Recently study on synthetic approaches toward polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) as graphene with a well-defined structure has attracted much attention. A research group in Ehime University has been studying the synthesis and fundamental properties of pyrrole-fused azacoronene (HPHAC), a nitrogen-containing PAH. HPHACs are composed of electron-rich pyrroles, which are easily oxidized, and their dicationic species in particular exhibit unique features such as global aromaticity based on macrocyclic π-conjugation. However, all the compounds reported so far have bulky ...

An interdisciplinary group of Spanish scientists, bringing together biologists and chemists from the Universities of Seville, Huelva, the Autonomous University of Madrid and the Institute of Marine Sciences of Andalusia of the CSIC in Cadiz, have just published the results of their pioneering research studying the management of marinas. The group of scientists, led by the US professor José Manuel Guerra García, studied in detail the sediments in Andalusia's marinas and has proposed a new index, the MEPI (Marinas Environmental Pollution Index) to quantify the level of contamination in these ports. There has been a proliferation of marinas in recent ...

The giant star featured in this latest Hubble Space Telescope anniversary image is waging a tug-of-war between gravity and radiation to avoid self-destruction. The star, called AG Carinae, is surrounded by an expanding shell of gas and dust -- a nebula -- that is shaped by the powerful winds of the star. The nebula is about five light-years wide, which equals the distance from here to our nearest star, Alpha Centauri. The huge structure was created from one or more giant eruptions several thousand years ago. The star's outer layers were blown into space, the expelled material ...

How do the billions of cells communicate in order to perform tasks? The cells exert force on their environment through movement - and in doing so, they communicate. They work as a group in order to infiltrate their environment, perform wound healing and the like. They sense the stiffness or softness of their surroundings and this helps them connect and organize their collective effort. But when the connection between cells is distrubeddisturbed, a situation just like when cancer is initiated, can appear. Assistant Professor Amin Doostmohammadi at the Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen has investigated the mechanics of cell movement and connection ...

Etrasimod 2 mg treatment group achieved statistical significance in the percentage change in weekly peak pruritis (PP-NRS), in the change in Dermatology Life Quality Index (DLQI), and in the change in Patient-Oriented Eczema Measure (POEM) Etrasimod 2 mg was generally well tolerated, consistent with data in previous trials Park City, Utah, April 23, 2021 - Arena Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Nasdaq: ARNA) today announced data at a late-breaking session at the American Academy of Dermatology VMX Experience. Etrasimod, a novel investigational drug candidate to treat moderate-to-severe atopic dermatitis (AD), demonstrated statistical significance in both clinician and patient reported outcomes in the ADVISE Phase 2b clinical trial. Etrasimod is a highly selective, once-daily, oral sphingosine ...

Paper Title: Safety of Tranexamic Acid in Hip and Knee Arthroplasty in High-risk Patients Journal: Anesthesiology Authors: Jashvant Poeran MD, PhD, Director of the Center for Clinical and Outcomes Research, and Associate Professor of Population Health Science & Policy and Orthopedics at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai; Calin S. Moucha, MD, Chief of Adult Reconstruction & Joint Replacement Surgery at Mount Sinai Hospital, and Associate Professor of Orthopedics at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai; and other coauthors. Bottom Line: The use of the drug tranexamic acid is commonplace in patients undergoing hip or knee replacement surgery to reduce blood loss. However, this drug works by promoting clotting and safety concerns exist when used in certain high-risk ...

By Karina Toledo | Agência FAPESP – Can a high dose of vitamin D administered on admission to hospital improve the condition of patients with moderate or severe COVID-19? The answer is no, according to a Brazilian study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). The article reports a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial, the kind of study considered the gold standard to evaluate drug efficacy. It was conducted with FAPESP’s support by researchers at the University of São Paulo’s ...

DURHAM, N.H.-- Corals and sponges are important foundations in ocean ecosystems providing structure and habitats that shelter a high number of species like fish, crabs and other creatures, particularly in the seamounts and canyons of the deep sea. Researchers at the University of New Hampshire have discovered that when it comes to climate change not all deep-sea corals and sponges are affected the same and some could be threatened if average ocean temperatures continue to increase in the deep sea of the Northwest Atlantic. "These deep-sea corals and sponges are ecologically important because they are foundational ...

