Fukuoka, Japan--According to the Global Burden of Disease Study 2017, close to nine percent of the global population lives with some form of chronic kidney disease, or CKD. Not only does the condition affect renal function, CKD has long been associated with increased risk of cardiovascular disease. Now, in a new study that could aid the development of therapeutic drugs to reduce these cardiac complications, researchers led by Kyushu University have found an underlying molecular pathway that can explain how chronic kidney disease induces heart failure. Studying mice, the researchers found that a key driver is the dysfunction of a type of white blood cell called a ...

Overview: Certain cyanobacteria can change the absorbing light colors for photosynthesis using a green- and red-light sensing photosensor protein. A Japanese research group elucidated the molecular structure of RcaE, a representative member of the photosensors. They revealed the unique conformation of the bilin chromophore and the unique protein structure that potentially functions as a proton transfer route to bilin. They also demonstrated that RcaE undergoes protonation and deprotonation of the bilin chromophore during the green and red photoconversion. These results provide insights into how cyanobacteria evolved photosensors with diverse spectral sensitivities and contribute to the development of new photoswitches of ...

Coral insights into 1,000 years of seasonal changes in the Arabian Sea warn of significant impacts caused by global warming. Every year, the southwesterly winds of the summer monsoon sweep down the Arabian Peninsula, pushing the surface waters of the Arabian Sea away from the coast and driving an upwelling of deep waters to the surface. This rising seawater is colder and less saline than the surface water and is rich in nutrients, providing energy for the various organisms living in the Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean. Scientists from Japan, Taiwan and Germany, including coral reef scientist Dr. Tsuyoshi Watanabe of Hokkaido University, have uncovered evidence from corals off the coast of Oman suggesting that global warming is causing changes to the Arabian Sea that could impact the ...

Delicious to some, but a bitter bane to others' taste buds, vegetables like broccoli rabe, bok choy and turnips are a dinner staple ---and picky eater conflict --- around the world. It all likely started in the mountains near present-day Afghanistan, where humans first domesticated turnips 3,500 to 6,000 years ago, according to a new study recently published in the journal Molecular Biology and Evolution. University of Wisconsin-Madison Professor of Botany Eve Emshwiller and her former graduate student Alex McAlvay (now an assistant curator assistant ...

HOUSTON-(June 3, 2021) - Results were released this week on a new treatment with the potential to improve the outcomes for patients with hereditary BRCA mutations and high-risk, early-stage breast cancer. These results represent the first time a drug that blocks cancer cells from repairing their DNA (called a PARP inhibitor) has been shown to significantly reduce the risk of breast cancer returning in high-risk patients following completion of standard chemotherapy, surgery and radiation therapy. Titled "Adjuvant Olaparib for Patients with BRCA1 or BRCA2 Mutated Breast Cancer," the paper appears in the June 3 issue of the ...

Could an over-the-counter health "shot" help fight COVID-19? George Mason University researchers think it just might. ...

ROCHESTER, Minn. -- A study by Mayo Clinic researchers provides some clarity in the use of direct oral anticoagulants (DOAC), such as apixaban and rivaroxaban, to treat acute venous thromboembolism (VTE) in patients with gastrointestinal cancers. The findings were published Wednesday, June 2, in Mayo Clinic Proceedings. Among the study's findings: Rivaroxaban showed no higher risk of bleeding in luminal gastrointestinal cancer and should not be considered contraindicated in this group of patients. Apixaban showed a higher risk of bleeding in patients with luminal gastrointestinal cancer, and it should be used with great caution to treat this type of cancer until more studies ...

WOODS HOLE, Mass. -- Plastics are everywhere. From cell phones to pens and cars to medical devices, the modern world is full of plastic-- and plastic waste. New research from scientists at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) END ...

A team led by UC Riverside engineers has developed a catalyst to remove a dangerous chemical from water on Earth that could also make Martian soil safer for agriculture and help produce oxygen for human Mars explorers. Perchlorate, a negative ion consisting of one chlorine atom bonded to four oxygen atoms, occurs naturally in some soils on Earth, and is especially abundant in Martian soil. As a powerful oxidizer, perchlorate is also manufactured and used in solid rocket fuel, fireworks, munitions, airbag initiators for vehicles, matches and signal flares. It is a byproduct in some disinfectants ...

