A study led by scientists at Hong Kong Baptist University (HKBU) has decoded the genomes of the deep-sea clam (Archivesica marissinica) and the chemoautotrophic bacteria (Candidatus Vesicomyosocius marissinica) that live in its gill epithelium cells. Through analysis of their genomic structures and profiling of their gene expression patterns, the research team revealed that symbiosis between the two partners enables the clams to thrive in extreme deep-sea environments. The research findings have been published in the academic journal Molecular Biology and Evolution. Due to the general lack of photosynthesis-derived organic matter, the deep-sea was once considered a ...

SAN ANTONIO -- March 29, 2021 -- The SwRI-led Ultraviolet Spectrograph (UVS) orbiting Jupiter aboard NASA's Juno spacecraft has detected new faint aurora features, characterized by ring-like emissions, which expand rapidly over time. SwRI scientists determined that charged particles coming from the edge of Jupiter's massive magnetosphere triggered these auroral emissions. "We think these newly discovered faint ultraviolet features originate millions of miles away from Jupiter, near the Jovian magnetosphere's boundary with the solar wind," said Dr. Vincent Hue, lead author of a paper accepted by the Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics. "The solar wind is a supersonic ...

SPOKANE, Wash. - New research led by scientists at Washington State University has found that a protein known as GBP5 appears to play a key role in suppressing inflammation in rheumatoid arthritis, a potentially debilitating disease in which the immune system mistakenly attacks the body's own joint tissues. Published in the journal Arthritis & Rheumatology, the discovery could someday lead to new treatments to slow or halt the progress of the disease, which affects an estimated 1.5 million Americans. The researchers said it may also have applications in other inflammatory diseases. First author ...

A combination of esophageal brushing and extensive genetic sequencing of the sample collected can detect chromosome alterations in people with Barrett's Esophagus, identifying patients at risk for progressing to esophageal cancer, according to a new study by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center and Case Western Reserve University. In Barrett's Esophagus (BE), chronic acid reflux from the stomach damages the cells lining the lower esophagus, causing them to become more like cells of the lower digestive system. Cells in the lower esophagus progress through several precancerous stages before sometimes developing into esophageal adenocarcinoma, a cancer with a five-year survival rate below 20 percent. BE is the only known precursor to esophageal adenocarcinoma. Clinicians ...

EU imports of products including palm oil, soybeans, and beef contribute significantly to deforestation in other parts of the world. In a new study, researchers from Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, and the University of Louvain, Belgium, evaluated over a thousand policy proposals for how the EU could reduce this impact, to assess which would have the largest potential to reduce deforestation - while also being politically feasible. "Unsurprisingly, there is weaker support for tougher regulations, such as import restrictions on certain goods. But our study shows that there is broad support in general, ...

New genetic analysis and years of painstaking research has revealed that one of the world's most endangered marine mammals is actually two species rather than one, as scientists had long assumed. Scientists spent about two decades crossing Asia and Europe in pursuit of river dolphins skulls and reexamining tissue samples with modern genetic techniques. Their findings revealed that Indus and Ganges river dolphins are separate species, according to a new study published in Marine Mammal Science. The two dolphins that live in the muddy waters ...

SINGAPORE, 29 March 2021 - A low-cost intervention to improve hypertension--or high blood pressure (BP)--prevention and management can be cost-effectively scaled up for rural communities in low- and middle-income countries, according to findings from a multi-country trial published in The Lancet Global Health. Led by Duke-NUS Medical School in Singapore, the Control of Blood Pressure and Risk Attenuation--Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka (COBRA-BPS) trial, conducted in partnership with the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Diseases Research, Bangladesh (ICDDR,B), Aga Khan University in Pakistan, the University of Kelaniya in Sri Lanka, analysed the budget impact and cost-effectiveness ...

A Japanese research group combined motion analysis that uses smartphone application and machine learning that uses an anomaly detection method, thereby developing a technique to easily screen for carpal tunnel syndrome. Carpal tunnel syndrome is common amongst middle-aged women. The disease causes compressed nerves in the wrist, causing numbness and difficulty with finger movements. While an accurate diagnosis can be reached with nerve conduction study, this is not widely used because it requires expensive devices and specialized skills. Thus, a simple screen tool that does ...