ITHACA, N.Y. - House finches are locked in a deadly cycle of immunity and new strains of bacterial infection in battling an eye disease that halved their population when it first emerged 25 years ago, according to new research from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. House finch eye disease causes red, swollen, watery or crusty eyes. Afflicted birds can recover, but may die because they cannot see well enough to find food or avoid predators. The latest analyses, based on the observations of Project FeederWatch participants from eight Northeast states, addresses the long-term ...

A recently published article in the Molecular Plant-Microbe Interactions journal provides new evidence that pathogens are hijacking the plant immune system to cause disease while providing insights into a newly discovered mechanism. A large variety of pathogens infect plants and cause different diseases, which can lead to reduced crop yields. During infection, pathogens secrete effector proteins into the plant cell. Some of these proteins target plant proteasomal degradation machinery, which is responsible for recycling proteins to regulate cell processes. Some E1, E2 and E3-ligase proteins have been identified as playing a role in plant susceptibility ...

PHILADELPHIA, PA - The first National Institutes of Health (NIH) National Cancer Institute (NCI)-funded clinical study examining stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT) in the treatment of oligometastatic breast, prostate, and non-small cell lung (NSCLC) cancers displayed evidence that SBRT can be safely used to treat patients who have multiple metastases. These results were recently published in JAMA Oncology. The results of the Phase I NRG-BR001 trial, conducted by the NCI National Clinical Trials Network group NRG Oncology, indicate that SBRT treatment in ...

SAN FRANCISCO, CA--April 22, 2021--In their effort to understand the very earliest stages of life and how they can go wrong, scientists are confronted with ethical issues surrounding the use of human embryos. The use of animal embryos is also subject to restrictions rooted in ethical considerations. To overcome these limitations, scientists have been trying to recreate early embryos using stem cells. One of the challenges in creating these so-called synthetic embryos is to generate all the cell types normally found in a young embryo before it implants into the wall of the uterus. Some of these cells eventually give rise to the placenta. Others become the amniotic sac in which the fetus grows. Both the placenta and the amniotic sac are crucial for the survival of the fetus, and defects ...

A new research paper examining the relationship between the Omega-3 Index and risk for death from any and all causes has been published in END ...

The extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (eBOSS) collaboration has released its latest scientific results. These results include two studies on dark energy led by Prof. ZHAO Gongbo and Prof. WANG Yuting, respectively, from National Astronomical Observatories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences(NAOC). The study led by Prof. Zhao was recently published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Based on eBOSS observations, Prof. ZHAO's team measured the history of cosmic expansion and structure growth in a huge volume of the past universe, corresponding to a distance range between 0.7 and 1.8 billion light years away from us. This volume had never been ...

A joint research study by the Pacific Water Research Centre at Simon Fraser University and the Fraser Basin Council points to the use of certified, nature-based solutions for protecting salmon and aquatic habitats in the Lower Mainland. Salmon face various threats in the Lower Fraser Watershed (where the Fraser River passes through the Metro Vancouver geographical area), including habitat loss due to urban development and toxic stormwater runoff, which is projected to worsen due to climate change-driven extreme rain events. The END ...

Like tree rings, cave stalagmites are a portal to a prehistoric Earth, and now scientists from UNSW Sydney have found they are consistently reliable as time trackers the world over. In a global investigation into the growth properties of stalagmites distributed across the world, the scientists found that while growth fluctuations due to climate events are evident in the shorter period, stalagmite growth over the longer periods - tens of thousands of years - are surprisingly linear. "Our new global analysis shows that we can consider stalagmite growth as being like a metronome and very ...

WASHINGTON-- Glacial melting due to global warming is likely the cause of a shift in the movement of the poles that occurred in the 1990s. The locations of the North and South poles aren't static, unchanging spots on our planet. The axis Earth spins around--or more specifically the surface that invisible line emerges from--is always moving due to processes scientists don't completely understand. The way water is distributed on Earth's surface is one factor that drives the drift. Melting glaciers redistributed enough water to cause the direction of polar wander to turn and accelerate eastward during the mid-1990s, according to a new study in Geophysical Research Letters, AGU's journal for high-impact, ...