Fukuoka, Japan - The global threat of ongoing climate change has one principal cause: carbon that was buried underground in the form of fossil fuels is being removed and released into the atmosphere in the form of carbon dioxide (CO2). One promising approach to addressing this problem is carbon capture and storage: using technology to take CO2 out of the atmosphere to return it underground. In a new study published in Greenhouse Gases Science and Technology, researchers from Kyushu University and the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, Japan, investigated geological storage of low-purity CO2 mixed with nitrogen (N2) and oxygen (O2), produced by direct air capture (DAC) using membrane-based technology. Many current ...

Climate scientists at the Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU, Singapore) have extended the known record of Singapore's sea-level to almost 10,000 years ago, providing a more robust dataset to aid future predictions of sea-level rise. One of the main challenges in researching climate change is to reconstruct its history over thousands of years. To have a better sense of the potential causes and effects of future changes, scientists need to learn from and understand the past. Extracting ancient sediments from a depth of up to 40 m underground at a site at Singapore's Marina South, an international team led by NTU researchers put the samples through rigorous laboratory ...

Bottom Line: The majority of surveyed Americans had an inadequate understanding of palliative care, and frequency of health care utilization was one determinant of knowledge. Journal in Which the Study was Published: Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research Author: Motolani Ogunsanya, PhD, an assistant professor at The University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center Background: Palliative care aims to improve the quality of life for patients and caretakers by addressing the physical, psychological, and logistical challenges associated with a disease or its treatment. In contrast to hospice, which provides comfort care for patients who have stopped treatment and are near the end of life, palliative care serves as an ...

Oncotarget published "Characterization of the inflammatory microenvironment and hepatic macrophage subsets in experimental hepatocellular carcinoma models" which reported that HCC typically develops on a background of chronic inflammation and fibrosis with tumor associated macrophages playing an important role in chronic inflammation-induced HCC and progression. However, the liver harbors unique macrophages, resident liver Kupffer cells and monocyte-derived macrophages, and their contribution to HCC and to the population of TAMs is incompletely known. Here, the authors characterized the tumor microenvironment and the proportion and transcriptional profile of ...

A growing number of people use they/them pronouns to signal their gender identity, but for many people, use of "they" to refer to a single individual takes some getting used to. Results of a recent END ...

Lauren Dreier was paging through a 19th century book by the German architect Gottfried Semper when she spotted some intriguing patterns inspired by lace. A professional artist and designer who often incorporates technology into her work, Dreier, who is also a doctoral student at the School of Architecture at Princeton University, decided to recreate the printed illustrations in 3D. She grabbed ribbon-like plastic material she had been experimenting with in her studio, bending and connecting the semi-rigid strips. To Dreier's surprise, the structure she built assumed a bumpy geometry, with four distinct hills and valleys. "I thought it would make a dome, but it was this unusual shape," Dreier said. Curious to know what caused ...

A new study from the University of Chicago and Scripps Research Institute shows that during the last great pandemic--2009's H1N1 influenza pandemic--people developed strong, effective immune responses to stable, conserved parts of the virus. This suggests a strategy for developing universal flu vaccines that are designed to generate those same responses, instead of targeting parts of the virus that tend to evolve rapidly and require a new vaccine every year. Influenza is an elusive and frustrating target for vaccines. There are two main types of flu virus that can infect humans, which evolve rapidly from season to season. ...

Neurological and psychiatric symptoms such as fatigue and depression are common among people with Covid-19 and may be just as likely in people with mild cases, according to a new review study led by a UCL researcher. By reviewing evidence from 215 studies of Covid-19, the meta-analysis published in the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry reports a wide range of ways that Covid-19 can affect mental health and the brain. Lead author Dr Jonathan Rogers (UCL Psychiatry and South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust) said: "We had expected that neurological and psychiatric symptoms would be ...