Astronomers found a number of stellar eggs containing baby stars around the center of the Milky Way using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA). Previous studies had suggested that the environment there is too harsh to form stars. These findings indicate that star formation is more resilient than researchers thought. Stars form in stellar eggs, cosmic clouds of gas and dust which collapse due to gravity. If something interferes with the gravity driven contraction, star formation will be suppressed. There are many potential sources of interference near the Galactic Center. Strong turbulence can stir up the clouds ...

Japan -- The tooth fairy is a welcome guest for any child who has lost a tooth. Not only will the fairy leave a small gift under the pillow, but the child can be assured of a new tooth in a few months. The same cannot be said of adults who have lost their teeth. A new study by scientists at Kyoto University and the University of Fukui, however, may offer some hope. The team reports that an antibody for one gene -- uterine sensitization associated gene-1 or USAG-1 -- can stimulate tooth growth in mice suffering from tooth agenesis, a congenital condition. The paper was published in Science Advances. Although the normal adult mouth has 32 teeth, about ...

A group of researchers from Russia, Germany, the Czech Republic, and Switzerland contest the common belief that resource-based economies have higher levels of within-country inequality than resource-scarce economies. The researchers document a direct causal link between natural resources and within-country inequality and conclude that the extraction of oil and gas can reduce inequality or has no significant effect on it. The results were published in the journal Empirical Economics. "When we compare the natural resource rents to GDP 10 years after the discovery of natural ...

Researchers specialised in psychiatry and psychology at the University of Helsinki investigated the effects of depression on visual perception. The study confirmed that the processing of visual information is altered in depressed people, a phenomenon most likely linked with the processing of information in the cerebral cortex. The study was published in the Journal of Psychiatry and Neuroscience. In the study, the processing of visual information by patients with depression was compared to that of a control group by utilising two visual tests. In the perception tests, the study subjects compared the brightness and contrast of simple patterns. "What ...

Pedestrian movements are tricky to track, but now the first large-scale statistical analysis of pedestrian flow using anonymous phone data collected in three European capital cities, London, Amsterdam and Stockholm, has been conducted by researchers from KAUST with Swedish colleagues from Gothenburg. Analyzing the flow of pedestrians through city streets provides insights into how city design influences walking behavior. Studies of pedestrian flow inform new urban developments, enable designers to define quieter areas and "urban buzz" zones and reveal how spaces are used at different times. "In a previous study, we found strong links between the total ...

The use of artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming more common in many branches of industry and online retailing. Traditional lines of work, such as transport logistics and driving, are developing in a similar direction although mainly out of public view. Scientists at the University of Göttingen have now investigated how efficient the use of AI can be in the commercial management of trucks. Their answer: the best option is an intelligent combination of human decision-making and AI applications. The study was published in the International Journal of Logistics Management. "As has happened in the private sector, digital applications - as well as machine learning, a kind of AI - are increasingly permeating operations ...

In a new publication from Cardiovascular Innovations and Applications; DOI https://doi.org/10.15212/CVIA.2021.0010, Yidan Wang, Gary Tse and Guoliang Li from The First Affiliated Hospital of Xi'an Jiaotong University, Shaanxi, China and Second Hospital of Tianjin Medical University, Tianjin, China consider how running with face masks or respirators can be detrimental to the respiratory and cardiovascular systems. The use of face masks and respirators is an important public health measure to reduce or prevent transmission of SARS-CoV-2. Here the authors discuss the hypothetical mechanisms by which exercise with face masks or respirators can induce detrimental effects on the cardiovascular system, potentially explaining adverse events such as cardiac arrhythmias ...

In a new publication from Cardiovascular Innovations and Applications; DOI https://doi.org/10.15212/CVIA.2021.0009, Wenxiu Liu, Yutong Guo, Yue Liu, Jiaxing Sun and Xinhua Yin from The First Affiliated Hospital of Harbin Medical University, Heilongjiang, China consider calcium-sensing receptors of immune cells and diseases. The authors review current knowledge of the role of CaSR in immune cells. Calcium-sensing receptor (CaSR), which was initially found in the parathyroid gland, is ubiquitously expressed and exerts specific functions in multiple cells, including ...

DALLAS, March 29, 2021 -- As NASA seeks to build a lunar outpost, visit Mars and commercialize spaceflight, the long-term effects of weightlessness on the human heart are of critical importance, according to researchers. By analyzing data from astronaut Scott Kelly's year in space and comparing it to information from extreme long distance, which simulates weightlessness, swimming of Benoît Lecomte, researchers found that low-intensity exercise was not enough to counteract the effects of prolonged weightlessness on the heart, according to new research published today in the American Heart Association's flagship journal Circulation. Each time a person sits or stands, gravity draws blood into the legs. The work the heart does to keep blood flowing as it counters Earth's gravity ...

