On Thursday, 3 August 2023, the research vessel Polarstern is scheduled to set off from Tromsø, Norway, towards the North Pole. For two months, a good fifty scientific expedition participants will explore the Arctic in transition as sea ice extent reaches its annual minimum in September. They will explore the biology, chemistry and physics of sea ice as well as the effects of sea ice retreat on the entire ocean system from the surface to the deep sea. Eleven years ago, Antje Boetius was part of the largest ever sea ice minumum in the Arctic ...

ATLANTA — New research led by scientists working with Georgia State University’s TReNDS Center has identified age-related changes in brain patterns associated with the risk for developing schizophrenia. The discovery could help clinicians identify the risk for developing mental illness earlier and improve treatment options. The study is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). The research is part of a collaboration by experts from the University of Bari Aldo Moro, the Lieber Institute of Brain Development and the Tri-institutional Center for Translational Research in ...

A common metal paper clip will stick to a magnet. Scientists classify such iron-containing materials as ferromagnets. A little over a century ago, physicists Albert Einstein and Wander de Haas reported a surprising effect with a ferromagnet. If you suspend an iron cylinder from a wire and expose it to a magnetic field, it will start rotating if you simply reverse the direction of the magnetic field.  “Einstein and de Haas’s experiment is almost like a magic show,” said Haidan Wen, a ...

Hockey leagues in Canada should overhaul current rules and regulations to raise the age of bodychecking in the game from 13 to 15, says new research into the effect of body contact on teens. The literature review was led by Dr. Kristian Gouletnorth_eastexternal link of the University of Ottawa’s Faculty of Medicine and Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO) and calls on provincial and territorial governments to mandate schools – including those involved with school sports – and sports organizations to establish, ...

Researchers at North Carolina State University have developed a robotic gripping device that is gentle enough to pick up a drop of water, strong enough to pick up a 6.4 kilogram (14.1 pound) weight, dexterous enough to fold a cloth, and precise enough to pick up microfilms that are 20 times thinner than a human hair. In addition to possible manufacturing applications, the researchers also integrated the device with technology that allows the gripper to be controlled by the electrical signals produced by muscles in the forearm, demonstrating its potential for use with robotic prosthetics. “It is difficult ...

Previous studies in humans and animals showed that hosts in a social condition (sharing the same space) harbor a more similar microbiota composition. Microbial transmission between hosts, which is increased when living in the same household, leads to similar species inhabiting the gut. However, whether bacterial evolution in the gut is affected by microbiota transmission remained unknown. To fill this knowledge gap, the researchers used an innovative in vivo experimental evolution approach, which revealed an average transmission rate ...

‘A place for everything and everything in its place’–making sense of order, or disorder, helps us understand nature. Animals tend to fit nicely into categories: Mammals, birds, reptiles, whatever an axolotl is, and more. Sorting also applies to materials: Insulator, semiconductor, conductor, and even superconductor. Where exactly a material lands in the hierarchy depends on a seemingly invisible interplay of electrons, atoms, and their surroundings. Unlike animals, the boundaries are less sharp, and tweaking a material’s ...

Engineers are constantly searching for materials with novel, desirable property combinations. For example, an ultra-strong, lightweight material could be used to make airplanes and cars more fuel-efficient, or a material that is porous and biomechanically friendly could be useful for bone implants. Cellular metamaterials — artificial structures composed of units, or cells, that repeat in various patterns — can help achieve these goals. But it is difficult to know which cellular structure will lead to the desired properties. Even if one focuses on structures made of smaller building blocks like interconnected beams or ...

The world’s largest linked research database, Dimensions, will grow its knowledge base even further, thanks to a new partnership with the world’s largest university press, Oxford University Press (OUP). Under the agreement, more than 27,000 books and 500 journal titles from OUP’s Oxford Academic digital publishing platform will be fully indexed and discoverable in Dimensions, adding another rich resource of academic material to the world’s largest research database, in fields such as the arts, humanities, economics, science, technology, history, and politics. The move will enable users of Dimensions – a flagship Digital Science product – ...

3D light sculptures. Tsunami waves on a beach. Previewing color tattoos. Contributions from the Bickel and Wojtan groups at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA) to the 2023 SIGGRAPH conference tackle an impressive variety of classic and novel questions. While their focuses range from computer graphics to fabrication methods, the computer scientists are united in finding cost-effective, innovative solutions and empowering users. SIGGRAPH is the top worldwide annual convention for computer graphics and interactive techniques, bringing ...

One of the beneficial gut bacteria residing in the human gut, which normally cannot survive in an environment with oxygen, can now be made oxygen-tolerant. This is a key finding in the development of future probiotic treatment that is now being explored to improve glucose control in individuals with prediabetes. Our intestines are home to trillions of bacteria, the gut microbiota, which are important for functions such as digesting food and educating and activating the immune system. During the past decade it has been clarified that changes in the bacterial composition can be linked to various diseases. Significant expectations have been attributed to the next generation ...

CLEVELAND, Ohio (August 2, 2023)—Not all women experience menopause the same way. The severity of menopause symptoms is influenced by a multitude of behavioral, biological, social, psychological, and demographic factors. A new study suggests that infertility may also be a risk factor for some menopause symptoms, including depressive mood, irritability, and sleep problems. Results of the study are published online today in Menopause, the journal of The Menopause Society. A woman’s reproductive history has been implicated as a factor in the timing of menopause onset and the prevalence of menopause ...

In animals, movements such as locomotion or grooming are known to influence neuronal activity within the cerebral cortex. Moreover, recent studies also suggest that these changes in neuronal activity are not confined to a specific area but are pervasive throughout cortical and subcortical regions of the brain. Interestingly, in animals trained for reward-based learning tasks, such spontaneous movements—despite being uninstructed and unnecessary—may be aligned to task events and may significantly contribute to ...