Researchers have re-animated specimens of a fungus that causes coffee wilt to discover how the disease evolved and how its spread can be prevented. Coffee Wilt Disease is caused by a fungus that has led to devastating outbreaks since the 1920s in sub-Saharan Africa, and currently affects two of Africa's most popular coffee varieties: Arabica and Robusta. The new research shows that the fungus likely boosted its ability to infect coffee plants by acquiring genes from a closely related fungus, which causes wilt disease on a wide range of crops, including ...

Sea ice in the coastal regions of the Arctic may be thinning up to twice as fast as previously thought, according to a new modelling study led by UCL researchers. Sea ice thickness is inferred by measuring the height of the ice above the water, and this measurement is distorted by snow weighing the ice floe down. Scientists adjust for this using a map of snow depth in the Arctic that is decades out of date and does not account for climate change. In the new study, published in the journal The Cryosphere, researchers swapped this map for the results of a new computer model designed to estimate snow depth as it varies year to year, and concluded that sea ice in key ...

Concerns about side effects and whether vaccines have been through enough testing are holding people back from getting vaccinated against COVID-19, according to a new report. Data from an international survey of 15 countries* which ran between March and May this year showed that these were the most commonly cited reasons for not having had a coronavirus vaccine yet, in addition to not being eligible for one. Respondents' other commonly reported reasons included concerns about not getting the vaccine they would prefer, and worries over whether the vaccines are effective enough. Led by Imperial College London's Institute of Global Health Innovation in collaboration with YouGov, the survey also looked at trust in COVID-19 vaccines. ...

A University of Birmingham-led study funded by the UK Coronavirus Immunology Consortium has found that many patients with COVID-19 produce immune responses against their body's own tissues or organs. COVID-19 has been associated with a variety of unexpected symptoms, both at the time of infection and for many months afterwards. It is not fully understand what causes these symptoms, but one of the possibilities is that COVID-19 is triggering an autoimmune process where the immune system is misdirected to attack itself. The study, published today (June 4) in the journal Clinical & Experimental Immunology, investigated the frequency and types of common ...

Under embargo until Thursday 3 June, 23:30 UK time / 18:30 US Eastern time Peer-reviewed observational study in people Prior Covid-19 infection reduces infection risk for up to 10 months The risk of being infected with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, is substantially reduced for up to 10 months following a first infection, according to new findings from the Vivaldi study led by UCL researchers. For the study, published in Lancet Healthy Longevity, researchers looked at rates of Covid-19 infections between October and February among more than 2,000 care home residents and staff, comparing those who had evidence of a previous infection up to 10 months earlier, as determined by antibody testing, with those who had ...

Levels of antibodies in the blood of vaccinated people that are able to recognise and fight the new SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant first discovered in India (B.1.617.2) are on average lower than those against previously circulating variants in the UK, according to new laboratory data from the Francis Crick Institute and the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) UCLH Biomedical Research Centre, published today (Thursday) as a Research letter in The Lancet. The results also show that levels of these antibodies are lower with increasing age and that levels decline over time, providing additional evidence in support of plans to deliver a vaccination boost to vulnerable people in the Autumn. ...

An immunotherapy drug given after surgery improved disease-free survival rates in patients with kidney cancer at high risk of relapse. Interim results of a phase 3 trial of adjuvant therapy revealed a 32% decrease in the risk of recurrence or death with pembrolizumab compared with a placebo This is the first positive study of immunotherapy in patients with kidney cancer at high risk of relapse. BOSTON -- Treatment with an immunotherapy drug following kidney cancer surgery, prolonged disease-free survival rates in patients at high risk for recurrence, according to an interim ...

Sickle cell disease (SCD) is the most common deadly genetic disorder, affecting more than 300,000 newborns worldwide each year. It leads to chronic pain, organ failure, and early death in patients. A team led by researchers at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and St. Jude Children's Research Hospital has now demonstrated a base editing approach that efficiently corrects the mutation underlying SCD in patient blood stem cells and in mice. This gene editing treatment rescued the disease symptoms in animal models, enabling the long-lasting production of healthy blood cells. The root of SCD is two mutated copies of the hemoglobin gene, HBB, which cause red ...