DALLAS, March 29, 2021 -- Adults with periodontitis, a severe gum infection, may be significantly more likely to have higher blood pressure compared to individuals who had healthy gums, according to new research published today in Hypertension, an American Heart Association journal. Previous studies have found an association between hypertension and periodontitis, however, research confirming the details of this association is scarce. Periodontitis is an infection of the gum tissues that hold teeth in place that can lead to progressive inflammation, bone or tooth loss. Prevention and treatment of periodontitis ...

DALLAS, March 29, 2021 -- Six pregnancy-related complications - high blood pressure, gestational diabetes, preterm delivery, small-for-gestational-age delivery, pregnancy loss or placental abruption - increase a woman's risk for developing cardiovascular disease (CVD) later in life, according to a new scientific statement from the American Heart Association, published today in the Association's flagship journal Circulation. The statement calls for vigorous prevention of these risk factors and primary prevention of CVD for women who experience these complications as they transition out of pregnancy and postpartum care into primary care, with continued follow-up to monitor CVD risk throughout life. About 10% to 15% ...

In a new publication in Nature Communications, associate professor of Plant Science at the University of Maryland Yiping Qi continues to innovate genome editing and engineering in plants, with the ultimate goal of improving the efficiency of food production. His recent work contributes six novel variants of CRISPR-Cas12a that have never before been proven in plants, testing them first in rice as a major global crop. In addition to allowing for a much broader scope of possible gene editing targets, these new tools can edit many different sites in the genome at once, or even repress gene expression to tone down undesirable traits. These patent-pending tools greatly expand the scope of what CRISPR-Cas12a can do in plants, which ...

-- Black middle-aged adults had an incidence rate of stroke 4 times higher than that of white middle-aged adults, according to a Kaiser Permanente study published March 29 in Hypertension. The large national prospective study highlights the need to raise awareness among young and middle-aged Black adults about the impact of high blood pressure, called hypertension, on stroke, the research team said. "What we found striking in this study was that the incidence of stroke began to increase rapidly starting at around age 40 for Black adults," said the study's co-author Jamal S. Rana, MD, PhD, an adjunct investigator with the Division of Research at Kaiser Permanente in Northern California, and ...

Despite the enormous amount of research over the decades into lasers and their applications, there have been few ways to accurately, efficiently, and directly observe fine details of their interactions with materials. For the first time, researchers have found a way to acquire such data from a production laser using low-cost equipment that could vastly improve the accuracy of items cut or etched with lasers. Given the ubiquity of lasers, this could have wide-ranging implications in laboratory, commercial and industrial applications. Lasers are used in an extraordinarily wide range of applications in the modern world. ...

A team of Australian and German researchers has discovered a novel pathway that plants can use to save water and improve their drought tolerance. The research published today in Nature Communications shows that the molecule GABA (gamma-aminobutyric acid), most commonly associated with relaxation in animals, can control the size of the pores on plant leaves to minimise water loss. Matthew Gilliham, Director of the Waite Research Institute at the University of Adelaide, who led the research team, said they found: "GABA minimised pore openings in a range of crops such as barley, broad bean and soybean, and in lab plants that produce more GABA than normal. ...

Each human being is made of billions of cells. In order to ensure his survival, cells must coordinate with each other and attach in the right place to perform their tasks. Scientists from the University of Geneva (UNIGE), Switzerland, in collaboration with the University of Tampere in Finland, have highlighted the key role of a protein called paxillin, which enables cells to perceive their environment and anchor at the right place with the help of cellular "crampons". Indeed, without functional paxillin, the cell is unable to attach properly and slips continuously. These results, to be read in the journal Communications Biology, shed new light ...

Noninfluenza respiratory viral infections (NIRV) are associated with illness and death rates similar to influenza in hospitalized adults, according to new research in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal). In a study of 2119 adults admitted to two hospitals over three seasons (2015-2018) in Edmonton, Alberta, and Toronto, Ontario, with confirmed viral acute respiratory infections, more than half (54.6%) were NIRV infections compared with influenza viruses (45.4%). Among patients with NIRV infections, 21.1% needed respiratory support, 18.2% required lengthy hospital stays and 8.4% died within 30 days of diagnosis. About 15% of NIRV infections were acquired in hospital. "These findings show that clinical ...