories are important for drug enforcement agencies and the forensic community in general. However, detecting MA in the ...

Lack of water, floods, or crop losses: As a result of climate change, pronounced periods of drought and rainfall are occurring more frequently and more intensively all around the world, causing human suffering and major economic damage. The more precise seasonal forecasts for the coming months are, the more effectively these consequences can be mitigated. A research team from Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) has now been able to improve global forecasts using statistical methods so that they can be used on the regional level. The researchers describe the new approach and the economic benefits of ...

Prof. HUANG Qing's group from the Hefei Institutes of Physical Science (HFIPS) developed a surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) gas sensor to detect aldehyde with high sensitivity and selectivity, which provided a new detection method for studying the adsorption of gas molecules on porous materials. The relevant research results have been published in Analytical Chemistry. Adsorption technology is one of the main technologies for treating Volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Over the past years, metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) have attracted high interest for their outstanding adsorption property. Closely related to MOFs, layered double hydroxides (LDHs), also known as hydrotalcite-like ...

The annual number of new HIV infections among men who have sex with men (MSM) in England is likely to have fallen dramatically, from 2,770 in 2013 to 854 in 2018, showing elimination of HIV transmission by 2030 to be within reach - suggests work by researchers from the MRC Biostatistics Unit at the University of Cambridge and Public Health England (PHE), published in The Lancet HIV. To manage the HIV epidemic among MSM in England, enhanced testing and earlier treatment strategies were scaled-up between 2011 and 2015 and supplemented from 2015 by pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP). The researchers examined the effect of these interventions on the number of new infections and investigated ...

Researchers have made progress towards a G7 commitment to establish safe standards for the release of antimicrobials into the environment, by developing a new framework that establishes safe thresholds. The threat of bacteria developing resistance to antimicrobial drugs (often called antibiotics) used to treat infection is one of the greatest global health challenges, potentially resulting in 10 million deaths per year by 2050. A major issue is the spread of antimicrobials and resistant bacteria through water systems. When we take antibiotics, 70 per cent passes through our bodies into wastewater. Farm animals are treated with antibiotics which ...

Plants use numerous mechanisms for their pollination. Now botanists have discovered a particularly sophisticated system among pipevines that is based purely on deception. The flowers of the Greek plant Aristolochia microstoma emit a foul, musty scent that seems to mimic the smell of decaying insects. The fly pollinators from the genus Megaselia likely get attracted to this odor while searching for arthropod corpses to potentially mate over and lay their eggs. Then, when entering the tube of an Aristolochia flower, the flies are guided by downward-pointing hairs into a small chamber, which holds the female and male floral organs. Trapped inside, they deposit pollen they carry onto the stigma, before the stamens ripen and ...

It eventually became a Nobel prize-winning revolution when researchers first engineered CRISPR as a gene editing technology for bacterial, plant, animal and human cells. The potential of the technology is great and span from curing genetically disposed diseases to applications in agricultural and industrial biotechnology, but there are challenges. One such challenge consists of selecting a so-called gRNA molecule which should be designed to guide the Cas9 protein to the right location in the DNA where it will make a cut in relation to the gene editing. "Typically, there are multiple possible gRNAs and they are not all equally efficient. Therefore, ...

Using a new 3D printing process, University of Nottingham researchers have discovered how to tailor-make artificial body parts and other medical devices with built-in functionality that offers better shape and durability, while cutting the risk of bacterial infection at the same time. Study lead, Dr Yinfeng He, from the Centre for Additive Manufacturing, said: "Most mass-produced medical devices fail to completely meet the unique and complex needs of their users. Similarly, single-material 3D printing methods have design limitations that cannot produce a bespoke device with multiple biological or mechanical functions. "But for the first time, using a computer-aided, multi-material ...

RUDN and Shahid Beheshti University(SBU) chemist proposed an eco-friendly method for the synthesis of pyrrole and pyrazole derivatives with a wide range of applications in medicine: from antidepressants to anticancer. Moreover, the synthesized compounds possess interesting fluorescence features, and the bioactive scaffolds might attract great interest in the fields of clinical diagnostics and biomedical research in the future. The results are published in the Organic & Biomolecular Chemistry. Heterocyclic compounds expose remarkable chemistry with significant applications in medicinal and organic chemistry, industry, and pharmaceutical. These compounds are widely ...