As we age, our bodies undergo various changes that can impact our overall health and make us more susceptible to diseases. One common factor in the ageing process is low-grade inflammation, which contributes to age-related decline and impairment. However, the precise pathways responsible for this inflammation and their impact on natural ageing have remained elusive until now. A new study led by Andrea Ablasser at EPFL now shows that a molecular signaling pathway called cGAS/STING, plays a critical role in driving chronic inflammation and functional decline during aging. By blocking the STING protein, the researchers were able to suppress inflammatory responses in senescent ...

Cancer research centers conducting clinical trials could enroll more patients from underrepresented racial and ethnic groups by placing greater emphasis on relieving investigators of the costs of translating consent documents into languages other than English, according to a UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center study. “We identified a readily addressable weakness in the clinical trial process, and we believe that overcoming this barrier, as we have begun to do, will ensure better representation of trial participants from traditionally underrepresented racial and ethnic groups, ...

Maillard reaction locks away 4 million tonnes of organic carbon a year   Process helped stabilise conditions for complex life to evolve   A chemical process used in the browning of food to give it its distinct smell and taste is probably happening deep in the oceans, where it helped create the conditions necessary for life.   Known as the Maillard reaction after the French scientist who discovered it, the process converts small molecules of organic carbon into bigger molecules known as polymers. In ...

An international team of researchers has found a genetic variant that may explain why some people of African ancestry have naturally lower viral loads of HIV, reducing their risk of transmitting the virus and slowing progress of their own illness. Reported today in Nature, this is the first new genetic variant related to HIV infection discovered in nearly 30 years of research. It could, in the future, help direct the development of new treatments approaches for those living with HIV. HIV remains a major threat to global health. According to UNAIDS, there were 38.4 million people living with HIV globally in 2021. A combination of pre-exposure drugs and medicines that dramatically ...

Building on the Middle East’s reputation as one of the historical birthplaces of cereal crop domestication, a KAUST-led team has compiled the first complete genome map of an ancient grain known as einkorn[1]. The 5.2-billion-letter-long sequence provides a window into the evolutionary origins of different wheat species. It could help farmers and crop breeders to develop bread wheat varieties with enhanced disease resistance, higher yields and improved hardiness. “By understanding the genetic diversity and evolutionary history of einkorn, researchers can now leverage its potential for future ...

About The Study: The findings of this study suggest that, although sexual minority women are at high risk of postpartum depression, their sexual identities are largely undocumented in medical records, highlighting the need for strategies to measure sexual orientation that can reliably capture this information. Authors: Leiszle Lapping-Carr, Ph.D., of the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, is the corresponding author. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at ...

About The Study: In this study of 6.3 million older U.S. adults, the mRNA-1273 (Moderna) vaccine was associated with a slightly lower risk of several adverse events compared with BNT162b2 (Pfizer-BioNTech), possibly due to greater protection against COVID-19. Future research should seek to formally disentangle differences in vaccine safety and effectiveness and consider the role of frailty in assessments of COVID-19 vaccine performance. Authors: Daniel A. Harris, Ph.D., of the Brown University School of Public Health in Providence, Rhode Island, is the corresponding ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — While mRNA vaccines against COVID-19 have been found to be safe and effective for the general population, in-depth evidence about safety and effectiveness for older adults and individuals with chronic health conditions is more limited. To address that gap, a team led by Brown University researchers conducted the largest head-to-head comparison study of the two mRNA vaccines approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration — the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines. The results, published in JAMA Network Open, ...

In California, thousands of miles of fiber optic cables crisscross the state, providing people with internet. But these underground cables can also have a surprising secondary function: they can sense and measure earthquakes. In a new study at Caltech, scientists report using a section of fiber optic cable to measure intricate details of a magnitude 6 earthquake, pinpointing the time and location of four individual asperities, the "stuck" areas of the fault, that led to the rupture. For several years, Professor of Geophysics Zhongwen Zhan (PhD '14) ...

A non-opioid designer molecule for treating chronic neuropathic pain by calming hyperactive pain-sensing neurons in the peripheral nervous system has had promising results in a preclinical study conducted by researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine and the Burke Neurological Institute. In the study, published Aug. 2 in the British Journal of Anaesthesia, the first-in-class drug conceptualized by lead author Dr. Gareth Tibbs was found to function according to its design at both the molecular level and as an apparently side-effect-free pain reliever in rats. “With either a single dose or seven days of daily dosing, we saw a significant reversal of neuropathic pain signs in the ...

“We searched for human genetic variation that associates with spontaneous control of HIV and identified a novel region in the genome that is only variable in populations of African ancestries,” says Professor Jacques Fellay at EPFL’s School of Life Sciences. “We used a combination of computational and experimental approaches to explore the biological mechanism behind the genetic association and provide evidence that the gene CHD1L acts to limit HIV replication in a subset of white blood cells.” HIV is still a problem Despite significant advances in treatment and access to therapy, the ...

Owing to human activities and climate change, many animal species have invaded new habitats. Such biological invasion comes with devastating impacts on the local biodiversity and ecosystems. The red swamp crayfish—known to the scientific world as Procambarus clarkii (P. clarkii)— is no exception. P. clarkii is a freshwater crayfish native to the tropical regions of southern USA and northeastern Mexico. After their introduction to different parts of the world, they have become one of the most widespread and invasive animal species. They are known for their adaptability and aggressive behavior that ensure their survival in a wide range of environments, ...