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- Attempts at restricting people's mobility to control the spread of COVID-19 may be effective only for a short period, researchers said. A new study examines people's mobility for seven months during the pandemic in the United States using publicly available, anonymized mobile phone data. Reported in the Journal of Transport Geography, the study alerts authorities to the need for more manageable travel restrictions and policies that reduce COVID-19 exposure risk to essential workers - who, because they are required to be physically present at their workplaces, remained highly mobile during the pandemic. The longitudinal study is one of the first to compare mobility data using a broad ...

Being unable to walk quickly can be frustrating and problematic, but it is a common issue, especially as people age. Noting the pervasiveness of slower-than-desired walking, engineers at Stanford University have tested how well a prototype exoskeleton system they have developed - which attaches around the shin and into a running shoe - increased the self-selected walking speed of people in an experimental setting. The exoskeleton is externally powered by motors and controlled by an algorithm. When the researchers optimized it for speed, participants walked, on average, 42 percent faster than when they were wearing normal shoes and no exoskeleton. The results of this study were ...

Young scientists of Tomsk Polytechnic University as a part of the team of Arctic researchers have studied pore waters in three areas of methane release on the surface. They first managed to define in details the composition of pore waters in the cold methane seeps of the Eastern Arctic seas. The research findings are published in the Water academic journal. The research was based on the samples obtained during the Arctic expedition aboard the research vessel "Akademik Mstislav Keldysh" in 2019. The scientists and students from 12 scientific institutions, including Tomsk Polytechnic University, Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, Lomonosov Moscow State University, the Research Center of Biotechnology ...

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) largely remedies Superfund sites containing asbestos by capping them with soil to lock the buried toxin in place. But new research suggests that this may actually increase the likelihood of human exposure to the cancer-causing mineral. "People have this idea that asbestos is all covered up and taken care of," said Jane Willenbring, who is an associate professor of geological sciences at Stanford University's School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences (Stanford Earth). "But this is still a lingering legacy pollutant ...

Sugar is not just something we eat. On the contrary. Sugar is one of the most naturally occurring molecules, and all cells in the body are covered by a thick layer of sugar that protects the cells from bacteria and virus attacks. In fact, close to 80 per cent of all viruses and bacteria bind to the sugars on the outside of our cells. Sugar is such an important element that scientists refer to it as the third building block of life - after DNA and protein. And last autumn, a group of researchers found that the spike protein in corona virus needs a particular sugar to bind to our cells efficiently. Now the same group of researchers have completed a new study that further digs into the cell receptors to which sugars and thus bacteria and virus ...

Researchers at Tokyo Medical and Dental University (TMDU) in a pioneering study identify clinical, genetic and histopathological characteristics that may help confirm the diagnosis when nephronophthisis occurs in adults Tokyo, Japan - Nephronophthisis (NPH) is a kidney disease affecting mainly children. Now, for the first time, researchers at Tokyo Medical and Dental University (TMDU) have studied a number of adults with NPH and highlighted clinical, genetic and pathological characteristics that could help in confirming this challenging diagnosis. NPH is inherited in an autosomal recessive pattern and, though rare, is the commonest genetic cause of kidney failure in children. The ...

It is 2,250 kilometers long, but only 355 kilometers wide at its widest point - on a world map, the Red Sea hardly resembles an ocean. But this is deceptive. A new, albeit still narrow, ocean basin is actually forming between Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. Exactly how young it is and whether it can really be compared with other young oceans in Earth's history has been a matter of dispute in the geosciences for decades. The problem is that the newly formed oceanic crust along the narrow, north-south aligned rift is widely buried under a thick blanket of salt and sediments. This complicates direct investigations. In the international journal Nature Communications, scientists from GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel, ...

Tsukuba, Japan - Blood vessels can be injured by the build-up of atherosclerosis and long-standing hypertension, among other conditions. As a consequence, blood vessels may undergo a process called remodeling, whereby their walls thicken and cause blockages (known as occlusion). In a new study, researchers from the University of Tsukuba discovered how cells marked by platelet-derived growth factor receptor alpha (PDGFRa+) residing predominantly in the most outer layer of blood vessels contribute to their remodeling. Blood vessels comprise three layers, each of which fulfills a unique role ...