Wine grape growers in California and elsewhere face increasing labor costs and severe labor shortages, making it difficult to manage and harvest a vineyard while maintaining profitability. Growers are increasingly turning to machines for pruning, canopy management and harvesting, but how well these practices are executed can substantially affect yield and quality. A new review by researchers at the University of California, Davis, published in the journal Catalyst, provides guidelines for growers to make the best use of machines. "Wine grape laborers have been virtually nonexistent. People don't want to work in vineyards anymore because it's remote, tough work," said Kaan Kurtural, professor of viticulture and enology and extension ...

BONN, 10 June - Unprecedented changes in climate and biodiversity, driven by human activities, have combined and increasingly threaten nature, human lives, livelihoods and well-being around the world. Biodiversity loss and climate change are both driven by human economic activities and mutually reinforce each other. Neither will be successfully resolved unless both are tackled together. This is the message of a workshop report, published today by 50 of the world's leading biodiversity and climate experts. The peer-reviewed workshop report is the product of a four-day virtual workshop between ...

Kanazawa, Japan - Fungal diseases in cereal crops cause major economic losses and also threaten human and livestock health, because some fungi produce powerful toxins that might enter the food chain. Farmers use fungicides to control crop diseases, such as wheat head blight. Although agrochemicals are rigorously tested for safety, there can be concerns over chemical residues in food. Now, researchers at Kanazawa University, in collaboration with colleagues at Ehime University and Nagoya University, have shown that the natural substance nicotinamide (NIM - a vitamin found in food and used as a dietary supplement) can help stimulate ...

Curtin University researchers have helped uncover the four billion year old story of a lunar sample brought from the Moon to Earth, by the manned Apollo 17 mission more than 50 years ago. The global research collaboration, involving scientists from the UK, Canada, Sweden and Australia, aimed to analyse the ancient rock sample through a modern lens to find out its age, which crater it came from and its geological trajectory. That modern lens was provided, in part, by both Curtin's Geoscience Atom Probe Facility* and Space Science and Technology Centre* (SSTC) where the research team was ...

With the onset of the 4th industrial revolution, artificial intelligence has recently been utilized in smartphone cameras, providing functions such as auto-focusing, face recognition, and 100x zoom, to dramatically improve our daily life. It has also been applied to research and development of new materials. A joint research team from POSTECH and Korea Institute of Materials Science (KIMS) has applied deep learning to the scanning electron microscopy (SEM) system to develop a technique that can detect and improve the quality of SEM images without human oversight. The EMS is an essential material analysis equipment used for developing new materials. The findings from this research were recently published ...

An inter-university research group has succeeded in constructing the gene expression network behind the vascular development process in plants. They achieved this by performing bioinformatics analysis using the 'VISUAL' (*1) tissue culture platform, which generates vascular stem cells (*2) from leaf cells. In this network, they also discovered a new BES/BZR transcription factor (*3), BEH3, which regulates vascular stem cells. In addition, they illuminated a novel vascular cell maintenance system whereby BEH3 competes with other transcription factors from the same BES/BZR family in order to stabilize vascular stem ...

Cell viability require that a variety of functions at the cell membrane are maintained properly. P-type ATPases translocate substrates across the membrane, and they have evolved into different types taking care of specific substrates within a diverse range. Now, key structural aspects have been described on how two different types of P-type ATPases - a Ca2+ transporting Ca2+ -ATPase and a lipid transporting P4-ATPase - have adapted to different substrates and physical environments. Many bacteria export intracellular calcium using active transporters homologous to the well-described ...

Researchers from Tel Aviv University took part in a new international study proposing an amendment to the widely accepted theory on the extinction of animal species - by moving the focus from the animal's body size to its reproductive capacity. The researchers found gaps and incompatibilities between mammals and amphibians in the relation between body size and extinction risk: Whereas large mammals bear a smaller number of offspring per birth, leading to higher risk of extinction, larger amphibian females lay more eggs, reducing the threat to the species. The researchers analyzed data from databases on both extinction risks and reproductive capacities of various species of amphibians (e.g., frogs and salamanders). Contributors to the ...

How much do the effects of climate change contribute to extreme weather events? It's hard to say--the variables involved are plentiful, each event is unique, and we can only do so much to investigate what didn't happen. But a new paper from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) climate scientist Michael Wehner investigates the question for one particular element of one significant storm and makes the results available to those who lived through it. In the paper, "Attributable human-induced changes in the magnitude of flooding in the Houston, Texas region during Hurricane Harvey," published May 19 in Climatic Change, Wehner and Christopher Sampson from Fathom Bristol used a hydraulic ...